"Contortion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a spasm seemed to run through him, a horrible boneless contortion of limbs and body, a slippery, twitching movement, a repulsive though almost inaudible clicking of rehabilitated ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... black Caesar was not going to be behind his masters, not he. So he, too, in spite of old Nan's protestations and entreaties, had become a confirmed swearer. It had really grown into so fixed a habit that the words meant nothing: it was no more than a trick of physical contortion of which a man may be utterly unconscious. How to break himself of ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... the phantom that had dispossessed her in his fancy. Unconsciously when he saw her, he transferred the shame that devoured him, from him to her, and gazed coldly at the face that could twist to that despicable contortion. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... impression whatever. Their tastes lay in an entirely different direction. For now, in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, there set in, with an extreme and sudden violence, a fashion for every kind of literary contortion, affectation and trick. The value of a poet was measured by his capacity for turning a somersault in verse—for constructing ingenious word-puzzles with which to express exaggerated sentiments; and no prose-writer was worth ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... fastened them together at the wrists, and which was turned by an engine, they drew them by degrees nearer each other, in such a manner that the back of each hand touched, and stood exactly parallel to each other. In consequence of this violent contortion, both his shoulders became dislocated, and a considerable quantity of blood issued from his mouth. This torture was repeated thrice; after which he was again taken to the dungeon, and the surgeon ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... beautiful corpse, as it lay placidly extended, disfigured by no contortion, but on the contrary, a heavenly repose in the features—a sad mockery of worldly vanity. Death had arrayed himself in the last ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... discussing. And I do not think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich), and the noble Lord the Member for London, have any right to throw themselves into something like a contortion of agony with regard to the manner of this despatch; because, as was stated to the House the other night by the learned Attorney-General for Ireland, they did not tell us much about the feelings of another public servant, acting on behalf of the Crown ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... forgetting the so obvious fact that the kind of metaphor or descriptive epithet of this sort or that, which would make a certain effect on the listener of the tenth century, will make a very different effect on the reader of to-day. As Lady Gregory points out, the description of the contortion of Cuchulain in his fight with Ferdiad seems very unheroic to us, and is therefore best left out of the translation, or, if retained, conveyed in terms that will make an effect on us similar to the effect the detailed ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... he lay fastened to the torture platform and thrust hot irons into his quivering flesh. It was horrible—the man dying by slow torture in the midst of smoke from his own burning flesh. Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd of 10,000 persons. The mass of beings 600 yards in diameter, the scaffold being the center. After burning the feet and legs, the hot irons—plenty of fresh ones being at hand—were rolled up and ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... explosive. When that smoke mixes with the atmosphere of the room it becomes a deadly poison. We all can live here for the next nineteen minutes in perfect safety, then at the first breath we draw we expire instantly. It is a lovely death. There is no pain, no contortion of the countenance, but we will be found here in the morning stark and stiff in our seats. I propose, gentlemen, that we teach London the great lesson it so much needs. No cause is without its martyrs. Let us be the ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... with a contortion of his nose and lips intended to convey unutterable scorn; "of course she refused you, when you asked her as a child would ask for an apple, or a cake! What else ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... at last, with so strained a look about his mouth that it was almost a contortion, 'I ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... There could be no mistake. It was the same which, with the strange, glassy looking eyes, had glared upon her on that awful night of the storm when she was visited by the vampyre. And Varney returned that gaze unflinchingly There was a hideous and strange contortion of his ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... his kind advice to "keep my heart up!" It was not until two years after that I found, from a mutual friend, that the eye in question was made of glass! Sometimes the glass eye got slightly out of its place, and Mr. Grant had to force it in again by this odd contortion of his eyebrows, which I had translated into all manner of kind intentions. As soon as the party broke up I went to Wren and Bennett, the agents for the flat of the old mill which I had seen in Dale Street. I inspected it again, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... spare me another cup?" and reburies himself in a long leader. Behind the shelter of the great sheet, I make a hideous contortion across the table at Sir Roger, who has fallen with great docility into our ways, and is looking back at me now with that gentle, steadfast serenity which is the leading characteristic of his face, but which this morning is, I cannot help thinking, a good ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... consequently only 715 feet less than that of the summit of Pundim itself (which is 22,015 feet). This cliff is of black stratified rocks, sloping to the west, and probably striking north-west; permeated from top to bottom by veins of white granite, disposed in zigzag lines, which produce a contortion of the gneiss, and give it a marbled appearance. The same structure may be seen in miniature on the transported blocks which abound in the Sikkim rivers; where veins of finely grained granite are ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... reflected with such brilliant fidelity in The Relentless City, and was he wreaking an unworthy resentment in portraying our richly moneyed, blue-blooded society to the life? How are manners ever to be corrected with a smile if the smile is always suspected of being an agonized grin, the contortion of the features by the throes of a mortified spirit? Was George William Curtis in his amusing but unsparing ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... rhythms. His drawings are the swift notations of a sculptor whose eye is never satisfied, whose desire to pin on paper the most evanescent movements of the human machine is almost a mania. The French sculptor avoids studied poses. The model tumbles down anywhere, in any contortion or relaxation he or she wishes. Practically instantaneous is the method adopted by Rodin to preserve the fleeting attitudes, the first shiver of surfaces. He draws rapidly with his eye on the model. It is a mere scrawl, a few enveloping lines, a silhouette. But vitality is in it; and for his purposes ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... old and moss-grown. Upon these were placed consecrated idols, or religious emblems of peculiar character, calculated in our uninitiated eyes to provoke mirth rather than reverence. The principal object was usually a sitting figure in stone, wood, or metal, gilded, and more remarkable for contortion of features, multiplicity of arms, and obesity of body, than for any other characteristic, visible or symbolical. Fertility of soil was manifest everywhere, each square foot of earth bearing its tribute of rice, millet, or vegetables, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... anew. It is exceedingly striking to observe how the contracted, rigid soul seems to soften, and grow warm, and expand, and quiver with life. With the new energy infused, it painfully struggles to work itself into freedom, from the wretched contortion in which it has so long been fixed as by the impressed spell of some infernal magic. It is seen filled with a distressed and indignant emotion at its own ignorance; actuated with a restless earnestness to be informed; acquiring an unwonted pliancy of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... of wistful contortion passed over Mom Wallis's hopeless countenance, as if she saw before her in all its possibility of perfection the life that she herself had lost. Perhaps it was no longer possible for her features to show tenderness, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... without owning the name of their Saviour, were withering in the torments of hell-fire; awful indeed was the appearance of these figures; they were larger than human, and twisted into every variety of contortion which it was conceived possible that agony could assume. Their eyes were made to protrude from their faces, their fiery tongues were hanging from their scorched lips; the hairs of each demon stood on end and looked like agonized snakes; they were of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... in chance is like believing in miracles. Both theories suppose that God does not know the future. What is a casualty? A happening which absolutely nobody knows beforehand. What is a miracle? A contradiction, a contortion of the laws of nature. Lack of foresight and contradiction in the All Knowing, who directs the machinery of the world, are two ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... upon his shoulders, his features sharply defined and very prominent. His teeth were remarkably white, but so long and narrow, that they gave a peculiarly sinister and malicious expression to his face—which expression was greatly heightened by the ghastly contortion that was meant for a smile, and which was in constant requisition, in order to show off the said teeth, which Theophilus considered one of his greatest attractions. But my cousin had no personal attractions. ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... accuracy of the drawing. Among them are mythological and allegorical beasts, snakes, and lizards—thought to represent demons, like the gargoyles of Gothic architecture—in every conceivable attitude of contortion and agony. There are also doves and fishes, but the latter, being sacred emblems together with the lamb, are seldom made grotesque. It was a monkish legend that the devil could take the shape of any bird or beast, except those of the dove and ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... almost killed," groaned the poor boy, making the wryest face a boy ever made, and twisting himself into a contortion of body which none but an India-rubber youth like himself ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing, unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dances are nothing more dangerous than a languorous drone. But there are also some funny parts, according to the Algerian idea. They are played by a jet black Somauli woman who joins in the dance and a jet black Somauli boy in the orchestra who has a face of India rubber and a gift for "facial contortion" that would make the fortune of an ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... pleasurable feeling either in mind or body. There is a remarkable instance of this transference from the senses to the emotional feelings in the case of what is called sardonic laughter, in which a similar contortion of countenance to that caused by the pungency of a Sardinian herb is considered to denote a certain moral acerbity. Here there is an analogy established between the senses and emotions in their outward manifestation, just as ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... contortion, as a result of which his other leg and foot appeared inside the window. Then, twisting around, he lowered himself and dropped triumphantly upon a cushioned divan. At that moment he would have faced a cage full of man-eating tigers. The spirit of adventure had him in its grip. He stood up, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... disentangled his legs from an amazing contortion of the riata and tried to whirl the loop as he had seen the cowmen ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... then, Captain," said the fellow, with a contortion of visage which he intended to be a smile; "and I'll tell you now,—to show you that I have a conscience, as ye ca't, d-n me if I charge ye abune sixpence a day for the freedom o' the court, and ye may walk in't very near three ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... neither ever had done, nor ever could do any thing to entitle him to claim distinction of any sort. The young Coxcomb who next entered, was a direct contrast to the last applicant, both in person and manner. Approaching with a fashionable contortion, he stretched out his lady-like hand, and in the most languid and affected tone imaginable, inquired for The Idler. "That, Sir," said Margin, "is amongst the works we have unhappily lost, but you will be sure to meet with it at any of the fashionable libraries ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... vanity may be found in this Terpichorean competition because every movement, every jump and contortion receive the greatest attention and are followed by admiration and applause, when worthy of the demonstration, from those who have danced before or ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... sir?' said James Hornett. He had always smiled, and was smiling even now. The smile was no more than a contortion of the muscles of the face, which made a long mirthless crease on either cheek, and left the eyes untouched by the least light of sympathy. It gave him a propitiatory dog-like look, and there was a hint ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... he withdrew his hand immediately, yet his arm was so dreadfully scorched, that he had well-nigh screamed with pain. He suppressed the natural expression of anguish, however, and only intimated the agony which he felt by a contortion and a muttered groan. The White Lady passed her cold hand over his arm, and, ere she had finished the following metrical chant, his pain had entirely gone, and no mark of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... children and the girl whom Miss Featherstone had already seen. "My dear mees," he said, never stopping until he reached the governess, "see this leetle enfant, this cher petit Henri. He has already one contortion—spasm—what you call it?—and I fear he goes to have one other. Ma chere mademoiselle, have you some experience? Is it that you know ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... outline of Luna Park winked out even as they emerged, the whole violent contortion fading back into silver mist. There was a ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... barbarous noise, accompanied by a baba, or rattle, loud shouts, palaver, songs, and violent gesticulations, forming a system of confused uproar, unmusical, and ungraceful. Their motions are irregular, sometimes in violent contortion, and at others voluptuous and slow. Nothing can be done without a palaver; and at the change of every dance, he from whom the proposition originates, makes a solemn harangue over the musical instruments, which is generally descriptive ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... put his hand on his lips and smiled, and then slapped the young officer who spoke first with his glove. "Never mind, boys, I have come to help you here—you will need help before long;—but how is—?" Here he made a comical contortion of his face, and drew his ungloved hand across his throat. The young officers laughed, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... deposits, Mackintosh refers to Darwin's "very suggestive description of the Moel-Tryfan deposits...Under the drift he saw that the surface of the slate, TO A DEPTH OF SEVERAL FEET, HAD BEEN SHATTERED AND CONTORTED IN A VERY PECULIAR MANNER." The contortion of the slate, which Mackintosh regarded as "the most interesting of the Moel-Tryfan phenomena," had not previously been regarded as "sufficiently striking to arrest attention" by any geologist except Darwin. The Pleistocene gravel and sand containing marine shells ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... only to be explained on the supposition that the ice had been frozen dish-water. Ben's taste had not been educated up to that point which would enable him to relish it. He laid it down with an involuntary contortion of ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... all the same—a weaver of fairy nothings could write a delicious thesis on the question; is Lackaday's smile a grin or is his grin a smile? Anyhow, whatever may be the definition of the special ear-to-ear white-teeth-revealing contortion of his visage, it had in it something wistful, irresistible. You will find it in the face of a tickled baby six months old. He touched his ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... contortion appeared on the generally pleasant countenance of the Chancery Barrister. He clutched desperately at the ice; but his suspicion was too true. He had begun to move downwards ("When he got to cum he came," the Member, who makes bad jokes, says), ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... a stroke from the King's whip, he doubled himself up, performed the contortion now called turning a coachwheel, then, recovering himself, put his hands on his hips and danced wildly on the steps; while Henry, shaking his whip at him, laughed at the only too obvious pun, for Anguish was the English version of Angus, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... order to give to the disc its highest force. The body is bent forward, the toes of one foot cling to the ground, the muscles of the torso are strained, the whole body is in an attitude of violent tension which can endure only for an instant. Yet the face is free from contortion, free from any trace of effort, calm and beautiful. This shows that Myron, intent as he was upon reproducing nature, could yet depart from his realistic formulae when the requirements of beautiful ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... some lazar-house. Life-long study of perspective in its application to the drawing of the figure, made the difficulties of foreshortening and the delineation of brusque attitude mere child's play to this audacious genius. The most rapid movement, the most perilous contortion of bodies falling through the air or flying, he depicted with hard, firmly-traced, unerring outline. If we dare to criticise the productions of a master so original and so accomplished, all we can say is that Signorelli revelled almost too wantonly in the display of hazardous ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... no contortion, to mark the moment of dissolution. The face only grew more serene and less death-like, as the soul passed from ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... included deliberation in taking breath, thorough opening of the mouth, practice before a mirror to produce a pleasing effect, and to avoid facial contortion; he would not allow any visible effort, the aim being to sing as naturally and spontaneously as a bird. His wife played the accompaniments, so that the master could give his whole attention to the attitude, production, and facial ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... mobile face into a strange contortion, Spurge emitted from his puckered lips a queer cry—a cry as of some trapped animal—so shrill and realistic ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... lives only as love. What is life in a child? Is it not perfect response to his parents? thorough oneness with them? A child at strife with his parents, one in whom their will is not his, is no child; as a child he is dead, and his death is manifest in rigidity and contortion. His spiritual order is on the way to chaos. Disintegration has begun. Death is at work in him. See the same child yielding to the will that is righteously above his own; see the life begin to flow from the heart through the members; see the relaxing limbs; see the light ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... a female named Sutchnimia, and she had been introduced to my notice as infallible, her character as usual being well supported by her mahout; but no sooner did this heroic beast descry the tiger, than she twisted herself into every possible contortion, throwing herself about in the most aimless attitudes, with a vigour that threatened the safety of the howdah and severely taxed ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... little in his attempt to conceal the defect; because, in order to hide it, he must contract the skin, bring down the upper feathers and shove in the lower ones, which would throw all the surrounding parts into contortion. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... mouth seemed to prepare itself for the attempted reception of a bulk beyond its capacity. And these plastic tokens, so immoderate as to be ordinarily the consequence of nothing short of horror, were overlaid by others, subtler and more gleaming, which wrought the true significance of the contortion—a joy that ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... themselves in the comfortably affectionate position seen in movies and on television. It didn't quite work that way. There seemed to be too many arms and legs and sharp corners for comfort, or when they found a contortion that did not create interferences with limb or corner, it was a strain on the spine or a twist in the neck. After a few minutes of this coeducational wrestling they decided almost without effort to return to the original routine of kissing. By more luck than good ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... been extremely well brought up, I regret to say that the only answer she chose to make to this appeal was that slight contortion of the features, which with a pretty girl is euphemised as a "moue," and with a plain one is called "making a face." When he saw it he knew that all hope of changing her purpose must ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... solve. The difference between the drama of the ancients and the drama of the moderns lies in this: the ancients sought to illumine the labyrinths of fate by means of the torch of poetry; we moderns try to refer human nature, in whatever form or contortion it presents itself before us, to certain eternal and changeless principles, as to an immovable foundation. What to us is the means, was to them the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... paper, or hearing a conversation in which he takes no interest, his countenance shows no indication whatever of intellectual superiority of any kind. But as soon as he is interested, and opens his eyes upon you, the change is like magic. There is a flash in his glance, a violent contortion in his frown, an exquisite humour in his sneer, and a sweetness and brilliancy in his smile, beyond anything that ever I witnessed. A person who had seen him in only one state would not know him if he saw him in another. For he has not, like Brougham, marked features which ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... give a clearer idea of what I am seeking to convey if I suggest a concrete image for the whole world of a man's thought and knowledge. Imagine a large clear jelly, in which at all angles and in all states of simplicity or contortion his ideas are imbedded. They are all valid and possible ideas as they lie, none in reality incompatible with any. If you imagine the direction of up or down in this clear jelly being as it were the direction in ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... second, third and fourth jumps were not far enough apart to be seen and judged separately; as well may one hope to decide whether a whirling wheel had straight or crooked spokes. The fifth jump, however, was a masterpiece of rapid-fire contortion, and it was important because it left Andy on the ground, gazing, with an extremely grieved expression, at the uninterrupted convolutions of the ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... sudden change, fracture, or displacement naturally in the body of a stratum. But if the strata are cemented by the heat of fusion, and erected with an expansive power acting below, we may expect to find every species of fracture, dislocation, and contortion in those bodies and every degree of departure from a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the buttons of their foils aligned and resting on the hardwood floor. In graceful unison they removed their masks; three flushed and unusually pretty faces regarded the author of their being attentively—more attentively still when that round and ruddy gentleman, executing a facial contortion, screwed his monocle into an ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... hands to keep her off the page; so that, along with the kiss, he received, on the other cheek, a slap with the huge black toad, which she poked right into his eye. He tried to laugh, too, but it resulted in a very odd contortion of countenance, which showed that there was no danger of his pluming himself on the kiss. Indeed it is not safe to be kissed by princesses. As for the king, his dignity was greatly hurt, and he did not speak to the page ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance. The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the nerves than any scowl or contortion. So like was the face to that of our little friend that I looked round at him to make sure that he was indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he had mentioned to us that his brother and he ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at the delicate little hand, up into the pleading eyes, and over her set square face there passed a contortion,—there is really no other word to describe it,—a contortion of unwilling amusement. The chin dropped, the lips twitched, the red lines which did duty for eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. Similarly affected, an Irishwoman would have invoked all the saints in her calendar, and ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... flakes dipping into the sea. The bay formed by this promontory is of great magnitude. There are several islands at its mouth and in the interior, but there being no chart, and no motive for entering it, we stood on towards the mountains on the main shore, some of which are very high. In many parts the contortion of the strata, and the confusion of all kinds of materials, are extraordinary. The sides of the mountains on the shore are clad with moss alone, trees of very stunted growth only appearing in the sheltered valleys. No visible portion of the shore seems capable of ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... bright red hair, and a kind of frightened look in his eyes, as if he were afraid he would do everything wrong, and would always be in hot water about it. He stood behind the Able Seaman's chair, and began to make a queer contortion of the face, ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... by grinning; for at the end of a stare, there comes always a grin; and very commonly, the entrance of a gentleman or lady into a room is accompanied with a grin, which is designed to express complacence and social pleasure, but really shews nothing more than a certain contortion of muscles, that must make a stranger laugh really, as they laugh artificially. The French grin is equally remote from the cheerful serenity of a smile, and the cordial mirth of an honest English horse-laugh. I shall not perhaps stay here long enough to ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... photographed with her nose in the air, her mouth wide open, her other features registering the most complete lunacy. Joseph, her brother, at whom they fairly shrieked in order to make him smile, produced the most singular contortion of the mouth that I have ever seen, which denoted an extreme gift for mimicry, rare in so ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... remembered. For a few moments he stood irresolute, and then, with an extraordinary contortion of visage, dropped into his chair again and sat gazing ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... hour to dinner time, and I had leisure. The lady maintained her attitude, but with momently increasing impatience, which found expression in singular wave-like undulations of her lithe figure, and an occasional unmistakeable contortion. Several gentlemen approached, but were successively and politely dismissed. Suddenly she experienced a quick convulsion, strode sharply forward one step, stopped short, had another convulsion, and walked rapidly away. Approaching the spot ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... immediately felt, and detracts from the merit of the performance. Every step or motion that is not natural, or has any thing of stiffness, constraint, or affectation, is instinctively perceived by the spectator. The body must constantly preserve its proper position, without the least contortion, well adjusted to the steps; while the motion of the arms, must be agreeable to that of the legs, and the head to be in ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... and clammy. At its thicker end Gwendolyn saw that the Piper was supporting a head—a head with small, fiery eyes and a tongue flame-like in its color and swift darting. Next, "Hiss-s-s-s-s!" And with one hideous contortion, the huge black body wrung itself free ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... little animals rose on their hind legs and violently clutched each other by any part of the body on which they could get a grip. Before the astounded gaze of the onlookers they swayed, nearly fell, then went round in circles, at the same time executing every sort of conceivable contortion. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... a favour to give me the one day. For this kindness I rely on your word.' Anyone would have thought she was quite forty-eight. Though her face as a rule looked so gentle, whenever an unhappy thought crossed her mind she showed it by a contortion that frightened one at first, and from time to time I saw her face twitching with anger, scorn, or ill-will. I forgot to say that she was very little and thin. Such is, roughly given, a description ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... hair of your head," Thorn ran on, following a vein which seemed to amuse him, for he smiled, a horrible, face-drawing contortion of a smile, "for if you and me ever had a fallin' out over money I might git so hard up I couldn't travel, and one of them sheriff fellers might ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... perhaps, but none the less satisfying. Miss Felicity Quackenboss's portrait of Saint Vitus is perhaps the most arresting contribution to the exhibition, and portrays the Saint intoxicated with the exuberance of his own agility. It is a very carnival of contortion. Mr. Widgery Pimble transcribes very searchingly the post-prandial lethargy of a boa-constrictor, the process of deglutition being indicated with great dignity and delicacy, as might be expected from so austere a realist. From one angle the figure might be taken for a Bengal tiger, and from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... in a battle-girdle (?), of a red cloak, He puts —— every plain. He smites them, over left chariot wheel (?); The Riastartha wounds them. [Note: The Riastartha ('distorted one') was a name given to Cuchulainn because of the contortion, described later, which came over him.] The form that appeared to me on him hitherto, I see that ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... solitude of Nature, that one enters upon it with the shudder we give at that which is wholly unnatural. On all sides are gigantic serpent convolutions of black lava, their immense folds rolled into every conceivable contortion, as if, in their fiery agonies, they had struggled and wreathed and knotted together, and then grown cold and black with the imperishable signs of those terrific convulsions upon them. Not a blade ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... deer-stalker, he ascended, still on his hands and knees. I strained my eyes after his every motion. But when he was near the top he lay perfectly quiet, and continued so till I could bear it no longer, and crept up after him. When I came behind him, he looked round angrily, and made a most emphatic contortion of his face; after which I dared not climb to a level with him, but lay trembling with expectation. The next moment I heard him call in ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... swollen to an unnatural size by some awful disease, by the mysterious action of an unknown poison. He lifted his head, saw the two before him waiting, opened his mouth with an extraordinary, sneering contortion of his puffed face—to speak to them, I suppose—and then a thought seemed to strike him. His thick, purplish lips came together without a sound, he went off in a resolute waddle to the gharry and began to jerk at the door-handle with such a blind brutality ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... underhand—a draw his father had taught him. He pulled twice, his shots almost as one. Bain's big Colt boomed while it was pointed downward and he was falling. His bullet scattered dust and gravel at Duane's feet. He fell loosely, without contortion. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... savage! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,' however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense—and this by a contortion that would seem strange enough were we not constantly accustomed to such transgressions. For we need not to be informed that 'villain' primarily and properly implies simply one who inhabits a ville or village. In Chaucer, for example, we see it without at least any ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... first gathered round me, by which some of those whom we expected might be made subservient to our sport. Every man has some favourite topick of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end. Every man has some habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which never fails to raise mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By premonitions of these particularities I secured our pleasantry. Our companion entered with his usual gaiety, and began to partake of our noisy cheerfulness, when the conversation ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... faces; Weeping, twisting, yelling, howling faces; Faces fixed in a contortion between a scream and a ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher
... would be fit to read, for I wish to fix attention on the exhaustion of the writer. He certainly could endure such fatigue for no more than a single epistle. The schoolboy, when forced to it, seldom holds out for more than half a page, though he employs every contortion of shoulder, tongue, and leg to ease and ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... began to examine the fetters, learning, as I had anticipated, that they fastened with a lock. I sat gazing at the steel bracelets in the light of the lamp which swung over my head, and it became apparent to me that I had gained little by my contortion. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... more successfully depicted by the artist, stood out in far greater prominence than the sacred volume. Face to face with this picture, on entering the apartment, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon came to a pause; regarding it with a singular scowl, a strange contortion of the brow, which, by people who did not know her, would probably have been interpreted as an expression of bitter anger and ill-will. But it was no such thing. She, in fact, felt a reverence for the pictured visage, of which only a far-descended and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible; and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Contest disputi. Contest disputo. Continence sindetenemo. Continent (geog.) kontinento. Contingent (milit.) kontingento. Contiguity apudeco. Contiguous apuda. Continue (to last) dauxri. Continue (go on) dauxrigi. Contortion (of face) grimaco. Contour konturo. Contraband kontrabando. Contract kontrakto. Contract, make a kontrakti. Contract kuntirigxi. Contractor entreprenisto. Contradict kontrauxdiri. Contrariwise kontrauxe. Contrary kontrauxa. Contrary, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... fascinated Gladys even while it horrified and almost made her sick. She watched every contortion of the bodies with the most morbid and intense interest, though feeling it to be hideous all the time. It excited her very much, and her cheeks flushed, her eyes shone with unwonted brilliance. When it was over, she rose ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... part of its contents down his throat. A spasmodic contortion and a sudden rush to the open window surprised the hospitable bishop, who had anticipated a great treat for his guest: "My dear sir," he cried, "what can ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all this time in the room where he had his lessons, waiting for his tutor. He was biting his nails to the quick, and twisting his little face into every kind of contortion. Geoff was now ten, and he had grown a great deal during the year,—if not so very much in stature, yet a great deal in experience. A little, a very little, and yet enough to swear by, of the wholesome discipline ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... in the tragic situation. They cast at one another a glance of appreciation trenching on a smile, and the abashed questioner drew out a plug of tobacco, and with a manner of preoccupation gnawed a bit from it; then replaced it in his pocket, with a physical contortion which caused the plank on which the jury were seated to creak ominously, to the manifest anxiety ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... hands. They may lead thee afar from thy original purpose—twisting thee in and out with many a contortion; fixing thee with nail and fastening; trailing thee over the wall, to droop thy clusters to the hands of strangers. Nevertheless, be sure to let Him have His way with thee; this is necessary for the ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... The facial contortion which served him for a laugh, and at the same time as a symbol of unfathomable reserve, was repeated, accompanied by a jocose manifestation, in the nature of a sharp and taunting cackle, which seemed to indicate ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... into this remark, and so much more in the contortion of visage which accompanied it, that the girl stood regarding him in ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... fore-part of the day, the young Scotchman with his charge easily kept up with his companions, and some of the time might be seen a little in advance of them. His kind attentions to the boy were observed by Golah, who showed some sign of human feeling, by exhibiting a contortion of his features intended for ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... then allowed his mouth to expand in that contortion which had won him the nick name of ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... ha'n't seen anything equal to it since the Worrld's Fairr." She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r, and her sister hastened ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be expected elsewhere? What has poor Joachim Friedrich done that he should pose forever in the Sieges Allee as an intoxicated hitching-post? What, indeed, have his companions done that they should stand in two rows there, studies in contortion, with a gilded Russian dancer with wings at one end of their line, and a woodeny Roland at the other? But there they are, simpering a paltry patriotism, insipid as history and ridiculous as art. What has become of Lessing, and Winckelmann, and Goethe, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... express canoe, Kate—the express canoe," said Mr. Kennedy, with a contortion of the left side of his head that was intended for a wink; "you know they got leave ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the devil, had I dreamed—" The low-muttered words trailed off and were bitten into silence, while, by a fierce contortion of the muscles, Michael straightened his face into a semblance of calm. But the hands hanging at his sides were clinched till the nails pierced his palms, and the veins started out, knotted and ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... selected for the part of Cupid. Shortly afterwards he found his way to Drury Lane, where the handsome baby—for he was little more—figured among the imps in the pantomime. Taught here the tricks of the acrobat, he had at four years old acquired such powers of contortion that he was fit to rank as an infant phenomenon. But the usual result followed: the little limbs became deformed, and had to be put in irons, by means of which they regained that symmetry with which nature had at first endowed them. Three years afterwards, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... sedimentary deposits have undergone. Time, as I have explained in Chapters 5, 6, and 7, has multiplied the effects of condensation by pressure and cementation, and the modification produced by heat, fracture, contortion, upheaval, and denudation. The organic remains also have sometimes been obliterated entirely, or the mineral matter of which they were composed has been removed ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... knees, like a child to his school-mistress, holding his hands pressed flatly together, with a piteous face and a 'Pray, pray!' I laughed, and told him he was a very bad child. His 'Pray, pray!' was repeated, with another strangely pleasant contortion of countenance. But I still answered—'No, indeed—I should not forgive him, till I had made him truly sensible of his fault.' On which he rose from his knees, pulled out a paper fool's cap, which ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... tendency of the kiss, put out her hands to keep off the page; so that, along with the kiss, he received, on the other cheek, a slap with the huge black toad, which she poked right into his eye. He tried to laugh, too, but the attempt resulted in such an odd contortion of countenance, as showed that there was no danger of his pluming himself on the kiss. As for the king, his dignity was greatly hurt, and he did not speak to the page for a ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... followed her uneasily, behind some palms. She was a thin little woman with a maddening habit of drawing her tight veil down even closer by a contortion of her lower jaw, so that the rector found himself watching her chin ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... very much!" exclaimed Cordelia, in sign language on her fingers. Etiquette forbade her to employ her tongue in the expression of her gratitude, seeing that the girls had placed a ban on it. A curious contortion of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet was used among the Indian girls when pride forbade ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... beauty," drawled Simonoff. "This is the dance of Greek maidens at the sacrificial rites to Demeter. The Grand street thing is a contortion before the obese complacency of the great god Jazz. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... standing only a few numbers away, smiled at Peter's remark. The S.M. spotted him, and shouted, 'What are you grinning at—anything foonny?' Fletcher said, 'No, sir,' and straightened his face with a wry contortion. The S.M. shouted to the Orderly Sergeant: 'Take this man's name.' Fletcher was up before the C.O. in the evening and got three days for laughing in the ranks. I'm sure Peter'll get into trouble before long. He did the ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... her?' The man rubbed his coarse beard down upon his collar, and clanked his chains, and made guttural sounds to his horses, which possibly explained to them the meaning he did not verbally express. Then he looked up and made a facial contortion, which clearly meant that there was more to be said concerning Jen if any one could be found ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... [He stares into space.] My dear, what are you talking about? [With a contortion.] I 'm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the auctioneer prattled on, and the deformed creature upon the catasta wound his ill-shapen body into every kind of contortion, grinning from ear to ear, displaying the malformation of his spine, and the hideousness of his long hairy arms, whilst he uttered weird cries that were supposed to imitate those of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... spoken with the bitterness of self-upbraiding, and a contortion of visage absolutely demoniacal. Butler, though a man brave by principle, if not by constitution, was overawed; for intensity of mental distress has in it a sort of sublimity which repels and overawes ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... reiteration of the words, the frightful contortion that I knew so well, seized on his face. The wrench to the right twisted his body. He dropped at my feet. Good God! who could have declared that he was wrong, with such an argument in his favor as I saw at that moment? Who would not have said that any disfigurement ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... did wind Her fair cold form; Little availed the shining shroud, Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm. A watcher looked upon her low, and said— She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead. But in that sleep contortion showed The terror of the vision there— A silent vision unavowed, Revealing earth's foundation bare, And Gorgon in her hidden place. It was a thing of fear to see So foul a dream upon so fair a face, And the dreamer lying ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... make hard work of carving. Avoid all scowling or contortion of the mouth if a difficult spot be touched. Don't let your countenance betray the toughness of the joint or your own lack of skill. Work slowly but skilfully, and thus avoid the danger of landing the joint ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... as with the Germans under Albrecht Duerer; no abominable butcheries, as with the Bolognese of the seventeenth century; no macerated saints and tattered assassins, as with the Spaniards; no mystery, no contortion, no horrors: vigorous and serene beauty, pure and cheerful life, real or ideal, on wall or canvas, in bronze or in marble. The literature is analogous to the art, only less perfect, more tainted with the weakness of humanity, less ideal, more real. It is essentially human, in the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Behemoth in the forests, Leviathan in the deep, and Typhon in the sewer. You surpass everything. There is the trace of lightning in your deformity; your face has been battered by the thunderbolt. The jagged contortion of forked lightning has imprinted its mark on your face. It struck you and passed on. A mighty and mysterious wrath has, in a fit of passion, cemented your spirit in a terrible and superhuman form. Hell is a penal furnace, where ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... not too much to say that, with the exception of M. Felix's charming tea-gowns, and a few English tailor-made costumes, there is not a single form of really fashionable dress that can be worn without a certain amount of absolute misery to the wearer. The contortion of the feet of the Chinese beauty, said Dr. Naftel at the last International Medical Congress, held at Washington, is no more barbarous or unnatural than the panoply of ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Coasts, where the species assume more particularly the habits of their congeners in India. Among the plants of this family in the Herbarium is a species of Helicteris (as the genus stands at present) which was observed on the North-west Coast bearing fruit, wanting the contortion ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... ground. His hat had fallen off, and the sun was making an astounding high light on his bald spot. The cigar, too, was gone. She saw he was looking at her. One hand, between the pickets, seemed waving at her, and almost he seemed to wink at her jocosely, though she knew it to be the contortion of deadly pain. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... six whole tints and a half, if not a full octave above his natural colour:—any man, Madam, but my uncle Toby, who had observed this, together with the violent knitting of my father's brows, and the extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair,—would have concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted,—had he been a lover of such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments being put in ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... wisdom. Yet now that his protegee had been accepted by others, he questioned that judgment and became her critic. It struck him that her sudden outburst was strained; it seemed to him that in this mere contortion of passion the sibyl's robe had become rudely disarranged. He spoke to Hamlin, and even approached the ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... had possessed herself of the shoes belonging to the cherished suit of clothes. She knew the sacred light in which they were regarded by their owner, and she felt quite sure that if "ole miss" ever attempted, in one of her fits of anger, to exercise her power of limb twisting or back contortion upon her, that the sight of those little blue shoes would create a revulsion of feeling, and, as she put it to herself, "stop her mighty short." The shoes had never been missed, for the box containing the suit was only opened on one day of the year, and then all the old lady could endure ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... slumped to the floor, twisted his silken limbs in one great straining contortion of pain, and was dead. Out of the old king was wrung an involuntary "O-h!" of compassion. The look he got, made him cut it suddenly short and not put any more hyphens in it. Sir Uwaine, at a sign from his mother, went to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... among the rocks? That would have been easier—quicker—less troublesome. Why did they wish to torture him? What terrible thing had he done? Was he mad—mad—and this all a terrible nightmare, a raving find unreal contortion of things in his brain? In this hour of death question after question raced through his head, and he answered no one of them. He sat still for a time, scarcely breathing. There was no sound, save the beating of his own heart. ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... was hampered by the wetness of his legs; and while he heard the clamour of the soldiers, the cries, the rumbling of the drums, he pulled with all his might; all the muscles and sinews of his body were seen in strain; and what was more, the contortion of his mouth showed what agony of haste he suffered, and how his whole frame laboured to the toe-tips. Then there were drummers and men with flying garments, who ran stark naked toward the fray. Strange postures too: this fellow upright, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... porters, and boys, when asked if they know French, answer with the greatest assurance, "Oui" or "Un peu," and they try in a thousand ways to make themselves understood, laughing themselves sometimes at the eccentric contortion of their speech, and ending every answer with "S'il vous plait" or a "Pardon, monsieur;" which are often said so prettily and yet are so out of place that they make one laugh even against one's will. It is considered such a common thing ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... alongside a buffet wrought out of the powerful Jacobean period, Mr. Ben Meyerburg threw a violent contortion. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... good will on the viands prepared (Pork chops were the principal portion), Then retiring to bed, with their dreams they were scared, And spent half the night in contortion; Then rose in their sleep and came down to this room, And, instead of a purposeless pawing, They painted these pictures, then fled in the gloom, And Furniss has ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... better for him had he made a complete plunge of it. At all events, a bold "header" could not have had for him a more unfortunate ending. Scarce had he sunk between the timber when a wild shriek came forth from his throat,—accompanied by a pallor of countenance, and a contortion of his features, that proclaimed something more than a mere "start" received by suddenly ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and each could see the other's face. 'Love you!' she repeated, looking up at him, speaking in a very low voice, but yet, oh so clearly, so that not a fraction of a sound was lost to his ears, with no special emotion in her face, with no contortion, no grimace, but with her eyes fixed upon his. 'How should it be possible that I should not love you? For two months we have been together as people seldom are in the world,—as they never can be without hating each other or loving each other thoroughly. You have been very good to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... stories of the death of kings,'" she quoted with a fairy chuckle. She thought that she saw a small contortion pass over his features, only to be banished at once. He had retired within the walls of that impassive and inscrutable reserve which minor railroad officials can at will erect between themselves and the lay public. Only the broken rhythms of ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... irony in his heart, his tongue did not show it. Indeed his manner betrayed little. Immobility had again replaced all tokens of anger, and immobility which only yielded now and then to a slight contortion more expressive of physical pain than of mental agitation. Yet in Georgian's eyes he had lost none of his formidable qualities, for the dismay with which she followed his words grew as she listened, and reached its height as he ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... take off a glass of the waters, sir?" said a very respectable-looking old lady to my friend Transit, who was at that moment too busily engaged in taking off the water-drinkers to pay attention to her request. "There's a beautiful contortion!" exclaimed Bob; sketching a beau who exhibited in his countenance all the horrors of cholera, and was running away as fast as his legs could carry him. "See, with what alacrity the old gentleman is moving off yonder, making as many wry faces as if he had swallowed an ounce of corrosive ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... in every attitude and contortion of the death agony, were some dozen prostrate forms of men, women, and children, all dead and still. It seemed as though they must have crawled forth from the houses when the terrible fever thirst was upon them, and dragging themselves down to the water's ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a dazed world of his own, Reginald Simpkins, Lance-Corporal and sometime pride of Mogg's, walked over No Man's Land. Every now and then he looked mechanically to his left and right, and grinned. At least he made a contortion with his facial muscles, which experience told him used to produce a grin. He did it to encourage the six. Whether he succeeded or not is immaterial: the intention was good, even if the peculiar tightness of his skin spoiled the result. Occasionally he spoke. No one could have heard what ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... identity of one design after another of rotary steam engines, demolishing for all time the fond hopes of ingenious but ill-informed inventors who think that improvements and advances in mechanism design consist in contortion and complexity. ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... spinning a top. Two or three were walking around on their hands, with their feet in the air. The gayest group seemed to be in the far end of the car, where two seats full of children were amusing themselves by making faces at each other. The uglier the contortion and more frightful the grimace, the ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... had been placed upon a diet of squab broth, none of the flesh, just the broth—Alfred quietly arose and, with the aid of the big looking glass, (mirrors had not been discovered as yet, in Brownsville), and a contortion feat such as he had never attempted previously, he scanned the bruised parts. Lin's worst fears seemed confirmed; all his person reflected in the looking glass was black as ink, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... could launch against him, yet nevertheless overcome. To her choicest bit of irony, the individual replied, "Somebody left you on the grindstone and forgot to take you off," to which the most adroit in quips and quirks could find no fitting replication, unless it were to indulge in facial contortion or invective, and Miss Clarissa was too much of a lady to do either. Forced into silence, she had no resource but to seek to transfix him with a protracted and contemptuous stare, which, though failing to disconcert the object, put her in possession of the facts that ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... smoke issuing from their dusky lips. It was puffed forth, in every variety of manner, sometimes with little short jets, then with longer ones, then from one corner of the mouth and again from the other, all being accompanied by a contortion of the flexible lips which doubtless suggested some of the words in the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... simply a contemptuous facial contortion, or it may be some brief satirical utterance that throws a contemptuous side-light on what it attacks without attempting to prove or disprove; a depreciatory implication may be given in a sneer such as could only be answered by elaborate argument or proof, which would ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in the manner of a falling tree. A swift muscular contortion made the left ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... welts on pretty strong, if you understand the difference a'tween the too," intimates our man of business, as he places his thumbs in his vest, and commences humming a tune. Then he stops suddenly, and working his face into a very learned contortion, continues-"Ye see, Grabguy, a man has to study the human natur of a nigger just the same as he would a mule or a machine. In truth, Grabguy, niggers are more like mules nor anything else, 'cause the brute 'll do everything but what ye wants him to do, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... life to nothingness. That is the peculiar horror of this war. Were the picture, as it well might be, even more hideous, and did it suggest something more definite, a story of struggle, say, recorded in contortion, or by wounds and ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. 'Would you be so good as call her Agnes, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... from yourself, of course," she added with an aggrieved contortion of her features, "but as I was just telling Angela, I would not for worlds intrude upon ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own eyes ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... lay on!" said the Countess, with a contortion of her lips which appeared to do duty for ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... a fiendish sentiment, yet I only laugh, and the little old lady, with a final facial contortion surpassing all dreams, limps beyond ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... laws have served art and art criticism a very bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... snow-clad range of the Alps—in the hour when for the first time I stood before the cataracts of Niagara, I seemed to see a vision of the fears and hopes of America. It was midnight, the moon was full, and I saw from the Suspension Bridge the ceaseless contortion, confusion, whirl, and chaos, which burst forth in clouds of foam from that immense central chasm which divides the American from the British dominion; and as I looked on that ever-changing movement, and listened to ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... was an elderly Mexican senator, who was the essence of politeness of the good old school. Every morning he stood smiling, hat in hand, while he inquired how each of us had slept. I shall never forget the cholera-like contortion of horror he displayed, when the clerical militant (poking his fun at him), declared that Texas was within the natural boundary of the State, and that some morning they would make a breakfast of ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to be shown immediately to the stranger's room. Alone, helpless, speechless, in the dingiest and most comfortless of rooms, he found Mr. Hastings! He went forward with eager, pitying haste, and spoke to the poor man—no answer, only a pitiful contortion of the face, and a hopeless attempt to raise the useless hand. Clearly there was work enough for the next three hours! With the promptness, not only natural in him, but added to by long habit, Theodore went to work. Under his ...
— Three People • Pansy
... with a facial contortion which passed for a wink. "Certainly not. We business men never rob ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... and one swift contortion of outraged flesh lifted him from the spot and he escaped through the crowd, followed by the mocking laughter of the Hillmen. Terry picked up the spear and crossed the circle of savages to hand it to the largest and loudest savage in the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... vain. Sylvan kept hold of his prize, compressed his sinewy arms, and abode by his purpose of not quitting his hold of the philosopher's throat till he had breathed his last. Two more bitter yells, accompanied each with a desperate contortion of the countenance, and squeeze of the hands, concluded, in less than five minutes, the dreadful strife. Agelastes lay dead upon the ground, and his assassin Sylvan, springing from the body as if terrified and alarmed at what ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... helped him to gain time, to preserve the spell even while he talked of breaking it; saw him through slow strolls and soft sessions, long gossips, fitful hopeless questions—there was so much more to tell than, by any contortion, she COULD—and explanations addressed gallantly and patiently to her understanding, but not, by good fortune, really reaching it. They were perfectly at cross-purposes, and it was the better, and they wandered together in the silver haze ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... my number," said the ward-heeler, in a convict whisper which was little more than a facial contortion. "There's a couple o' bulls waitin' f'r me ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... he disappeared into his ill-smelling cabinet to prepare the plate. When this was ready he stepped airily out to the camera and bade his victim "look pleasant." Failing to get the impossible response the artist bade his sitter to smile. Then the old farmer with a wrathful and torture-riven contortion of his ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... with a contortion of the stiff, swollen lip that passed for a smile. "I rounded the bend in a coulee down yonder an' run plumb against ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... nudes. Staves of sunlight slanted down through the still pool, lighting it up with wonderful distinctness. Hundreds of thousands of minute living creatures sported and tumbled in its depth with every contortion that gaiety could suggest; perfectly happy, though consisting only of a head, or a tail, or at most a head and a tail, and all doomed to ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy |
