"Twisting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the artist's fondness for attitude. He seems to have regarded posture-making as a peculiar attribute of genius. His figures are always in a constrained and over-studied pose: twisting about in the throes of giving birth to a great idea: filled with the divine afflatus, even to the bursting of their buttonholes and the snapping of their braces. His Handel is in a state of exceeding perturbation: his clothes in staring disorder, his ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... she said firmly. "Feel how strong my arms are. Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of them, I can let you slip down ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... notwithstanding her utmost art, she failed this day in turning and twisting Sir John Hunter's conversation and character so as to make them agreeable to Mr. Palmer. This she knew by his retiring at an early hour at night, as he sometimes did when company was not agreeable to him. His age gave him this privilege. Mrs. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... painful sort again. Roquemaure is a crooked, narrow, up-and-down old dirty town, where old customs and old costumes and old forms of speech still live on; and, also, its people have a very pretty taste in the twisting and perverting of historic fact into picturesque tradition—as is shown by the way in which they have rearranged the unpleasant details of the death of Pope Clement V. into a bit of melodramatic moral decoration for their own town. Their ingeniously compiled ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... happen to her—what must happen to her.... She was in hell.... Burning for ever, and ever, and ever, there below his feet. He stared down on the rocky floors. If he could but see through them.... and the eye of faith could see through them.... he should behold her writhing and twisting among the flickering flame, scorched, glowing.... in everlasting agony, such as the thought of enduring for a moment made him shudder. He had burnt his hands once, when a palm-leaf but caught fire.... He recollected what that was like.... She was enduring ten thousand ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... its shoulders, pulling down its waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round, without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... scattered confusedly among the different sheets, so that in order to write his story he must first rearrange his notes entirely. He may regroup these mentally while writing, by jumping with his eye up and down the pages, hunting on the backs of some sheets, and twisting his head sideways to get notes written crosswise on others. But all this takes valuable time,—so much, indeed, that the wise reporter will have on hand, either in his mind or on paper, a definite ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... banged the glass down on the table. "It's horrid! It draws the mouth!" She started up and stood rubbing her knuckles into her cheeks and twisting her lips. She had never thought wine was like this. It was not so much a drink as a blow in the mouth. And yet somehow she felt ashamed of not liking it. "The matron at school used to give us something for toothache that was as bad as this!" ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... molecule was well illustrated about 1850, when Pasteur discovered that some carbon compounds—as certain sugars—can only be distinguished from one another, when in solution, by the fact of their twisting or polarizing a ray of light to the left or to the right, respectively. But no inkling of an explanation of these strange variations of molecular structure came until the discovery of the law of valency. Then much of the mystery was cleared ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... conflicting expressions of his instinct for fullness of life. For we shall not be able to make order, in any hopeful sense, of the tangle of material which is before us, until we have subdued it to this ruling thought: seen one transcendent Object towards which all our twisting pathways run, and one ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... whipped me with all the strength of both hands. I could feel the broken skin curl up on my back, and when my head got too heavy to hold it straight it hung down, and I saw the blood on my legs and dripping off my toes into a pool of it on the floor. Something was straining and twisting inside of me again. My back didn't hurt much; it was the thing twisting inside of me that hurt. I counted the lashes, and when I counted to twenty-eight the twisting got so hard that it choked me and blinded me; ... and when I woke up I was in the ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... of looking at things which takes 'It is expedient' as the determining consideration, has in it an awful power of so twisting and searing a man's conscience as that he comes to look at evil and never to know that there is anything wrong in it. This cynical high priest in our text had no conception that he was doing anything but obeying ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... hurt much?" he said, coming close up and taking a tender hold of his friend's arm. Wharton smiled and shook his head, but spoke not a word. He was in truth more shaken, stunned, and bewildered than actually injured. The ruffian's fist had been at his throat, twisting his cravat, and for half a minute he had felt that he was choked. As he had struggled while one woman pulled at his watch and the other searched for his purse,—struggling, alas! unsuccessfully,—the man had endeavoured ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... about, and he was at once completely disillusioned. The glaring, brutal light ruthlessly exposed the worn and faded hangings; and the pretty girls in their full, short, gauzy petticoats, with their bare arms, smiling and twisting about, their satin-shod feet resting upon gray velvet footstools, seemed to him, as they occupied the slanting floor, to move in a cloud of dust, and to be robbed of all naturalness ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... my chair twisted under me. "I am being turned around," I said, in a low tone. "It as if something has taken hold of the back of the chair, and is twisting it. It has stopped now." I had been turned fully ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... staring with distressed eyes in front of him. Andrey Vassilievitch, very uncomfortable, his fat body sliding forward on the slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again—always he maintained his air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might disconcert him, patting, with his plump ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... things?' he asked the boy, who stood first on one foot and then on the other, twisting ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... powerfully and with sinews and muscles of steel. He had secured him just after taking part in the capture of San Antonio with his comrades, Obed White and the Ring Tailed Panther, and already the tie between horse and rider had become strong and enduring. Ned stroked him again, and the horse, twisting his neck around, thrust ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... down at the carpet, her fingers playing with her braid, twisting and untwisting its strands. He stood waiting to close the door. She said, without lifting her eyes—said in a quiet, expressionless way, "I ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... to break loose, twisting and turning, but the effort was useless. Suddenly he whistled sharply. There was the sound of feet scrambling down the path, and the frightened woman perceived the dim outlines of several approaching men. She gave one scream, and Hawley released ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... rather jolly at supper, and Daisy made herself very agreeable, especially in the earlier part of the evening, when she sang. At supper, however, she said: "Can you make tee-to-tums with bread?" and she commenced rolling up pieces of bread, and twisting them round on the table. I felt this to be bad manners, but of course said nothing. Presently Daisy and Lupin, to my disgust, began throwing bread-pills at each other. Frank followed suit, and so did Cummings and Gowing, to my astonishment. They then commenced throwing hard pieces ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... infernal ledge goes to?" said Inspector Chippenfield, vainly twisting his neck and protruding his body through the window to a dangerous extent to see round the corner of the building. "I daresay it leads to the water-pipe, and the scoundrel, knowing that, has been able to get round, shin down, and get ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... Old Bishop has commanded that it shall not be for a week. He would have time to get across England first. Indeed, had it not been for the beating of him in the dark and the twisting of the neck of Brother Ambrose, I believe that he would not have suffered it at all, for fear of trouble afterwards. But now he is full of rage, and swears that he was set upon by evil spirits in the hall, and that those who loosed ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... "then you have never met my father, the Prince. He is terribly particular. You must go so" (she imitated the mincing walk of a court chamberlain), "you must hold your tails thus" (wagging her white nightrail and twisting about her head to watch the effect), "and you must retire—so!" With that she came bowing backward towards the well of the staircase, so far that I was almost afraid she would fall plump into my arms. But she checked herself in time, and without looking round or seeing me she tripped back ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... that had a trick of quivering like a hurt baby's when she was begging for something she was afraid she wasn't going to get. All through the school years she had been one of my classmates, and a majority of the town boys were foolish about her, partly because she had a way of twisting them around her fingers; partly, perhaps, because her father was the rich man of the community and the president of the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... honour of the acquaintance of Mr. B. whose admirable works have long been his, Simpson's, especial solace in private—and who accordingly is led to that personage by a mutual friend—Simpson blushing as only adorable ingenuousness can, and twisting the brim of his hat like a sailor giving evidence. Whereupon Mr. B. beginneth by remarking that the rooms are growing hot—or that he supposes Mr. S. has not heard if there will be another adjournment of the ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. "Can't you stop a bit longer? We can all be cosy to-day, there's nothing to do outdoors." And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys, The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... to-day, then; and, indeed, I do not see why you should not go down to Somersbury at once, if you like it; only be up at an early hour on Monday morning.—Sherbrooke, I wish you would take yourself away: it makes me angry to see you twisting that paper up into a thousand forms like a mountebank at ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... quern began to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... the people we should carry all before us, but that the Parliament, which was our chief strength in one sense, was in other respects our main weakness; that they were very apt to go backward; that in the very last debate they were on the point of twisting a rope for their own necks, and that the First President would show Mazarin his true interests, and be glad to amuse us by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in possession ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in the novels and plays which women adored. Now he believed himself to be in the throes of such a love and was secretly proud of his passion, but the pain of seeing Prince Vanno with Mary was rather too real, too sharp for analytical enjoyment; and when he could, Dick avoided twisting the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... gauged the distance to a nicety, and before the German could cry out, one of the lad's hands sank deep into his throat. But the latter was a powerful man and not to be overcome easily. He hurled the lad from him with a quick shove, at the same time twisting on the wrist of the hand that gripped ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... pitched my last cigar-stump to one of the dogs chained to the wall, who caught it in his mouth. When the door was opened by my guide, I saw a big blaze like a prairie fire, red and gloomy; and big black smoke was curling and twisting and spreading, and the flames a-licking the walls, going up to a point, and breaking into a wide blaze, with white and green ends. There was bells a-tolling, and chains a-clinking, and mad howls and screams; ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... her neighbor, Monsieur Guerbet, and made one of those apish grimaces which she had inherited from dear mistress, together with her silver, by right of conquest, and twisting her face into a series of them she made him look at Madame Vermut, who was coquetting with ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... had the courage to take advantage of such an extraordinary circumstance—yet it is a very frequent thing at roulette for the ball to have a predilection for a certain series of numbers—probably through the croupier twisting the machine with the same force each time—and on such occasions a good deal of money may be won by a careful observer. One young Englishman, who was perfectly ignorant of the game, we saw at Wisbaden place ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... young black-frocked priestlings from a neighbouring seminary would suddenly throng its paths, playing mild girlish games, with infinite clamour and chatter, running races as far and fast as their black petticoats would allow, twisting their long overcoats and red sashes meanwhile round a battered old noseless bust that stood for Domitian at the end of a long ilex-avenue, and was the butt for all the slings and arrows of the day,—poor helpless State, blinded and buffeted ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... came toward them. As he came, he fought for self control; and when he stood before them, his lips were twisting into something like a smile, and his eyes were shifty and ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... is apt to wander back to the home pasture. Hobbles can be bought or made. When bought, they are broad, flexible strips of leather about eighteen inches long, with cuffs which buckle around each fore leg above the hoof. Hobbles can be made on the spot by twisting soft rope from fore leg to fore leg and tying the ends by lapping in ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... nothing, but drew his club slowly and jerkily back, twisting his body and keeping his eye fixed on an imaginary ball until the back of his neck hid ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... muttered Carey; "I'll let them see I'm not afraid of them," and, without pausing now, he walked to the side, caught up the bucket, and twisting one end of the line round his left hand, went to the open gangway of that side of the vessel to throw down the bucket into the ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... repeated Agnes, in delighted tones, taking another look at her prisoner herself, and then twisting the bag together again. ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... getting hold of pads and sheets of paper on which to make illustrative sketches. He is wonderfully handy with the pencil, and will sometimes amuse himself, while chatting, with making all kinds of fancy bits of penmanship, twisting his signature into circles and squares, but always writing straight lines—so straight they could not be ruled truer. Many a night it is a question of getting Edison to bed, for he would much rather probe a problem than eat or sleep; but at whatever hour the visitor retires ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... for dear old Claire,' resumed Lady Wetherby, twisting the knife in the wound with a happy unconsciousness. 'Dudley's not only a corking good fellow, but he has thirty million dollars stuffed away in the stocking and a business that brings him in a perfectly awful mess of money every year. He's the Pickering of the ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... self-taught men I ever met, and I often regret that I did not see more of him...Scott's manner was shy and modest almost to being apologetic; and the condition of nervous tension in which he seemed to live was indicated by frequent nervous gestures with his hands and by the restless twisting of his long beard in which he continuously indulged. He was grave and reserved; but when he became interested in any matter he talked freely, although always deliberately, and he was always ready to deafen ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... throat. His enormous and weak bill seems made for the purpose of swallowing bananas whole; how he feeds himself with it in the forest it is difficult to guess: and when he hops up and down on his great clattering feet—two toes turned forward, and two back—twisting head and beak right and left (for he cannot see well straight before him) to see whence the bananas are coming; or when again, after gorging a couple, he sits gulping and winking, digesting them in serene satisfaction, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... for her, I saw a head appear above her quarter-railing, a very round head whereon was a mariner's red cap. Came a puff of smoke, the sharp crack of a caliver, and one of the officers beside Don Miguel threw up his hands and, twisting on his heels, fell clashing in his armour. When I looked again for the red cap, it was gone. But Don Miguel waited, silent and impassive as ever. Suddenly he gestured with his hand, I saw the heave of the steersmen's ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... fringed paper, designed for the amusement of flies. At the window was a flat desk, on which were transacted the affairs of Mr. Ollerenshaw. When he stationed himself at it in the seat of custom and of judgment, defaulting tenants, twirling caps or twisting aprons, had a fine view of the left side of his face. He usually talked to them while staring out of the window. Before this desk was a Windsor chair. There were eight other Windsor chairs in the room—Helen was sitting on one that had not been sat upon ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... That your foule body is a Lernean fenne Of all the maladies breeding in all men: That you are utterly without a soule; 505 And for your life, the thred of that was spunne When Clotho slept, and let her breathing rock Fall in the durt; and Lachesis still drawes it, Dipping her twisting fingers in a boule Defil'd, and crown'd with vertues forced soule: 510 And lastly (which I must for gratitude Ever remember) that of all my height And dearest life you are the onely spring, Onely in royall ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... boy's frame, and his face blenched. Then he struggled again to free himself—turning and twisting himself this way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately—but uselessly—to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that chap? What him say? said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. He say, said I, that you came near kill-e that man there, pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. Kill-e, cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly expression of disdain, ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale! Look you, roared the Captain, I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... is by the use of a swab made by twisting a bit of absorbent cotton upon a wooden toothpick. With this the folds between the gums and lips and cheeks may be gently and carefully cleansed twice a day unless the mouth is sore. It is not necessary after every feeding. The ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... combatants. Nobody possesses this art as I do. But where I am truly surprising is in the opposite way—I have low tones that I accompany with a smile, and an infinite variety of approving tricks of face; nose, lips, brow, eyes, all make play; I have a suppleness of reins, a manner of twisting the spine, of shrugging the shoulders, extending the fingers, inclining the head, closing the eyes, and throwing myself into a state of stupefaction, as if I had heard a divine angelic voice come down ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the whip, and as they clattered away down the steep, twisting road, Nasmyth glanced with satisfaction to left and right. He had seen wilder and grander lands, but none of them appealed to him like this high, English waste. On one hand dim black hills rose out of fleecy mist; on the other a leafless birch wood, close by, stood out in ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... be slapdash and independent, and decidedly lacking in "that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere". Gwen could never keep still for five seconds, her restless hands were always fidgeting or her feet shuffling, or she was twisting in her chair, or shaking back a loose untidy lock that had escaped from her ribbon. Gwen often did her hair without the aid of a looking-glass, but when she happened to use one the reflection of her own face gave her little cause ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... soft wood, and filling it by melting and running in a pewter spoon, making an arc of metal on which the graduated scale was etched. A pair of dividers was improvised from a piece of hickory, by making the centre thin, bending it over, putting pins at the points, and regulating its spread by twisting a cord. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... or not twisted, according to the situation of the flowers. Thus if the flower be so situated that the raceme has the direction of the axis, or in other words is erect, the pedicel is straight, but if the raceme, as generally happens, be pendulous, the twisting of the pedicel is resorted to, to secure the flower that situation which it would have, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and then twisting the newspaper into a rope, he turned to Lane. "Dare, can you understand that?... Red Payson was a bull-headed boy, not over bright. But you and I have some intelligence, I hope. We can allow for ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... with the truth a Manbo will confess, sometimes even though there be no witness against him. Such is my observation of dealings between Manbo and Manbo. In his relations with outsiders, however, the Manbo is not so veracious; on the contrary, he displays no little art in suppressing or in twisting the truth. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... And as Agatha knelt by the sofa, Miss Valery leaned over her, twisting her curls and stroking down the lids over her brown eyes in the babyish, fondling ways which all good people can condescend to at times, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... of you boys who have never seen a big, modern cannon, that it consists of a central core of cast steel. This is rifled, just as a small rifle is bored, with twisted grooves throughout its length. The grooves, or rifling, impart a twisting motion to the projectiles, and keep them in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... sheepish, and ashamed. Eric, deeply vexed, kept twisting and untwisting a bit of paper, without raising his eyes, and even Barker thoroughly repented his short-sighted treachery; the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Mary at her "jenny," and had already become so expert that those who understood such matters prophesied she would soon be promoted to the "twisting and doubling." That very morning the "boss" of their room had said ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... with the arm up to the shoulders so extremely swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to have it put back, it is then (being first well assured the child is dead) best to take it off by the shoulder joints, by twisting three or four times about, which is very easily done by reason of the softness and tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated, and no longer possesses the passage, the operator will have more room to put up his hand into the womb, to fetch the child by ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the darkness, making turn after turn, twisting here and there in the water, The Loon seeming to know the channel perfectly. In a much shorter time than the girls had expected they made a turn that a few seconds later brought them ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... bye the youth took the empty seat by the side of the girl, and endeavored to draw her into conversation to the exclusion of the motorman. She responded, twisting her body and face towards him, so that her sweet and ingratiating smiles could not be seen by the motorman. Then, she reversed the process and gave a few fleeting smiles to the grim-looking motorman. It was as ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... horses of the Stavrogins' own breeding. The general suddenly observed that he had met "young Stavrogin" that day, on horseback.... Every one was instantly silent. The general munched his lips, and suddenly proclaimed, twisting in his fingers his presentation ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "that in parts of Islay they used to be so bad that the farmers would set fire to the heather in a circle, and as the heather burned in and in you could see the snakes and adders twisting and curling in a great ball. We have not many with us. But one day John Begg, that is the schoolmaster, went behind a rock to get a light for his pipe; and he put his head close to the rock to be out of the wind; and then he thought he stirred something ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the walls, a faint fragrance in the air. She was here not long since. See the woman's things upon the table! There were her clothes upon the bed, a coarse dress; but these other garments! Look at them, citizens! Here's lace and fine linen! One hag, twisting her bony fingers into a garment, rent it in pieces, while a second, wrapping another garment round her dirty rags, began to dance to an accompaniment of ribald laughter. The aristocrat was here, and not long ago, but she had gone! The curtains were torn from the windows and from the bed, soiled ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... of the hill he could see the dull gleam of the lake with its girdle of lamp-lit towns. Here the woodland began again; not the main body of the forest, but one of its long arms, thrust down over hill and valley, twisting its way in among villages and farm lands. That which had been a path now become a trail, along which the girl flitted with the ease of ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... already saw death on the other side of the river and found serious occupation in exchanging airy badinage with him; for me with an abominable little pain inside inexorably eating my life out and wasting me away literally and perceptibly like a shadow and twisting me up half a dozen times a day in excruciating agony; for me, in this delectable condition of soul and this deplorable condition of body, to think of running hundreds of miles from home with—to say the least of it—so inconvenient ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the house, and walking on for a little way, I found myself at the entrance to the stables, and face to face with Silas Meadowcroft once more. He had his elbows on the gate of the yard, swinging it slowly backward and forward, and turning and twisting a straw between his teeth. When he saw me approaching him, he advanced a step from the gate, and made an effort to excuse himself, with ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... he and his companion walked along one of the platforms in the Waverley Station in Edinburgh that evening, on their way to a cab, Allerdyke suddenly uttered a sharp exclamation and seized the American by the elbow, twisting him round in front of a big poster which displayed the portrait of ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... with Latin, eked out by a few phrases gleaned from books of travel. The polite hotel manager's French was only a shade more fluent. Consequently, the latter told Mulai Hamed, deputy assistant hall-porter, that the Effendi wished to be conducted to Government House with the utmost secrecy, thus twisting Dick's simple request, that the guide should avoid the main streets into a mysterious demand which an Eastern mind could not fail to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... occasion Langley laughed, and his laughter was an indescribable sound that lay somewhere between the braying of a mule and the cawing of a crow. But Haw-Haw Langley was usually silent, and he would sit for hours without words, twisting his head and making little pecking motions as his eyes fastened on face after face. All the bitterness of the mountain-desert was in Haw-Haw Langley; if his body looked like a buzzard, his soul was the soul of the vulture itself, and therefore ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... night that followed, even though he had never heard a word about it. The bawling of the herd became a doleful chant of misery. Even the phlegmatic oxen that drew the wagons bawled and slavered while they strained forward, twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They stopped oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted to walk with the perspiring Ezra by the leaders, he wondered why the oxen's eyes were red, like Dulcie's when she had one of her ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... me awful!" complained Freddie, twisting around as though he wanted to work his way out of his clothes. "Maybe there's a hay-bug down ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... proper dispositions, commanded the children and women, on their lives, to keep silence. He then led us to the top of the northern cliff; it overhung an obscure cave which he knew opened at its extremity. By the assistance of a rope, held above by several men, our resolute chief (twisting it round one arm to steady him, and with the other catching by the projecting stones of the precipice) made his way down the rock, and was the first who descended. He stood at the bottom, enveloped in the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... heart-pump. This condition, or some modification of it, is what we usually mean when we speak of "heart disease," or "organic heart disease." The effect upon the heart-pump is similar to that which would be produced by cutting or twisting the valve in the "bucket" of a pump or in a ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... exemplary goodness, she, in your imitation, may outshine the luminaries of all other women. To this effect you daily must implore God's grace to the protection of you both. You would have me then, quoth Panurge, twisting the whiskers of his beard on either side with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, to espouse and take to wife the prudent frugal woman described by Solomon. Without all doubt she is dead, and truly to my best remembrance I never saw her; the Lord forgive me! Nevertheless, I thank you, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... descended from the table, and is standing propped against mother's knee, twisting one leg with ingenious grace ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... I am deuced tired of this turning and twisting, and I'll be glad when the term ends, and I am set ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... blindly, hearing nothing but the machine and his own rasping breath. Then suddenly, he was stumbling over the edge of an embankment, flailing his arms and twisting himself around so that he managed to land on his back. It hurt and the wind went out of him. He was sliding and rolling. Somehow he managed to stop himself. He lay painfully coughing and trying to get his breath. ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... of shepherdesses," cried he, archly twisting a lock of her hair that hung over her shoulder. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... their bodies form a cone. Then the organs of generation are protruded from their orifice near the mouth and, hanging down a short distance, touch each other. They also then begin again the same spiral motion, twisting around each other, like a two-strand cord, assuming various and beautiful forms, sometimes like an inverted agaric, or a foliated murex, or a leaf of curled parsley, the light falling on the ever-varying surface of the generative organs sometimes ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference, because they are greener? No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... his head nearer to her and to comb one queue after another, and as when he stayed at home he wore no hat, nor had, in fact, any tufted horns, she merely took the short surrounding hair from all four sides, and twisting it into small tufts, she collected it together over the hair on the crown of the head, and plaited a large queue, binding it fast with red ribbon; while from the root of the hair to the end of the queue, were four pearls in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not reply, but he reached over and got the fellow by the coat collar and jerked him into the aisle, and, twisting him around, planted his toe between his coat tails with a force that sent him halfway down the length ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... hand, and had no doubt that some laborer unobserved by him had noticed him enter the hut. He sprang down again from the loft, and seizing a stake which with several others was standing in a corner, he again sallied out. As he did so he was suddenly grasped. Twisting himself free he saw a powerful Nubian armed with a hoe. Without a moment's hesitation Amuba sprang at him with his stake. The Nubian parried the blow with his hoe, and in turn dealt a sweeping ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching the procession, but still turning round and casting sheep's eyes at her, he said, "See you yon athlete straining his neck to look at a girl?" And similarly you may see curious people twisting and straining their necks at every spectacle alike, from the habit and practice of turning their eyes in all directions. And I think the senses ought not to rove about, like an ill-trained maid, when sent on an errand by the soul, but to do their business, and then ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... said of them, these Scotch-Irish, is in quotation, for as I have already intimated, my own ancestry is of that double-twisting; and since the time when my first American ancestor settled as the first permanent minister beyond the mountains, following the paths of the French priests in their missions and became a member of a presbytery extending from ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... words seemed to burst from her involuntarily. She craned forward, her hands twisting at her ragged shawl, and a flood of Gaelic poured from her lips as she stared ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... notes, by the shelvy marge, Wont deftly across to speed its charge; Now jumping and twisting, like leaf on a lynn, Wo! if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... "Sheldon there! and he came from that office! Business brought him,—what would come of it all?" She dared not hope or anticipate. She dared not think at all; and, throwing her graceful form on a sofa, she commenced tearing some water-color paintings she had lately been executing, into strips, and twisting them into gas-lighters. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... before heard him talk in the studio, and expressed himself better, with more fluency than usual. Garstin said very little. There was a fixed flush on his cheek-bones and an angry light in his eyes. He sat watching Arabian with a hostile, and yet half-admiring, scrutiny, smoking rapidly, nervously, and twisting his large ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... be just as well for ye that ye don't," said Oakum Otie, twisting his straggly beard into a spill and blinking nervously. "There I was, headed straight and keeping true course, and then she looked at me and there was a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes—and the next thing I knowed I was here in this telegraft place with this!" He held up ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... in startling colours when she related to her mistress the occurrence of the previous night; and she handed over to her the mysterious casket in fear and trembling. Both she and Baptiste, who stood in the corner as pale as death, twisting and doubling up his night-cap, and hardly able to speak in his fear and anxiety,—both begged Mademoiselle in the most piteous terms and in the names of all the saints, to use the utmost possible caution in opening the box. De Scuderi, weighing the locked mystery in her ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... quietly, twisting himself a cigarette with placid deliberateness, as a preliminary to his departure; 'your great mistake in life is that you WILL persist in considering the universe as a cosmos. Now the fact is, it isn't a cosmos; it's a chaos, and a very poor ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... half-absently twisting and arranging Dooley's little tan ears, in order to express, on Dooley's behalf, with them, various emotions, "it seems to me that all these political revolutions that you are so anxious to start, for the good of Ireland, are like putting the cart ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... rolling of the eyes and twisting of the lips gave her the idea that he was about to vent that repulsive sound again. "Don't you laugh!" she cried. "I can't bear your laugh—even ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... gentle, musical laugh, which had surprise in it, but no derision. The sight of the gaunt embarrassed man opposite to her, his face burning red, and his clumsy hands twisting and untwisting as he uttered his persuasive sentences, drove her sadness away for the moment. Her pleasant, surprised laugh ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... incredible size were bent backwards and upwards in the shape of a cupid's wings; his boots creaked; in his left hand he held cinnamon-coloured kid gloves and a forage-cap, and with his right he kept every moment twisting his frizzled tuft of hair up into tiny curls. Complacency and at the same time a certain diffidence were depicted upon his face. His festal appearance and proud gait would have made me burst out laughing, if such a proceeding had been in ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... by the entrance of Lord Delacour, who came to inquire of Miss Portman how his lady did. The baronet, after twisting his little black stick into all manner of shapes, finished by breaking it, and then having no other resource, suddenly wished Miss Portman a good morning, and decamped with a look of silly ill-humour. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... canoe at an angle of 45 deg. in the foaming and twisting waters of the rapid. Where the water curled right over itself the heavy canoe was lifted up in the air like a feather, and as I turned round to shout to Alcides to steer straight ahead I saw his expanded eyes looking in terror at the terrific whirlpool which ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... I was cheered with the sight of the Crisis, as she came drifting through the tiers, turning, and twisting, and glancing along, just as the Amanda had done before her. The pilot carried her to moorings quite near us; and Talcott, Neb and I were on board her, before she was fairly secured. My reception was very favourable, Captain Williams having seen the account ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... and it can be used for many purposes, especially where dowels serve as axles. Wrap a little paper around the end of the 1/4 in. dowel, D, and push it part way into the spool, A, then put in a set-screw, S, to keep A from twisting upon D. The straight end of the wire, H, should be put into a hole, B, and another set-screw used to ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... to catch fish, and presently he pulled them up and behold, in them was a cucurbite of copper, stopped with lead and sealed with the signet of Solomon, son of David, on whom be peace! He brought the vessel to land and broke it open, when there came forth a smoke, which rose a-twisting blue to the zenith, and we heard a horrible voice, saying, 'I repent! I repent! Pardon, O Prophet of Allah! I will never return to that which I did aforetime.' Then the smoke became a terrible Giant frightful of form, whose head was level with the mountain-tops, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... stood at a little distance off, could scarcely hear each other's voices. The barbarous overture being brought to a conclusion, the king, who had been seated amongst his wives, rose, and springing into the centre of the circle, began snapping his fingers, twisting and turning in all sorts of attitudes, leaping from the ground, kicking up one leg, then another, and throwing his arms round until it appeared that ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... likely to prove a protracted struggle; for, although there was much twisting and wriggling over the ground, and flapping of the odd wing—that was still free—very little change for a long time appeared to take place in the relative position of the combatants. This could be seen, whenever they paused to rest themselves—which ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... attempt a stand against her domineering authority. When her tall, gaunt figure—invariably arrayed in the blackest of black silks—was sighted in a room, those present either scuttled out of the way or judiciously held their peace, for everyone knew Mrs Pansey's talent for twisting the simplest observation into some evil shape calculated to get its author into trouble. She excelled in this particular method of making mischief. Possessed of ample means and ample leisure, both of these helped her materially ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... breathing. It seemed as though he were struggling for his life. What should she do if he died? Why was she debarred from tending him? It was cruel. Tears fell on her hand. She stared into the darkness, twisting her fingers, until at last, as though to show her independence, she stepped to the bed on tip-toe. Wilbur's eyes were open. He put out his hand, and, taking hers, touched ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... he saw me just as soon as I saw him, and he and Frenchy separated like a shot. She hopped into a taxi and flew off in one direction; he dived into the crowd and bolted in another, and before you could say Jack Robinson he was doubling and twisting, jumping into cabs and jumping out again—all to gain time, of course, for the woman to do what he'd put her up to doing—and leading me the devil's own chase through the devil's own tangles till he was ready to bunk for the Embankment. And you ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... room—temperature not below 75 F. On baby's tray near by, and within reaching distance, are the boracic acid solution in a small cup, a medicine dropper, the warm saucer of oil, the toothpick applicators (made by twisting cotton about one end, making sure the sharp end of the pick is well protected), a glass jar of small cotton balls made from sterile absorbent cotton, the castile soap, talcum powder, needle and thread. A vessel of warm water, several old, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... necessity of the moment. The jam, the whole jam, was moving at last. Jimmy Powers ran ashore for his peavie. Roaring Dick, like a demon incarnate, threw himself into the work. Forty men attacked the jam in a dozen places, encouraging the movement, twisting aside the timbers that threatened to lock anew, directing pigmy-like the titanic forces into the channel of their efficiency. Roaring like wild cattle the logs swept by, at first slowly, then with the railroad rush of the curbed freshet. Men were everywhere, taking ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... operations. Before taking flight from one tree to another, they stop the insect search and gaze inquisitively toward their destination. If two of them meet, there is often a sudden stopping in the air, a twisting upward and downward, followed by a lively chase across the open to the top of a dead tree, and then a sly peeping round or over a limb, after the manner of all Woodpeckers. A rapid drumming with the bill on the tree, branch or trunk, it is said, serves for a love-song, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... the bleeding, sir," said Mr. Walters, looking at the floor and nervously twisting his cap in his ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... wainscot; in which was inserted, laterally, full as much more writing paper as the quantity I had discovered in the closet. I took away the paper entirely, lest, if seen, it should lead to further search; and, twisting up the bills, laid them so as to be certain of recovering them, when I pleased. The paper I put ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... he was early at Sulby. The bat-room was thronged with fishermen in guernseys, sea-boots, and sou'-westers. They were all on their feet together, twisting about like great congers on the quay, drinking a little and smoking a great deal, thumping the table, and all talking at once. "How've you done, Billy?"—"Enough to keep away the divil and the coroner, and that's about ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... woman began to weep quietly. Much touched, the General rose, twisting his moustache, "Courage, be brave, the assaults have not yet been launched and you speak as if the battle were lost! We have not got so far ahead yet, fortunately. Above all, don't cry, that is worse than ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... truss that is all waterproof. Therefore about the only truss you can keep on while taking a bath or swim— a time when you are in danger, if you have no truss on, of having the rupture thrown out by the bending and twisting you do. ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... up in rapid succession, and as the smoke cleared away it was seen that two of the wolves lay on the ice, twisting and turning in their death agonies. The others were ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... Upstairs, front and back, verandas again, balustraded so that little girls could not forget themselves and fall off. The pillars of these verandas at the rear of the house were connected by a network of wires, and trained up the pillars and branching over the wires were coiling twisting vines of wisteria as large as Gabriella's neck. This was the sunny southern side; and when the wisteria was blooming, Gabriella moved her establishment of playthings out behind those sunlit cascades of purple and green, musical sometimes ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... After twisting his body a variety of ways, he worked his way between the bars, to which he held on while he lowered himself to the ground. The leading-string was still attached to Trusty's collar, and taking it in his hand, he said, "Go on, Trusty." ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours' faces—some saying, "That's a new note," others declaring that the two notes are the same.' Yes, I said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings; I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers ...
— The Republic • Plato
... my young friend"—said Lentulus to Eachin; and then he said out to Cethegus, in Greek, "I am compelled to call the Highland bull my friend, for his accursed name would break the jaws of any Roman—there is no twisting it into Latin!" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... a theory supposes that we may explain the words of Scripture according to our preconceived opinions, twisting them about, and reversing or completely changing the literal sense, however plain it may be. (181) Such licence is utterly opposed to the teaching of this and the preceding chapters, and, moreover, will be evident to everyone as rash ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... good name," said the Admiral, "and the Continental is a good club; I've been there several times. I shall be civil to him if I meet him again. But now for tea. By Jove, Trevanion, but the boy has given you a twisting!" ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... move, eh-what?" chuckled Hicks, twisting like a contortionist, to view the damage done his vestiture, "Hello, what have we here?—the German field-map, by the Van Dyke beard of the Prophet! I bring the Kaiser's order, ham and eggs, and a cup of coffee. No, that's a mistake. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the far-stretching fields of corn, the leaves twisting in the heat, and contemplating the discouraging cotton prospect, old Uncle Henry, the plantation carpenter, said, half jestingly to a negro passing, "Uncle Ben, why don't you ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... shelter of an arching frond and, without a word, went crawling away. McGuire was behind him, and the two, as they came to open ground, sprang to their feet and ran on through the weird orchard where tree trunks made dim, twisting lines. They ran blindly and helplessly toward the outer dark that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... was a twisting, coiling tumult of incandescent gases, which were snatched away by nothingness and ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... running away behind Jimmy's back was her idea of straightness? To which she replied that my rectitude was excruciating and that I'd twist anything to a moral purpose, but it was twisting all the same. Couldn't I see that the awful thing would be to come sneaking back and pretend to Jimmy that she hadn't run away from him?—If that was my idea of straightness she was sorry ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... I must admit you are right," said the little man, twisting his mustache. "I'm as near a fish as a man can be. But you see, Cap'n, without the gills that make me a fish, I could not ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... of Hell come from? I will tell you; from that fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl of wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter of malicious apes. And I despise it with ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the Jew saw the jewels he falls a-jabbering, in Dutch or Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they were in some great surprise, both of them. The Jew held up his hands, looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself into a thousand shapes, twisting his body and wringing up his face this way and that way in his discourse, stamping with his feet, and throwing abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury. Then he would turn and give a look at me like the devil. I thought I never ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... strained alertness. Then I heard a twig snap; and my blood leaped, for I knew the bear was at his supper. In another moment I saw his shaggy, brown form. He was working with all his awkward giant strength, trying to bury the carcass, twisting it to one side and the other with wonderful ease. Once he got angry and suddenly gave it a tremendous cuff with his paw; in his bearing he had something half humorous, half devilish. I crept up within forty yards; but for several ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... struggles, lofty ambitions, happy opportunities, have blended to form that luminous whole, known and seen of all, but not to be understood except by a patient effort to resolve the great result into its several rays, to separate the strands whose twisting has ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... than Moloney's of the Crooked Boreen, where Big Michael and the wife lived, a piece up from the high-road. And well might you call the little causey "crooked" that led to their door! for rough and stony that boreen was, twisting and winding along by the bog-side, this way and that way, the same as if it couldn't rightly make up its mind where it wanted to bring you. So it was all the more of a surprise when you did get to Moloney's, to find a house with such an ...
— Candle and Crib • K. F. Purdon
... Charlemagne; and of later date, Philip de Commines. What we have here is rather an apology for King Francis, against the Emperor Charles V., than history. I will not believe that they have falsified anything, as to matter of fact; but they make a common practice of twisting the judgment of events, very often contrary to reason, to our advantage, and of omitting whatsoever is ticklish to be handled in the life of their master; witness the proceedings of Messieurs de Montmorency and de Biron, which are here omitted: ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Magdalen, clinging to the cross with the look of passive and gentle despair beaming from beneath her bright flaxen hair, and the figure of St. John, with his looks uplifted in passionate compassion; his hands clasped, and his fingers twisting themselves together, as it were, with involuntary anguish; his feet almost writhing up from the ground with the same sympathy; and the whole of this arrayed in colours of diviner nature, yet most like nature's self. Of the contemplation of this ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... second sentry to himself. And by turning his head slightly—for a sentry learns to see all around like a horse, without twisting his neck—he watched the runaway into ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it! Hoi!" shouted the boy; but the object addressed, a great grey heron, paid no heed, but went flapping slowly away on its widespread wings, its long legs stretched straight out behind to act as balance, and a small eel writhing and twisting itself into knots as it strove in vain to escape ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion," twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must forego any such exertions. It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand, underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley. I think I may put it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various |
