"Wry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would preach that to the factory inspectors," said Mr. Clarke, with a wry smile. "Between the poor mothers who are constantly trying to get the children into the factory, and the inspectors who are trying to keep them out, I ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... years before Troy town, 425 And were renown'd, as HOMER writes, For well-soal'd boots no less than fights, They ow'd that glory only to His ancestor, that made them so. Fast friend he was to REFORMATION, 430 Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion. Next rectifier of wry LAW, And wou'd make three to cure one flaw. Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote. 435 But PREACHING was his chiefest talent, Or argument, in which b'ing valiant, He us'd to lay about and stickle, Like ram or bull, at conventicle: For ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... blessing there. "My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins. We'll consecrate it to God's mother, She'll give us some heavenly manna or other!" Little Margaret made a wry face; "I see 'Tis, after all, a gift horse," said she; "And sure, no godless one is he Who brought it here so handsomely." The mother sent for a priest (they're cunning); Who scarce had found what ...
— Faust • Goethe
... were predominant at the time of Conception; and sometimes the straightness of the Womb is attended with many Inconveniencies, for Nature not having sufficient room to frame her Work in, the Child is rumpled up, which occasions some to have hump'd Backs, crooked Arms, and Legs, round Shoulders, Wry ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces; But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear I have no mind ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm a telepath?" Malone ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a wry twist, he lowered the bowl, and on impulse of pure defiance he offered it to the skull that had chattered. Immediately he realized that the move had had an electric effect upon the aliens. Slowly at first, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... presently arrived at the door of "The Quiver" office. She made a wry face as she shook the snow out of her furs, straightened her hat and smoothed her hair. It was too bad to have to go in looking like a fright, after all the pains she had taken to wear her most becoming ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... take a cup of it now and then by yourself, and then come down to your parson, and boast of it, as if it was pure old metheglin? I sat last night with the Mater Gracchorum—oh! 'tis a Mater Jagorum; if her descendants taste any of her black blood, they surely will make as wry faces at it as the servant in Don John does when the ghost decants a corpse. Good night! I am just returning to Strawberry, to husband my two last days and to avoid all the pomp of the birthday. Oh! I had forgot, there is a Miss Wynne coming forth, that is to be handsomer than ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... appears a new idea in jurisprudence that a man must sit for his picture. Any one, however, understanding the camera, would be alive before the removal of the cup of the lens, and be ready with a wry face; I do not suppose he ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... A wry smile wrinkled the corners of Dyck's mouth. "You mean his wife?" he asked with irony. "Wife—no!" retorted the old man. "Damn it, no! He wasn't the man to remain true ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as he made a wry face. "I hope you won't have occasion. I'd sooner have a can of grog than any bottle of medicine you can give me; I ain't ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. After all, the infernal valley was alive. And then, to rejoice him still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and went, the faintest ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!—foreign cabbage and beef!—foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... uncle, heartily. "Too bad you couldn't have asked an old fellow like me to go along," he continued, making a wry face. ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... by her side, taking her cold hands in his and placing them upon her breast, closing the staring eyes, composing the wry-drooped ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... say I should like to eat it," said Nellie, squeezing up her nose like a rabbit and making a wry face. "It ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... organs; their big voices turned into puling pity-begging lamentations! their now-offensive paws, how helpless then!—their now-erect necks then denying support to their aching heads; those globes of mischief dropping upon their quaking shoulders. Then what wry faces will they make! their hearts, and their heads, reproaching each other!—distended their parched mouths!—sunk their unmuscled cheeks!—dropt their under jaws!—each grunting like the swine he had resembled in his life! Oh! what a vile wretch have I been! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... that, my lad, I have had my stirrup-cup long since, and have drained it to the dregs with a wry face, as an old man must when a young man brews for him. But ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... be to judge, to admire, to adore that of which we can form no idea. To adore the profound views of divine wisdom, is it not to worship that of which it is impossible for us to judge? To admire these same views, is it not admiring without knowing wry? Admiration is always the daughter of ignorance. Men admire and worship only what they do ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... you were a friend of my poor, dear Mr. Budd, whose shoe you are unworthy to touch, and who had the heart and soul for the noble profession you disgrace," cut in the widow, the moment Biddy gave her a chance, by pausing to make a wry face as she pronounced the word "ugly." "I now believe you capasided them poor Mexicans, in order to get their money; and the moment we cast anchor in a road-side, I'll go ashore, and complain of you for ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... strange wry face, which caused her to look harder than usual. She was choked with tenderness, and had only this uncomely ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... face and hands, for Striped Chipmunk is very neat and cannot bear to be the least bit dirty. He looked up and winked at Ol' Mistah Buzzard, sailing round and round way, way up in the blue, blue sky. He chased his own tail round and round until he nearly fell off of the post. He made a wry face in the direction of Redtail the Hawk, whom he could see sitting in the top of a tall tree way over on the Green Meadows. He scolded Bowser the Hound, who happened to come trotting up the Long Lane, and didn't stop scolding until Bowser was out of sight. Then he ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... it daintily, expecting to make a wry face over it, but to her surprise she found it not half bad. Between them, the two hungry young people speedily reduced ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... puckered with a wry wistfulness, was only comic in its incongruous coat of grease. But I was under no temptation to smile. I had to confine my mind pretty closely to the general principle, and rather studiously to ignore the particular instance, before I could bring myself to answer the almost infantile ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... a wry face, as if he were ready to cry. He drew the peasant a few steps aside, and said in a voice trembling with emotion: 'Why are you so hard on me, gospodarz? You see, my sons don't hit it off with each other. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... wry smile, "I don't know that it was very much of a ray, after all; but I'll tell you what happened. I had been running up and down office stairs from before nine o'clock until about three in the afternoon, without result, and I became heartily sick of it; and just by way of a change, I made up my mind ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... wry face for a moment. Putting her hand into her pocket, she pulled out Spilman's and Madame ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... proclaims his presence, or sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, if there be pleasant deaths. So may be will finish the merry amours of the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... individual form in which the truth is clothed. With the ancients, and not less with the elder dramatists of England and France, both comedy and tragedy were considered as kinds of poetry. They neither sought in comedy to make us laugh merely, much less to make us laugh by wry faces, accidents of jargon, slang phrases for the day, or the clothing of commonplace morals in metaphors drawn from the shops or mechanic occupations of their characters; nor did they condescend in tragedy to wheedle away the applause of the spectators, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mrs. Chase, surveying her hostess in the light of the living-room. "And here's smart Alec," as that youth came forward, his smile of welcome undergoing a wry twist at this somewhat unusual greeting. "And Bob—heavens, child, how you've grown! And ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... otherwise employed, Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 95 Everyone knows for what his excellence Will serve, but no one ever will consider For what his worst defect might serve; and yet Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder In search of a distorted ash?—I find 100 The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man Arriving at the palace on my errand! No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up— White satin here, to set off my black ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Eyjolf," said Flosi, "in my heart to think what a wry face they will make, and how their pates will tingle when ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... possibility. Calhoun's expression turned wry. He'd have to do something about the grid. He must be able to take off on the ship's emergency rockets without the risk of being caught by the tremendously powerful force fields by which ships were ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... were in the Catholic League," replied the old man, making a wry face. "However, the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and I rejoice to have chanced upon thee, were it only to be guided back to my lodgings amid ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... French dogs carry fire and desolation into the very heart of Flanders? We gave it them, however! The old hard-listed veterans held out bravely for a while, but we pushed on, fired away, and laid about us, till they made wry faces, and their lines gave way. Then Egmont's horse was shot under him; and for a long time we fought pell-mell, man to man, horse to horse, troop to troop, on the broad, flat, sea-sand. Suddenly, as if from heaven, down ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... love," said Richardson with a wry smile. "Have you named it yet? Or don't the discoverers of new stars name them any more? McIlvaine's Star—that's a good name for it. Hard a port of Arcturus, with special ...
— McIlvaine's Star • August Derleth
... plan," said the mate; and accordingly, the next time he served out provisions, he broke up some biscuit into the cup, and poured a little oil upon it. Walter made a wry face as he took his share; but he ate it notwithstanding, owning that, although the taste was not pleasant, it seemed to go much further than dry biscuit itself. The mate being of opinion that there was no use in dying by inches, gave Walter rather more of ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... for a moment, finding words hard to come by from an ultra-materialist. His tone went wry. "Comrade Baker also reported a somewhat mystical quality in our friend Crawford. An ability in times of emotional crisis to break down men's mental barriers against him. ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... such a strong fish-like flavour as to suggest that they might have been laid by the gannet in its lifetime, and stowed away by a careful Cornish housewife until some stranger chanced to visit that remote spot. Barrant was hungry enough to gulp them down, though with a wry face. He had just finished a second cup of very strong tea when he heard the clatter of a vehicle outside, and the girl thrust a tousled dark head through the door to announce the arrival of Mr. Crows and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... were a story-book detective I should assume that the murderer was either a South American or had travelled in South America. It looked the kind of thing a woman might carry in her garter. And a veiled woman called on him that night"—he made a wry face. "Foyle, my lad, you're assuming things. That way madness lies. The dagger might have been bought anywhere as a curiosity, and the veiled woman may have been a purely ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... dear," said Cai after a pause, pulling a wry face, "to do your master justice, he warned me 'twas a risk. There's naught to do but pay up un' look pleasant, ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the bondsmen's ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... spoon, and Jack carefully pours the medicine into it. Nurse Mary opens her mouth, swallows the dose, and makes a wry face, shuddering. ...
— Up the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp
... proposed shape, that we are at once rid of all the details of oaths, securities, &c., for I conclude the consciences of the Roman Catholic Peers will, if the declaration be omitted, be disposed to swallow the Oath of Supremacy without a single wry face, which will be a most useful example to the other Catholics, and will of itself go far to bring the priests into order. Plunket does not apprehend any jealousy of the limited measure from Ireland, as he thinks ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... lighted the two candles that Alden Marsh had given her, and hurriedly undressed, pausing only to make a wry face at her unbleached muslin nightgown, entirely without trimming. She brushed her hair with a worn brush, braided it, tied it with a bit of shoestring, and climbed ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... perception and discrimination in the simple dishes on which they thrive; much choice, though little refusal. Andrew had a great dislike to lumps in his porridge; and one day the mother having been less careful than usual in cooking it, he made a wry ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... gets her to swim at top of the table, where her wry little finger bewrays carving; her neighbours at the latter end know they are welcome, and for that purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to and among, and so becomes a woman of good entertainment, for all the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... would be no religion at all," said Madame Piedefer, who had been making strangely wry ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... in practice at his age, with no connection, I did not at the moment enquire. Neither did Paragot. It was Paragot's easy way to leap to ends and let the means take care of themselves. He drained his glass meditatively and then with a wry ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... hump-backed, wry-necked chap hoisting his face up as if trying to look into a basket on ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... penumbra cast by the lamp's broad shade. The girl inclined gracefully her small head with the glossy hair. The Incubus, his thin hands clasped on his knee, his sallow face twisted in one of its customary wry smiles, held to the edge of his chair ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!—foreign cabbage and beef!—foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the Squire made a wry face, and spat ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... cried Sydney, with a wry face and a shudder; "it's horrid. I declare, when I'm a doctor, I'll never give ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... guarded," replied Old Beard, with a wry smile. "They don't have to guard it. All they have to guard are the supply room where the marsuits are kept and the motor pool of groundcars. This place is in the middle of the Desert of Candor, and no one can live in the Martian desert ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... and so long as they were able to do this, they were safe. The two antagonists were the best hands in the country for a song, and their stock seemed inexhaustible. Once or twice the flaxdresser made a wry face, frowned, and turned to the women with a disappointed look. The grave-digger sang something so old that his adversary had forgotten it, or perhaps had never known it; but instantly the good woman took up the burden of the song with a shrill voice, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... voluble on the subject of her distinguished ancestors, even shrimp salad has its uses. Now, under normal conditions my perverted and plebeian taste regards shrimp salad as a banality, but at that dinner I ate it with apparent relish, and tried not to make a wry face. But, worst of all, I complimented the hostess upon the excellence of the dinner, and extolled the salad particularly, although we both knew that the salad was a failure, and that the dinner itself convicted the cook of ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... thing to do," said Uncle Dan, setting down his glass of claret, with a wry face. He felt sure that the wine had been ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... robes of Mrs. Surratt, and bind her ankles with cords. She half fainted, and sank backward upon the attendants, her limbs yielding to the extremity of her terror, but uttering no cry, only a kind of sick groaning, like one in the weakness of fever, when a wry medicine must ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... in amazement. How mad she was; it amused him to see her. She had always been so very refined, but now she could never make a wry face again when his father rapped out an oath or two. Besides, he never meant any harm by it, but she was furious to-day—ugh! He put his arm round her waist and said jokingly, "H'm, the Pani is in a bad ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... train, a large factory greeted our vision, across the road from the railway station. We walked up a faintly familiar street to the village square. There we paused, with wry faces. Six trolley lines converged in its centre, and out of the surrounding country were rolling in great cars, as big almost as Pullmans. All the magnificent horse-chestnut trees that once lined the walks were down, to expose more brazenly to view the rows ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... evening! It is like pulque; one makes wry faces at it at first, and then begins to like it. One thing we soon discovered; which was, that the bulls, if so inclined, could leap upon our platform, as they occasionally sprang over a wall twice as high. There was a part of the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... old woman, with a humorous wry face, yellow and deeply lined, sharp black eyes, and a ready manner, stood behind a small bar and took note of us upon our entrance, with the air of one well able to judge our ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... saying that he did not feel in need of a bed, but did feel in need of a square meal. But the boys, laughing at the wry faces and savage speeches he made, helped him off with his clothes, turned out the lights, and dropped out of the window into an alley which ran, one story below, at ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... manned by eight Englishmen, who asked to be taken on board as passengers, and told such a very improbable story of having been deserted by their captain, that D'Urville suspected them of being escaped convicts; a suspicion which became a conviction, when he saw the wry faces they made at his proposal to send them back to Port Jackson. The next day, however, one took a berth as sailor, and two were received as passengers; whilst the other five decided to remain on land and drag out a ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... that part of it," resumed Alec, making a wry face. "Aunt Susan is peculiar, and immensely wealthy, so that money needn't stand in the way of her doing anything she fancies. In some way or other it seems she heard about a queer place away up here in the woods. It is known ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... time the monkeys had been cooked the appetites of all the party had considerably increased. Although the midshipmen made some wry faces at first, after a few mouthfuls they went on eating monkey as if they had been accustomed to it all their lives. Nick and Pipes advised that they should keep up the fire all night, as otherwise they might find that somebody had been carried off by a huge species of tiger ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... fugitive-slave law,—we gulped it; they must no longer be insulted with the Missouri Compromise,—we repealed it. Thus far the North had surely been faithful to the terms of the bond. We had paid our pound of flesh whenever it was asked for, and with fewer wry faces, inasmuch as Brother Ham underwent the incision. Not at all. We had only surrendered the principles of the Revolution; we must give up the theory also, if we would be ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... up and down the deck from sea-sickness. He will not take enough of the sailor's fare to do him any good, and the wry faces which he makes over a few mouthfuls are pitiful. Before he could get the sails shifted, I am sure the wind would change, and though the crew try to be polite, they can't help laughing to see what an awkward hand he is at doing any ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... little time to talk while they were engaged with the capers of this surprising food; but when both were tired of playing with the spaghetti they turned their attention to the straw-covered bottle of Chianti which had been brought. Sally made a wry mouth at her first venture. She had yet to learn that the wine was heavier than any she had yet drunk. She strained her ears to catch more of what the fascinatingly conceited young man was saying about ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Go to the Governor," said the old lady, her little girl, a wry-mouthed charwoman and a little boy whom Jo had noticed stealing our cigarettes. The dog joined in and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... wry face, but bowed assent. It would empty his stables very nearly, but he knew when he could not help himself. Mahommed Gunga clapped a hand to his mouth and left ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... bears upon the younger man with intolerable weight, his heavily-shouldered figure seems to swell and fill the room. Julius is clearly conscious of hating his saviour, and the consciousness is acid on his palate as he asks, with a wry smile: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... definite way to certain special stimuli. In such cases, however, there is no conscious control of the movements, the bodily organs merely responding in a definite way whenever the proper stimulus is present. The eye, for instance, must wink when any foreign matter affects it; wry movements of the face must accompany the bitter taste; and the body must start at a sudden noise. At other times, bodily movements may be produced in a more spontaneous way. Here the physical energy stored within the system gives ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... said the father. "No friture, and we come to St. Cloud?" he muttered deeply in rage. His wife proceeded to make horribly wry faces, whereat Rob Roy irreverently laughed, but he was not observed, for they noticed nothing of the external trifling world. The daughters heaved deep sighs, and then burst into voluble and loud denunciations. Then the son (who wanted dinner at any rate, and the objurgations might do afterwards) ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... to go ag'in," said Shif'less Sol, with a wry smile. "Seems to me this is about the longest footrace I ever run. Sometimes I like to run, but I like to run only when I like it, and when I don't like it I don't like for anybody to make me do it. But here goes, anyhow. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lady to whom he spoke, smiled, and said she should be very happy; but the aunt made a wry face, and observed that she intended to have asked him to introduce his friend, Major ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... convincing at that moment. There was a wry half-smile on his face. He looked absolutely human; absolutely like the British correspondent Coburn had met in Salonika. He was too convincing. Coburn knew he would suspect his own sanity unless he ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you were when I got here you would think there was a magic ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... wry face, and the other grown-ups laughed, to see the difficulty she experienced ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... French, and as she was as you see her, her success could not be said to be great. No, but that made no difference. The Duchesse de Z—— was determined that her son should marry the rich heiress. As she expected to remain here a year or more, and the young Duc de Z—— made a wry face, she did not press the matter. Then the heiress went into a convent to learn French, and the Duchesse went to see her very often and took her to drive, and did her son's part as well ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... absent friend," he said, making a wry mouth. "I detest all those artists, and all those writers, and all politicos who are thieves; and I would go even farther and higher, laying a curse on all idle lovers of women. You think perhaps I am a Royalist? No. If there was anybody ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... there's where it is. Make a wry path through your fields, and still you'll walk in it! I never ought to ha' got in the habit of lending you that key. What's the good of a key if a man can never keep it in his pocket? When I lived up at Mr. Daniel Mortimer's, the children ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... passed down the little narrow room, but when she came to the critical spot, the supposed meeting ground, her desire to laugh conflicting with the effort to pull a long face, caused such a wry contortion of her plump visage that seriousness deserted them once more, and they bubbled over in mirth that would have been boisterous had it not been prudently muffled in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... First Lieutenant, with a little wry smile, as the shadow-fingers of the might-have-been tightened momentarily round his heart. "No, I think you'd better wait till Mummie comes." Shrill voices and peals of laughter sounded outside. "Here ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... wry smile, "'tis the women that have the tongues, and that can't he stopped from usin' them. Even ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... at her, gave his wry smile. It was good to see his Missy this way again, in bloom like a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... mavis meaned[2] her of her song; The woodwale bered[3] as a bell, That all the wood about me rong. Alone in longing thus as I lay Underneath a seemly tree, 10 Saw I where a lady gay Came riding over a longe lea. If I should sit to Doomesday With my tongue to wrable and wry[4], Certainly that lady gay 15 Never be she described for me! Her palfrey was a dapple-gray,[5] Swilk[6] one ne saw I never none; As does the sun on summer's day, That fair lady herself she shone. 20 Her saddle ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... out of a broken collar. He had first been interested in Thea Kronborg because of her bluntness, her country roughness, and her manifest carefulness about money. The mention of Harsanyi's name always made him pull a wry face. For the first time Thea had a friend who, in his own cool and guarded way, liked her for whatever was least admirable ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the young man, with a wry smile. "Your years again protect you. But you have a son, and if by to-morrow it should come to pass that you have a son no more, you may account yourself, through this"—and again he pointed ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Gurta; "you'll improve in time, though you make wry faces, now that you're young. Well, and have you brought me any news from the capitol? Is any one getting a rise in the world, or a downfall? How blows the wind? Are there changes in the camp? This Decius, I ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... slapped a summons on him. It makes me squirm to think how delighted I was to know we had actually begun our case. Hawkins hired a lawyer, I believe, and pretended he was going to put up a defence, but I bought him off and we got our decree by default. Then, gentlemen"—Dillingham paused with a wry face—"I had the inestimable privilege of marrying my ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... and it became the fashion for ladies to send him a slice of bread and butter to take a bite out of, and subsequently frame the slice with the piece bitten out, or wear it on State occasions as a necklace pendant. At length the King felt himself, with many wry faces, compelled to make the Prime Minister a K.C.B., a K.G., and other typographical combinations, together with an earl, and subsequently ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... ever hear that beggars can't be choosers?" Eleanor said, with rather a wry little smile. "I should not wish to stay in any school as a teacher if I could avoid such a fate, but I can't; and I am at least sensible enough to be thankful that my bread-and-butter, and a roof over my head, and a bed, and a few other little ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. We shall hardly be able to do this if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past or over our anxiety for the future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or uneasiness about what is to come. There ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... he added, making a wry face. "I had reached the stage, you see, when I could imagine in a new dimension. I was able to conceive the shape of that new figure which is intrinsically different to all we know—the shape of the tessaract. I could perceive in four dimensions. When, therefore, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Doctor Oleander and Mr. Sardonyx to propose; and if they discover I've accepted the baronet, they won't. I am dying to see the wry faces they will make over 'No, thanks!' ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... them fit for fair societies. How monstrous and detested is't to see A fellow that has neither art nor brain, Sit like an Aristarchus, or start ass, Taking men's lines with a tobacco face, In snuff still spitting, using his wry'd looks, In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn The good aspect of those that shall sit near him, From what they do behold! O, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... yourselves; I imagine you will end it in the quarrel. How black it is, and what black sermons flew out of it—ravens, instead of white doves, of the Holy Spirit. He was the friend of Jonathan Edwards." She made a wry face as he put the box back into the closet; and she laughed again as she locked ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... town was thus filled with women the King had them all drawn up in a line, and he walked up and down from top to bottom, and as he examined and measured each from head to foot one appeared to him wry-browed, another long-nosed, another broad-mouthed, another thick-lipped, another tall as a may-pole, another short and dumpy, another too stout, another too slender; the Spaniard did not please him on account of her dark colour, the Neopolitan was not to ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... liony-piony! Understands um's dear old friend Andy Wandy. (The lion licks his face). Yes, kissums Andy Wandy. (The lion, wagging his tail violently, rises on his hind legs and embraces Androcles, who makes a wry face and cries) Velvet paws! Velvet paws! (The lion draws in his claws). That's right. (He embraces the lion, who finally takes the end of his tail in one paw, places that tight around Androcles' waist, resting it on his hip. Androcles takes the other paw in his hand, stretches ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... up natural history and a whole lot of other subjects at the same time, and one can't remember everything, can one? I used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the ordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlier than the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes in growing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once, but I ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... partook of a tolerably substantial basin of broth and bread. Just as the light was fading away, Atkins approached my bedside with something in a wine-glass which he invited me to swallow. I drank it off, made a wry face at its decidedly nauseous flavour, and soon ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Turks! God bless us, Tavarishi," he added with a wry face, "it takes a stronger stomach to love these beasts than ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... for since Antonia has been with me I sometimes play to her upon this violin. For Antonia is fond of it—very fond of it." As the Councillor uttered these words with visible signs of emotion, I felt encouraged to hazard the question, "Will you not play it to me, Councillor." Krespel made a wry face, and falling into his drawling, singing way, said, "No, my good sir!" and that was an end of the matter. Then I had to look at all sorts of rare curiosities, the greater part of them childish trifles; at last thrusting his arm into a chest, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... violent criticism, [Hebrew: 'WRY] might be translated my awaking; but it will require an extraordinary critical mind to turn [Hebrew: NQPW Z'T] into though this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... Rouen, of Lyons, and of Bordeaux, in order that he might be able to complete the useful tasks he had begun at Limoges. It was in that district, which had become dear to him, that he was sought out by the kindly remembrance of Abbe de Wry, his boyhood's friend, who was intimate with Madame de Maurepas. Scarcely had he been installed in the department of marine and begun to conceive vast plans, when the late ministers of Louis XV. succumbed at last beneath the popular ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... makes a great many wry mouths at some parts of the Decalogue—we will not particularise them—but the Bishop of London is resolute, and the new Lord Chancellor is, in all respects ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... establissements of Samara. There it was a pleasant effervescing drink, with only the slightest tinge of acidity; here it was a "still" liquid, strongly resembling very thin and very sour butter-milk. My Russian friend made a wry face on first tasting it, and I felt inclined at first to do likewise, but noticing that his grimaces made an unfavourable impression on the audience, I restrained my facial muscles, and looked as if I liked it. Very soon I really ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... evening it was the same, but the next morning he remained steadfastly at his hotel. He had laid out his future course in these words: "I will extend the time to three days; then if I do not hear from her I will get that wry-necked fellow by the throat and twist an explanation from him." But the three days passed and he found the situation unchanged. Then he set as his limit the end of the week, but before the full time had elapsed he was advised by Gerridge that he himself was being followed in his turn by a couple ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... his thanks. "Your praise is very flattering, my lord," said he, with a wry smile, and then proceeded: "It is because I see my case to be so very nearly desperate, that I venture to hope you will not persevere in the course you ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... an hour, great was our delight to see the ground covered in all directions with the water-melons of which we were in search. Igubo and his sons, who had never before seen any, instantly set upon them. They spat out the first, with wry faces. They had seized upon a bitter one. The other blacks, more cautious, ran along, cutting a small piece off with their knives, tasting each in succession, leaving the bitter and only cutting ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... of 'wry-legged' terriers was once in repute, and, to a certain degree, is retained for the purpose of hunting rabbits. It probably originated in some rickety specimens, remarkable for the slow development of their frame, except in the head, the belly, and ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... generally to shuffle about in company with a little fellow that was fat on one side and lean on the other. That is to say, he was warped on one side as if he had been scorched before the fire; he had a wry neck, which made his head lean on one shoulder; his hair was smugly powdered, and he had a round, smirking, smiling, apple face, with a bloom on it like that of a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. We had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, who had, I suspect, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... twitched in a wry smile, but he took Matt Peasley's hand and wrung it heartily, not because he loved Matt Peasley or ever would, but because he had a true appreciation of Abraham Lincoln's philosophy to the effect that a house divided against itself ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... pipe; "according to my notion it's something ashore. Old Hunch was aboard airly this mornin', and that greaser is a sure sign of trouble. Reminds me of a croaking black raven. I'd like to wring his wry neck for him. He ain't fit to associate with respectable pirates ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... you a lemon cut in half and tell you with a wry face and puckered mouth that I am going to suck the juice of this exceedingly sour lemon. As you merely read these lines you may observe that the glands in your mouth have begun to secrete saliva. There is a story of a man who ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... I guess not. No more ocean for Kitty," and she turned her back to the waves, meanwhile pulling a long, wry face. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... down the corners of his mouth in a wry deprecatory smile, eyes us obliquely under a crumpled brow, shrugs his shoulders, and shows us the palms ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... a glass and she, vanquished, drank and drank, making a wry face because of the alcoholic intensity of the liquid. She continued weeping at the same time that her mouth was relishing the heavy sweetness. Her tears were mingled with the beverage that was slipping between ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a young girl, destined to be a nun. She was a naughty little girl and would make wry faces at the thought, and wish she could be a man, a soldier or sailor, instead of being a woman and a nun; and as she grew older she would dance all the time, and didn't say her prayers very much, and was so bad that the priest sent for her to see him. He told her how wicked she was, and that, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... up. The irony of the thing gripped him, and brought a wry smile to his tight lips. The body of Inaros, her dead lover, lay at her side; and Shabako's still figure was but feet away. Once again they were all together in death. The Kundrenaline had pierced ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Sultan of Cairo Story of the First Lunatic Story of the Second Lunatic Story of the Retired Sage and His Pupil, Related to the Sultan by the Second Lunatic Story of the Broken-backed Schoolmaster Story of the Wry-mouthed Schoolmaster Story of the Sisters and the Sultana Their Mother Story of the Bang-eater and the Cauzee Story of the Bang-eater and His Wife The Sultan and the Traveller Mhamood Al Hyjemmee The Koord Robber Story of the Husbbandman Story of the Three Princes and Enchanting Bird Story ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... thoughts ran on, "that it's a part of the scheme of life that a person must eat his share of crow before he gets in a position to make some one else eat it, but dog-gone!" with a wry face, "I've sure swallowed a double portion." Then he fell to wondering if—he consulted his note-book—J. Winfield Harrah had specialized at all upon his method of serving up this game-bird which knows ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... you know) so I soon whip'd over the way, yet going along two wooden Logger-heads at St. Dunstan's made just them a damn'd Noise about their Quarters, but the sight of me made perfectly Hush in a Minute; now fearing to goe by Chance-a wry-Lane, as being upon the Watch my self and not to be debarr'd at Temple-Bar; I stole up Bell-Yard, but narrowly escap'd being Clapper-claw'd by two Fellows I did not like in the Alley, so was forc'd to goe round with a design to Sheer-off into Sheer-Lane, but ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe
... the indispensable supplies for which your blood is craving; for people knew all about this by experience long before they could explain the why and the wherefore. But now that you are so much better informed than even the most learned men were a century ago, pouting and wry faces at table are no longer excusable, and I should be sadly ashamed of you if I should hear you ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... and sprawling, squatting like a huge and ugly toad on the gale-swept Head, the house Tunis Latham's grandfather had built was three-story, including the mansard roof, painted a tobacco brown, and it was surrounded by wry-limbed cedars which could grow here because they were sheltered from ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... and then a nod to the others, as if in amicable conclusion of the affair, Jack wheeled around to the counter, disclosing Leddy's face wry with insupportable chagrin. His revolver was still in his hand. In the swift impulse of one at bay who finds himself released, he brought it up. There was murder, murder from behind, in the catlike quickness of his movement; but Jim Galway was equally quick. He threw his whole weight toward ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... desert the bus," complained the other, giving his wrecked plane a wry look. "But then what's the use of sticking it out? Chances are we'll be through the mess before they ever get it in fighting trim again. Yes, I'll go along, boys, if you'll lend me a shoulder. Gave that game leg another little knock in falling; but then, I might ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... A man came out with a lighted lamp. "Come right in," he then said; "you won't cut our heads off." In the kitchen there were, besides the man, a middle-aged woman, an old mother, and five children. All crowded around the newcomer and scrutinized him with timid curiosity. A wretched figure! Wry-necked, with his back bent, his whole body broken and powerless; long hair, white as snow, fell about his face, which bore the distorted expression of long suffering. The woman went silently to the hearth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Jeannette, with a wry face; 'tea,—c'est medecine!' She had arranged her hair in fanciful braids, and now followed me to the kitchen, enjoying the novelty like a child. 'Cafe?' she said. 'O, ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... a wry face, though comical withal, and said, cheerily, "Everybody must like what brings them their daily bread. It's a grand thing for me not to have been ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... trouble," Kaiser observed dryly. And on that uncomplimentary comment King Karl slept, his face drawn into a wry smile. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wry face, as if she had been eating something nasty. Mr. Granger gave a great yawn, and, as the rooms by this time were almost empty, made his way to Lady Laura in order to offer his congratulations upon her triumph ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and Powell stumbled to his feet. Joan was already up again, standing close beside him. From the wry expression upon her face, Powell knew that she had also been ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... had it not been for the authoritative interference of the manager, they would have tossed him in a blanket. I was confounded by this sad turn of affairs, the manager was incensed, the players very merry; and the poor forlorn poet, with great patience, but a somewhat wry face, took the comedy, thrust it into his bosom, muttering, "It is not right to cast pearls before swine," and sadly quitted the place without another word. I was so mortified and ashamed that I could not follow him, and the manager caressed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... talk," she said, "you are to sleep. Slumber is to be your diet and medicine after that good soup at which you make such a wry face." ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... excuses took my place, and I lay quietly in bed, dreaming by the firelight, and singing hymns to myself. Once in a while the thought would occur to me, "Why don't I go down?" But it was always answered with a wry face, and the hymn went on. Yet I knew he had ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... while he waited for his wife to bring on some cold barley-pudding, which, to my surprise, she was frying herself. I also saw a queer moonstruck-looking man inquiring the way to Norridge; and another man making wry faces over some plum-pudding, with which he had burnt his mouth, because his friend came down ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... of the incidents relating to Gregg's party embraced in this chapter.] and Buck went in different directions to find water. Wood returned first with a bucketful, brackish and poor. Buck soon after arrived with a supply that looked much better, but when Gregg sampled it he made a wry face and asked Buck where he found it. He replied that he dipped it out of a smooth lake about a half mile distant. It was good plain salt water; they had discovered the mythical bay—or supposed they had. They credulously named it Trinity, expecting to come to the river later. The next day they ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... out his wry clothing, and moved slowly up the Calle Grande through the hot sand. He moved without a destination in his mind. The little town was languidly stirring to its daily life. Golden-skinned babies tumbled over one another in the grass. The sea breeze ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... who in turn, promptly presented it to the now clamorous Bonny, and had the pleasure of seeing the little one drink deeply before she discovered for herself that it was not her accustomed milk, and rejected the remainder. Both the workman and Take-a-Stitch laughed at the little one's wry face, while having divided the bread and meat into three fair portions, all fell to with a will, so that soon not a ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond |
