"Twisted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... led over an old lava flow—a black ocean which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes—a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, and barrenness—a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains rent asunder—of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of blackness that mimicked branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees, all interlaced and mingled together: and all these weird shapes, all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, far-stretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... didst but consent To this most cruell Act: do but dispaire, And if thou want'st a Cord, the smallest thred That euer Spider twisted from her wombe Will serue to strangle thee: A rush will be a beame To hang thee on. Or wouldst thou drowne thy selfe, Put but a little water in a spoone, And it shall be as all the Ocean, Enough to stifle such a villaine vp. I do suspect ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a year since I have played the beau, Father. It may be that I have forgotten the role." He spread out his hands and looked at the twisted fingers. "But I can try, like a soldier. And there are three of us, Father Claude, there ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might seem like triumphing over a fallen rivel, led him to keep away from the hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... his family affection. This man had also killed for him his only child. For the child had renounced him, had thrust him outside herself into the lonely and ruined temple of his pride. At the first thought his face twisted with emotion, then hardened ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... hair piled on her head into an edifice twisted with gauze and feathers that granted her five inches more of height, looked a Roman empress—her fine bust displayed to advantage and sustaining a necklace of stage emeralds set in pinchbeck, which could not be told from the veritable jewels, so closely were they copied for ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... river. During their campaign in Maryland, the rebels at one time made this river their line of defence: it was supposed that they would make here a stand against McClellan's advance from Washington. They had burnt the woodwork of the bridge, twisted the long iron rods of the structure to one side, destroyed all the railroad building, engines, and cars they could lay hands on, and had done everything to retard our force. A new bridge had now been recently built, over which we were obliged to pass slowly. Immediately after leaving the river, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pathetic couple ran up the torn and twisted track, Donny began to sob aloud; but all he ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... the corpse with a belt and shell armlets, cut off the nails of the fingers and toes, and kept them as relics. They spread the grave with a mat, and buried all the body but the head. After ten days the friends twisted off the head, extracted the teeth to be kept as relics, and preserved the skull also. In cases of sickness and other calamities they presented offerings of food to the skulls of the dead. The teeth of the old women were taken ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the glad sunlight and the breath of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... in France are at every point consistent with his earlier doctrine. The charge that he supported the Revolution in America and deserted it in France is without meaning; for in the one there is no word that can honorably be twisted to support the other. And when we make allowances for the grave errors of personal taste, the gross exaggeration, the inability to see the Revolution as something more than a single point in time, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... upon his back— It must have been a soul! I saw it fling And twist about inside, and not a hole Or cranny for escape. Oh, it was sad. I cried, and shouted out, "Let out that soul!" But he turned round, and, sure, his face went mad, And twisted up and down, and he said "Hell!" And ran away.... Oh, mammy! ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... term corresponding to our Roundheads. The democratic or anti-Medicean party in Florence at that time, who adhered to the republican principles of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, distinguished themselves by wearing the long tails of their hoods twisted up and turned round their heads. Cellini shows his Medicean sympathies by using this contemptuous term, and by the honourable mention he makes of Prinzivalle ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... the pope for annulment of marriage, but the unhappy Clement VII, now in the emperor's fist, felt unable to give it to him. He writhed and twisted, dallied with the proposals that Henry should take a second wife, or that his illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond should marry his half sister Mary; in short he was ready to grant a dispensation for anything save ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... sombre church was of dazzling old gold, with a profusion of twisted columns, of complicated entablements, of statues with excessive convolutions and with draperies in the style of the Spanish Renaissance. And this magnificence of the tabernacle was in contrast with the simplicity of the lateral walls, simply kalsomined. But an air of extreme old age ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... who first saw that recumbent figure. A hoarse inarticulate groan escaped him. He twisted clear of the hands that supported him and by a superhuman effort staggered to his feet, he even took an uncertain step in the direction of the bed, his starting eyes fixed on the spare figure. Then his strength deserted him and with a cry that rose to ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... of those who 'suffer the loss of all things, and count them but dung, that they may win' God for their dearest treasure. We have seen how, in her, human love wrought self-sacrifice. But it was not human love alone that did it. The cord that drew her was twisted of two strands, and her love to Naomi melted into her love of Naomi's God. Blessed they who are drawn to the knowledge and love of the fountain of all love in heaven by the sweetness of the characters ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... imagine more than one cavil being made against this by the most carping of critics and the most wedded to the crotchet of "kinds"—that it is too dramatic for a story, and that we ought to have had it as a drama. If this were further twisted into an accusation of plagiarism from the actual theatre, I think it could be rebutted at once. The situations separately might be found in many dramas; the characters in more; but I at least am not aware of any one in which they ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... put up a gallant fight, but what, pray, are two stout arms against six just as stout? What, say, avails two strong legs that are pressed, hugged, jammed together by a human snake who has twisted herself about them, and is ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... her hair grew lang, And twisted thrice about the tree; And all the people far and near, Thought that a savage beast was she; These news did come to Kemp Owyne, Where he lived far ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise: Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... glided blind into my room, lay down upon her bier, and awaited the resurrection. I sat and awaited mine, panting to untwine from my heart the cold death-worm that twisted around it, yet picturing to myself the glow of love on the averted face of the beautiful spirit—averted from me, and bending on a radiant companion all the light withdrawn from the lovely form beside me. That ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... has he, Sandy?" says I, lookin' at the great, big, ravelled-lookin' brute. He was a' twisted here and there, an' the legs o' him lookit for a' the world juiat like bits o' crunckled water-hose. The cairt appeared to be haudin' him up, raither than him haudin' up the cairt; an' he was restin' the thrawn ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... women! Suffragettes! A "Bah!" exploded with a loud report. Hereafter he would show who voted in the Killigrew family. Poor man! He was made of that unhappy mental timber which agrees thoughtlessly to a proposition for the sake of peace and then regrets it in the name of war. His wife and daughter twisted him round their little fingers and then hunted cover when he found out what ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... the foot of the bed, Alice," said Hester; "she fastened a string to her toe, and twisted the other end round the bed-post, last night; pull it, Alice, it ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... was overgrown with coarse herbage. The outer and inner surfaces of the wall were of stones, and the middle part was filled in with earth; so that grass might well grow on the top. The roof was of thatch—part straw, part sods, tied down to cross poles by ropes of twisted heather. The walls did not rise more than five feet from the ground; and nothing could be easier than for the goats to leap up, when tempted to graze there. A kid was now amusing itself on one corner. As Lady Carse walked round, she was startled at seeing a woman sitting on the opposite ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... between two chairs, one of his feet evidently thrust through a broken window and the other still held by that convulsive clasp. Miss Morison was half above him, partly supported by a chair which still held by its fastenings to the floor. He could not see her face, and his body was so twisted that he could not move his head with freedom. Berenice was evidently insensible, but whether stunned from the shock or more seriously hurt he could not tell. He struggled fiercely to free himself, straining her to his breast. There were still ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... spoke or chanted these last words, she undid from her locks a silver bodkin around which they were twisted, and gave it to Halbert Glendinning; then shaking her dishevelled hair till it fell like a veil around her, the outlines of her form gradually became as diffuse as her flowing tresses, her countenance grew pale as the moon in her first quarter, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait; Though fanned by conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!' Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scattered ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... when the beams of the sun are cold, there is no step to his house that he may alight in comfort; the way is not made clear for him that he may start straight for the flowers, nor are any sown for him. He has no shelter if the storm descends suddenly; he has no dome of twisted straw well thatched and tiled to retreat to. The butcher-bird, with a beak like a crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced with a thorn; but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he must ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... far back on his head, from which sprouted the wing of a blackcock in as close imitation as Master Laurence dared compass of the Earl Douglas himself. His bow was slung at his back all ready for the inspection. A sash of orange silk was twisted about his slim waist, and in this he would set his thumb knowingly, and stare boldly as often as the pair of brothers overtook a pretty girl. For Master Laurence loved beauty, and thought not ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... seven o'clock, as I should judge by the light beyond the trees and upon the side of the mountain, with the whole champaign laid out like a carpet under us on one side, prodigious slopes of rock on either hand, with only a shrub or a twisted fir here and there, and on the further side a horrid stark ravine with a cascade of water thundering down in its midst, and a peak rising beyond, covered with snow, which glittered in the sunlight like a monstrous heap ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... respecting the construction and equipment of the Egyptian ships. According to Herodotus, they were made of thorns twisted together, and their sails of rush mats: they were built in a particular manner, quite different from those of other nations, and rigged also in a singular manner; so that they seem to have been the mockery of the other ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... not so fortunate as to find time for sleep last night." He smiled again with humorous, half twisted mouth. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... who traffics on the future as on the past, receiving pay with both hands, who sells horoscopes and is supposed to know all things,—that semi-devil came in, saying to the old man, 'Good-day to you, brother.' With him he brought a hideous old woman,—toothless, humpbacked, twisted, bent, like a Chinese image, only worse. She was wrinkled as a withered apple; her skin was saffron-colored; her chin bit her nose; her mouth was a mere line scarcely visible; her eyes were like the black spots ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... for not arising, Mr. Barnes," said Royalty, a wry little smile on her lips. "I fear I twisted it more severely than I thought at first. It ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... hit her," he had sobbed, his torn face bleeding anew as it twisted in crying. "He hurt her, and Daddy was gone and then—and then ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... any of his warriors they would not permit him to retain it, and he was so fearful that they would see it that he began maneuvering with a view of getting it into his possession. No one is more skillful at this sort of business than a boy about his age. Ned groaned, and twisted forward and backward, as if to seek relief, and when he finally secured a little more comfort and resumed his upright position the revolver was safely hid beneath his waistcoat, he having placed it there without attracting ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... station, but he had mine, which was right heavy, and seeing there was a good stretch of open road before we began to go up the hill on the top of which was Miss Susanna's home, I told him he had better sit down a minute and rest, and I got up on the worm fence and twisted my feet around the rail below, and looked at him before he knew what I was going to do. He coughed a little and looked at his watch and said it was rather late to be resting, as Miss Susanna might be going to bed, and that if I were not too ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... seems to have been that he clung to at his death. This stone is about a yard long and three quarters broad, of a grey colour with some red spots. On its middle there is a carved porch, having letters between two borders, and within two banisters, on which are two twisted figures resembling dogs in a sitting posture. From their heads springs a graceful arch of five borders, between every two of which are knobs resembling heads. In the hollow of this arch or portal is a pedestal of two steps, from the upper of which rises a branch on each side, and over ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... instrument not included in the small band of the professional musicians, but was twisted and shaken and thumped on hand and knee and toe by no less an amateur than Mr. ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... would fain be rich, And rich who thought they were poor; And men who twisted their waist in stays, And women ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... "overs," and slip the knitted stitch) 6 times, slip the 6 long stitches to left-hand needle, draw the last 3 over 1st 3, knitting each, then knit the 1st 3, and repeat, knitting 1 at end of row. Take care the long stitches are not twisted. ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... ye," said the skipper, dropping his eyes as if he could not stand being gazed at; and I could see his face twitching about in a queer manner, and his hands trembling, as he turned and twisted the fingers together. "I mean the nigger an' thet other skunk thaar—the white man thet's got a blacker heart inside his carkiss than the nigger hez. Whaar hev they ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fired their guns they ran towards us and yelled so frightfully, that the wounds and the yelling of the Indians scared my horse so that he jumped so suddenly to one side of the road, that my gun fell off my shoulder, and twisted out of my hand; I then bore all my weight on one stirrup, in order to catch my gun, but could not. I had a large bag of beaver fur, which prevented me from recovering my saddle, and having no girth nor crupper to my saddle, it turned and fell off my horse, and I fell with ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... "we'll tell her he twisted his ankle coming down the step at 'The Chequers'—would to God he had!" So saying, we clapped on our hats and sallied out together arm in arm. Jack and I are near neighbours, so that a walk of some fifteen minutes brought us to the Manor, ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... boots they worked the body inch by inch up the steep slope, and the dry lips of the old squaw curled in a snaggy grin as she noted the shattered leg and the toe of the boot twisted backward—a grin that deepened into a grimace of sardonic cruelty at the feel of the grating rasp of the shattered ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... borne him, and bidding to quaff it Graciously given, and gold that was twisted Pleasantly proffered, a pair of arm-jewels, [42] Rings and corslet, of collars the greatest 5 I've heard of 'neath heaven. Of heroes not any More splendid from jewels have I heard ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... grow upon him, the want of which made him so uneasy. He therefore resolv'd to help himself, and thereupon gets him some Broad Leaves of Trees, of which he made two Coverings, one to wear behind, the other before; and made a Girdle of Palm-Trees and Rushes Twisted together, to Hang his coverings upon, and Ty'd it about his waste, and so wore it. But alas it would not last long, for the Leaves wither'd and dropt away; so that he was forc'd to get more, which he doubled and put together as well as he could, Plaiting the Leaves one upon another, which made ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... and Appendicitis. The beginning of the large bowel, where the small bowel empties into it, is the largest part of it, and forms a curious pouch called the cecum, or "blind" pouch. From one side of this projects a little wormlike tube, twisted and coiled upon itself, from three to six inches long and of about the size of a slate pencil. This is the famous appendix vermiformis (meaning, "wormlike tag"), which is such a frequent source of trouble. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... thick and stronger sort serves to sleep on, and to make sails for their canoes, &c. Among other useful utensils, they have various sorts of baskets; some are made of the same materials as their mats; and others of the twisted fibres of cocoa-nuts. These are not only durable but beautiful; being generally composed of different colours, and studded with beads made of shells or bones. They have many little nick-nacks amongst them; which shews that they neither want taste to design, nor skill ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... hastily, but in perfect time, with both arms extended upwards and at an angle from the shoulders, the two kerchiefs waving all the time to the movements of the body. During all his movements the arms, hands, and fingers are twisted and turned with graceful and varied, but measured, modulation. Now he raises one shoulder and then another. Now he gazes up with a look of defiance upon his countenance, as if at some imaginary foe, and then down, as if in quest of something. At one time ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... month went by. The soldier baked white bread, walked around with the embroidery girls, came quite often to our workshop, but never told us of his success with the girls; he only twisted his moustache and licked his ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... interest, probably remarking to themselves that it must need good nerves to maintain one's self in such a position. Don Paolo, especially, was more nervous than the rest, owing, perhaps, to what had occurred in the morning. All at once, as he watched Gianbattista's twisted attitude, as the apprentice strained himself and turned so as to drive the screw effectually, the foot of the ladder seemed to move a little on the smooth marble pavement. With a quick movement Don Paolo stepped forward, with the intention of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... second promises repose; but almost immediately his head begins to pound the seat, and beat a lively rat-a-plan on the board. The head of a wooden idol couldn't stand this treatment more than a minute. The fiddler twisted and turned, but his head went like a triphammer on the seat. I have never seen a devotional attitude so deceptive, or one that produced less favorable results. The young man rose from ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... my turn, and saw a man lying half-dressed on the carpet, with his legs drawn up under him, his arms contorted and his face quite white, an emaciated, fleshless face, with the eyes still staring in terror and the mouth twisted ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... dressing gown fell away from his throat and showed the knotting of the great cords that ran down into his shoulders, and his dark eyes glittered under their heavy, black brows, while his mouth was twisted and white. Then, as I looked, something happened. A stealthy padding of feet came around the house from the garden and up the back steps, under the budding rose vine that was climbing through the trellis as if to clutch at the light, and a huge ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was matter beyond words. Leaving the road, we floundered over what seemed like ash heaps, but which had once been German trenches faced and reinforced by concrete and steel plates. Many of these last lay here and there, awfully bent and twisted, but of trenches I saw none save a few yards here and there half filled with indescribable debris. It was, indeed, a place of horror—a frightful desolation beyond all words. Everywhere about us were signs of dreadful death—they came to one in the very air, in lowering heaven and tortured ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... instant the sea and everything upon it, from horizon to horizon, is illumined by a light brighter than that of day; and in that single instant Blyth sees not only the brig, enveloped in a perfect network of fire, but also the huge piles of cloud overhead, twisted and distorted into a hundred fantastic shapes by the forces at work within them, and the black glistening water, carved into countless hollows and ridges by the agitation of its surface; the whole apparently motionless as if modelled ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... cried Maria Angelina in dismay. She twisted for a view and the movement drew Ruth's glance along her ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... an important person that I must describe him. He was a short, slight, though broad-shouldered Indian, wearing a grey flannel shirt, striped cloth trousers, alpaca coat, prunella boots, and black felt hat, with several folds of pink and white net twisted round it. He always had a broad grin on his face, and a hearty "Bon jour, nitchee," for every one. The dress of his companion or partner differed from Joe's only in the absence of boots and hat, and wearing the hair braided in two long tails, instead ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... her in two strides. Seizing her arm he twisted it with a savage wrench and flung her tottering behind him. The pain forced a cry from the girl, and Ahmara laughed. That was more than the men could stand, for to them Sanda was always the White Angel, Ahmara the Black; ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the street—the lantern was gone, and in its stead there was only the glimmer of a mysterious light moving about the yard,—a light that fell now on the bare wall, now on the front steps, making threads of gold of the twisted iron railings, then on the posts of the leaning fence, against which hung three feathery objects,—grotesque and curious in the changing shadows,—and again on some barrels and boxes surrounded ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rabble seizing the rope by both ends tugged and pulled, and laboured long to strangle and overthrow the poor old turret, but in vain, for it withstood all their endeavours. Now that is exactly the condition of my poor stomach: there is a rope twisted round it, and the malicious devils are straining and tugging at it, and, faith, I could almost think that I sometimes hear them shouting and cheering each other to their task, and when they are at it I always have the little turret and its tormentors before ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... nothing you wouldn't approve of—or find excuses for. But that's because you—I—all of us in this class—and in most other classes—have been trained to false ideas—no, to perverted ideas—to a system of morality that's twisted to suit the demands of practical life. On Sundays we go to a magnificent church to hear an expensive preacher and choir, go in expensive dress and in carriages, and we never laugh at ourselves. Yet we are going in the name of One who was born in a stable and who ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... broke, and we stopped in front of a solitary hut to ask for a stout string. A squid was drying on a pole and scenting the air with its fishy odors. In answer to our call an old man in a calico shirt came out of the hut, and, taking some strips of hou-bark, twisted them into a strong string and fastened the stirrup. I gave him a real, and he exclaimed "Aloha!" with apparently as much surprise and delight as if we had enriched him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... showed him the cause of the present trouble. Clarence Conant was actually too much frightened to lower the sails. He had started to act and got a rope twisted, and then, overcome with fear, had allowed the matter to go while he clung to the ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... the twisted, difficult, rather foolish smile of one who is cursing the mortification of a predicament into which he has been cast through no fault of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... a halt at the end of the shift; but in the pattern which they had that day woven into the web of industry, there were two bright threads—threads of great beauty and high worth—threads which the very gods seemed proud of seeing there, twisted and twined, and lending color of richest hue to the whole design—threads of glorious fiber and rare quality, which sparkled and shone like the neck of a pigeon in the sunshine. These threads in the web of industry, which had shone that day for the first time, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... loud with fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his own intimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the fingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood, meeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he had acquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted the lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... and Miss Patty joined the yacht party at Palermo, the former had brought a letter and a package, which sorely tested Leo's strength of will. Leaning to-day against the twisted body of an old olive tree, she opened and read once more, the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "it will be time to leave them." They were lacework now, with a confusion of bare rafters overhead, over which streamed, as if in mockery, the Red-Cross Flag. Grim figures, like geometrical problems gone mad, were made by water and gas pipes torn from their bedding, and twisted as if by the hands of giants in cruel play. The little iron bedsteads of the Sisters, and the holy symbols over them, were the only articles missing from the cells, revealed in section by the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... some rough usage. Planting themselves in his path, they shook their fists in his face, with other gestures of defiance and indignity, and could only be removed by force. Captain Bludder and his roaring blades assumed their fiercest looks, swore their loudest oaths, twisted their shaggy moustaches, and tapped their rapier-hilts; but they prudently forbore to draw their weapons, well knowing that the proceeding would be a signal for a brawl, and that the cry of "Clubs!" ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... believed him readily enough; and poor Harry was twisted shortly after, and I went into Ireland for safety, where I stayed two years,—and deuced ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cried Miss Milray. "I want a hug," and she crushed her to her breast, while the child twisted her face round and anxiously questioned her mother's for her approval. "Tell her it's all right, Clementina!" cried Miss Milray. "When she's as old as you were in Florence, I'm going to make you give her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her. The child was thin and pale; an old ragged sacque was her only outer garment, and the sleeves were so short that half her arms were exposed; on her head was an old untrimmed straw hat; on her feet shoes large enough for a woman; a faded bit of cotton cloth was twisted about her neck; in her hand was a broom, made of a bundle of sticks, such as street-sweepers use. She would make a hasty dash at the snow, and then, as if struggling between duty and pleasure, would rush from her sweeping to the shop window, and gaze with an ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Mademoiselle Rina made her appearance in the costume of a shepherdess—a boddice of silver, short silk petticoats, and a large Cashmere shawl twisted round her waist. She was really charming in this dress. I seized my bass. I fancied myself in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... There was a rush, like the wind-squall that kicks the heels of the rain, and I was midway to my feet when knocked flat on my face. At the same instant I heard Klooch sigh, very much as a man does when you've planted your fist in his belly. You can stake your sack I lay quiet, but I twisted my head around and saw a huge bulk swaying above me. Then the blue sky flashed into view and I got to my feet. A hairy mountain of flesh was just disappearing in the underbrush on the edge of the open. I caught a rear-end glimpse, with a stiff tail, as big in girth as ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... anger, with the determination to impose silence on the father who (if he was talking) it was, for his own [i. e., the corregidor's] good. "Sacrilegious preacher" he exclaimed, but when he attempted to continue his face was suddenly twisted, and he could not utter a word, and he was extremely disfigured and was attacked by most intense pains. He was taken to his house, where the venerable father attended him, and by his only making the sign of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... could not be assigned an orderly place. Not only was a well-articulated State-system suddenly consigned to the flames, but the ruin threatened to be so general that the balance of power throughout the Far East would be twisted out of shape. Japanese statesmen had desired a weak China, a China which would ultimately turn to them for assistance because they were a kindred race, but not a China that looked to the French Revolution for its inspiration. To a people as slow to adjust themselves to violent surprises as are the ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... Squads of Lascars raced about, industriously obedient to the short shrill whistling of jemadars and quartermasters. Boat lashings were tested and tightened, canvas awnings stretched across the deck forward, ventilator cowls twisted to new angles, and hatches clamped down over the wooden gratings that covered the holds. Officers, spotless in white linen, flitted quietly to and fro. When the watch was changed. Iris noted that the "chief" appeared ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... educated in early life for the ministry as for a profession. The love of liberty, and the defiant assertion of equality, so universal in the backwoods, and so excellent in themselves, sometimes took very warped and twisted forms, notably when they betrayed the backwoodsmen into the belief that the true democratic spirit forbade any exclusive and special training for the professions that ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... century—tall gloomy horse-hair chairs, mouldy Turkey carpets with wretched druggets to guard them, little cracked sticking-plaster miniatures of people in tours and pigtails over high-shouldered mantelpieces, two dismal urns on each side of a lanky sideboard, and in the midst a queer twisted receptacle for worn-out knives with green handles. Under the sideboard stands a cellaret that looks as if it held half a bottle of currant wine, and a shivering plate-warmer that never could get any comfort out of the wretched old cramped ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him in an agony of powerlessness to help, the balloon slowly regained the perpendicular, and just as Phillip seemed at the point of exhaustion his feet caught once more in the netting, and, with his arms thrust through the meshes and twisted in and out for security, while his strong teeth also gripped the cord, I saw my husband in comparative safety once more. I turned to relieve my pent-up feelings to Kenneth, but he was not in the car—only his boots. He had seen Phillip's ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Jesus' crime; but that was too flagrant injustice, and too blind confidence in them, for Pilate to grant. So they have to manufacture a capital charge on the spot, and they are equal to the occasion. By the help of two lies, and one truth so twisted as to be a lie, they get up an indictment, which they think will be grave enough to compel the procurator to do as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... constantly find to say to her mother; sometimes they were long and detailed, and that meant, as would appear perhaps by a phrase slurred over in the postscript, that Phil had gone away somewhere. There was never a complaint in them, never a word that could be twisted into a complaint: but the anxious mother read between the lines innumerable things, not half of them true. There is perhaps never a half true of what anxiety may imagine: but then ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... on my chatelaine caught in the lichen and dragged at the chain. It angered me. I took it off the twisted ring ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... and a cruel uncle who wanted her property. And there was a particularly brutal villain with leery eyes, ugly mouth, with one tooth gone, and an iron jaw like a hull-dog's. He was attired in a fur cap, brown corduroy jacket, with a blood-red handkerchief twisted about his throat, and he carried a bludgeon. When the double-dyed villain proceeded in the third act to pound the head of the lovely maiden to a jelly at the instigation of the base uncle, concealed behind a painted ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... its life the Plaice will remain flat, with two eyes looking up, and a twisted head. But its colour alters. The side on which it lies is white; the upper side becomes brown and speckled, dotted over with red marks. This is a good disguise. Its enemies cannot distinguish the Plaice from the pebbles and sand around it. They might swim over it, and yet not see the thin, flat, ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... miscellaneous jumble, although most of it was lumber from the deck-loads of the vessels. Intermingled with the split and broken yellow boards were bits of carving and of painted wood. Carroll saw one piece half buried in the sand which bore in gilt two huge letters, A R. A little farther, bent and twisted, projected the ornamental spear which had pointed the way before the steamer's bow. Portions of the usual miscellaneous freight cargo carried on every voyage were scattered along the shore—boxes, barrels, and crates. Five or six men had rolled a whisky barrel beyond ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... not venture to disturb them, and accordingly came into the inner room, where she found Hsueeh Pao-ch'ai in a house dress, with her hair simply twisted into a knot round the top of the head, sitting on the inner edge of the stove-couch, leaning on a small divan table, in the act of copying a pattern for embroidery, with the waiting-maid Ying Erh. When she saw her enter, Pao Ch'ai hastily put down her pencil, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... attentions, their flirtations that they call mild and innercent, will lead 'em to? Why can't they realize that it haint only themselves they are injurin', but them that are bound to 'em by the most sacred ties that folks can be twisted up in? Why can't they realize that a end must come to it, and it may be a fearful and a shameful one, and if it is a happiness that stops, it will leave in the heart when happiness gets out, a emptiness, a holler place, where like as not onhappiness ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... motion of the car soothed their spirits. They felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. McCurdie ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... nothing in this invective that has not some historical foundation. It is the studiously hostile turn of the phraseology that renders the speech significant. Everything—even the honourable amends made for the Alabama blunder—is twisted to England's reproach. She is "compelled" to do this, and "ordered" to do that. There is here no hint of good feeling, no trace of international amenity, but sheer undisguised hatred and desire to make the worst of things. And this address, be it noted, was the ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... air, as a vehicle, and found the effect in all cases substantially the same. The cloud-column here was exquisitely beautiful. It revolved round the axis of the decomposing beam; it was nipped at certain places like an hour-glass, and round the two bells of the glass delicate cloud-filaments twisted themselves in spirals. It also folded itself into convolutions resembling those of shells. In certain conditions of the atmosphere in the Alps I have often observed clouds of a special pearly lustre; when ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... horrid crew! Some lean and dwindled, Some with boils and blains Blistered, some with tumors swollen, And water in the veins; Some with purple blotches bloated, Some with humors flowing Putrid, some with creeping tetter Like a lichen growing O'er the dry skin scaly-crusted; Some with twisted spine Dwarfing low with torture slow The human form divine; Limping some, some limbless lying; Fever, with frantic air, And pale consumption veiling death With ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... wool that the giants had threshed, and whirled it round and round until it had twisted it into hard thin thread. Then it would make a clutch with fingers of steel at the thread that it had gathered, and waddle away about five yards and come ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... still alive; though the horns of the gemsbok had passed through his body. At the sight of the hunters, the lion, pierced through as he was, raised his head with a loud roar, and struck out with his paw, as he twisted towards them, his eyes glaring like hot coals, and showing his tremendous fangs. Alexander was the first who fired, and the ball penetrating the brain of the noble animal, it fell down dead upon the body ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... any one of which the tiger might easily have been lying in wait and could have killed us as we passed. It was a foolhardy thing to do and I am free to admit that I was scared. It was not long before Harry twisted about and said: "Roy, I haven't lost any tigers in here; let's get out." And out we came faster than ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... flashed at me, "you won't inform on me just for that? I asked you to help me; you were free to refuse—and you agreed! Because it inconvenienced you a little, are you going to turn police agent?" Her red lips twisted proudly, scornfully. "I ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... his hand to Ragnar, who took it frankly, and his strong grip twisted the king's set smile into a grin of ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... buried it was seen in the coffin, and taken out, and laid in it again, and all saw the torments which the man had suffered in his feet, which were swollen and bound up with rags; and also the fingers of his hands had been twisted, so that the inside was turned clean outwards, and on the top of his head was a wound, where priests make the tonsure, as though the scalp had been raised by a knife; and he was dressed in a cotton doublet, yet his own had ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... husband the burden of explanation, which she had originally meant to have all the importance of giving herself in her most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers into the boy's hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to soften to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... returned to their ancient principles, yet there remains a phalanx of old tories and monarchists, more envenomed, as all their hopes become more desperate. Every word of mine which they can get hold of, however innocent, however orthodox even, is twisted, tormented, perverted, and, like the words of holy writ, are made to mean every thing but what they were intended to mean. I trust little, therefore, unnecessarily in their way, and especially on political subjects. I shall not, therefore, be free to answer ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... about two feet long, composed of different colored threads tightly twisted together, from which a quantity of smaller threads were suspended in the manner of a fringe. The threads were of different colors and were tied into knots. The word quipu, indeed, signifies a knot. The colors denoted sensible ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott |
