"Twist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years after the battle of Blenheim has grown obsolete. Fame, like an essence, the farther it is diffused, the sooner it vanishes. The million in London devour an event and demand another to-morrow. Three or four families in a hamlet twist and turn it, examine, discuss, mistake, repeat their mistake, remember their mistake, and teach ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... and gave a twist to the screw of the press, followed in the movement by Gad at the other side; the two grinders expressing by looks of the greatest concern that, if Miss Aldclyffe were as right at church as the clerk, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... withdrew his arm with a rather angry laugh—"the way you twist what one says! I declare I won't make you any more pretty speeches ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... didn't," said Lydia, in a passion to tell the truth at a moment when it seemed to her they were all willing, for one result or another, to turn and twist it. "I gave it back to Jeff so he could carry it to you and say, 'Here it is. I've paid you a lot ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... most singularly crooked channels, harder to trace and follow than the blind currents of the ocean. No notion is so absurd that it may not find a place there. The master-workman must train these notions and vagaries with his two-handed hammer. They twist out of the way of the sword-thrusts; and are invulnerable all over, even in the heel, against logic. The martel or mace, the battle-axe, the great double-edged two-handed sword must deal with follies; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... thousand guineas be absent from home that night. The girl had, too, half-a-dozen lovers in the village; and these were bound in honour to spend their pence at the alehouse she inhabited. O woman, lovely woman! what strong resolves canst thou twist round thy little finger! what gunpowder passions canst thou kindle with a single sparkle of thine eye! what lies and fribble nonsense canst thou make us listen to, as they were gospel truth or splendid wit! above all what bad liquor canst thou make us swallow when thou ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Proposed Conference of the Powers on the Law of Liquidation.] and a strong objection on the part of Mr. Gladstone to tell Parliament anything about the Conference. Chamberlain wrote to me on this: "What a queer twist this objection of Mr. G. is!" To which I replied: "I really wish he would have gone to Coombe for this lovely day and let us go on without him. He has wasted an hour and a half. Mr. G. will fight a whole day in Cabinet to avoid telling Parliament something, and then after all will ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... though loose habit of most Arachnida, crabs, and other articulates. It was also proposed to secure several spiders in the above manner upon the periphery of a wheel, the revolution of which would give a twist to their conjoined threads, carried through a common eyelet upon the spindle; but this can be accomplished without the inconvenience of whirling the spiders out of sight, by modifications of the apparatus which has always been used for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... man," he says, "and fond of experimenting. We worked on a self-adjusting telegraph relay, which would have been very valuable if we could have got it. I soon became the possessor of a second-hand Ruhmkorff induction coil, which, although it would only give a small spark, would twist the arms and clutch the hands of a man so that he could not let go of the apparatus. One day we went down to the round-house of the Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad and connected up the long wash-tank in the room ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... now stepped forward, and, with a peculiar twist of the hips and shoulders, which those only who have seen it can picture to themselves, said, "Plase your honour's honour, I have a little word to say too about the dog." "Say it then," ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... also to form part of a screw. The propeller subsequently applied to the steamship 'Princeton' was identical with my said design of 1835. Even the mode adopted to determine, by geometrical construction, the twist of the blades and arms of the 'Princeton's' and other propellers was identical with my design of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... and done; but never again will John Peters undertake a job where he is got to keep his mouth shut when a woman wants to get something out of him. Lor' bless you, lad, they just see right through you; and you feel that, twist and turn as you will, they will get it out of you sooner or later. There, I started with my mind quite made up that orders was to be obeyed, and that your mother was to be kept in the dark about it till she got here; and I had considered with myself that in such a case as this ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... he took the rice away at night. So he had the Strong man called back and told him that there was one job which he had forgotten to finish; he had put two bundles of sahai grass into the trough to steep and had forgotten to twist it into string. Without a word the Strong man wait and picked the sabai out of the water and began to twist it, but he could tell at once by the feel that the sabai had only just been placed in the water and he charged the farmer with playing a trick on him. The farmer swore that there was ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... friend Dr. Farmer's very excellent Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare[116] is addressed; and Dr. Harwood, who has written and published various works; particularly a fantastical translation of the New Testament, in modern phrase[117], and with a Socinian twist. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... curling, twist, or doubling turn in a cable or rope, occasioned by its being very stiff, or close laid, or by being drawn too hastily out of the coil or tier in which it was coiled. (See COILING.)—To kink. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... they ran for fifteen or twenty miles on a perfectly even keel, the apparatus automatically working the elevators and ailerons of the craft as various wind currents tended to disturb its equilibrium. At length, John gave a little twist to the rudder, and the way the Sky-Bird began to circle, and to bank of her own accord, was a splendid sight to behold. No hawk, sailing over a barnyard in quest of an unwary fowl, could have performed the ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... unchanged, yet Christine's searching eye found one thing that was unusual—a twist of paper stuck through the slats of the shutter. In a moment, she had it untwisted and was reading the words printed in ungainly ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... to unlock the gate, Cob," whispered Uncle Jack, as he held his prisoner by one twist of the rope round his arms like a leash. "Now, then, ready! ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... so deadly still it hurt. Then, coming from the outside, I heard a low whistle with an unmistakable American twist to it, followed by a soft scraping sound. My heart missed two beats. I did not know what was happening; nor was I sure that Sada was within the house; but something told me that my cue was to keep Uncle busy. I obeyed with a heavy accent. When he ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... somewhat short, are not bad-looking. Though their dress is limited, they adorn themselves with shells, pieces of tin, and beads, and rub their bodies with red clay and oil, till their skins appear like new copper. Their hair is woolly, and they twist it into a number of tufts, each of which is elongated by the fibres of bark. They have one good quality, not general in Africa: the men treat the women with much attention, dressing their hair for them, and escorting them ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... turned into the drollest of droll pipers—with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into form and color, motion and music. The pipers piped; the figures danced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be heard above ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... had no more fight left in him than a sack of meal. "So. Now go around and put your thumbs in his eyes—no, not really in his eyes, but in the middle of the bone above his eyes. So. Now, ask this boy's pardon, or I'll twist your arms off." And he ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... husband-high; turned sixteen and her hair only put up a week before, she having begged her mother's leave to twist it in plaits for the Christmas courants. And Abe and Billy each knew the other's secret almost before he knew his own, for each, as you may say, kept his heart like a window and looked into ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... wrote, because they wanted to find out about the pictures, and the pictures were fine. You must have seen Rossiter's work—caribou, beavers, Walter Travis coming through with a stroke, and Holcombe Ward giving a twist delivery. We had the field to ourselves for two or three years, before the other fellows caught the idea, and broke our partnership. I turned to literature, and he began drifting around the world for long shots. ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... there as a proof," added Planchet, who went to fetch from the neighboring wall, where it was suspended by a twist, forming a triangle with the bar of the window to which it was fastened—the plan consulted by the captain on his last visit to Planchet. This plan, which he brought to the comte, was a map of France, upon which the practiced eye of that gentleman discovered an itinerary, marked ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... back in his chair and stared at the turgid, bulging forehead and hard eyes before him. What could be behind them? Had the war brought out a twist in his father's brain? ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... as to my oxen. The first team consisted of one seven-year-old ox, Twist, and one unbroken five-year-old range steer, Dave. When we were ready to start, Twist weighed 1,470 pounds and Dave 1,560. This order of weight was soon changed. In three months' time Twist gained 130 pounds and Dave lost 80. All this time I fed them with a lavish hand all the rolled barley I dared ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... misstep, I think, among the confusion of branches cut and uncut with which the ground was encumbered; slipped off one of them, perhaps; somehow gave his foot a twist,—and there he is. That was the cause of my long delay.' He spoke, watching the little lady ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... this point and that—every one would join in.... They would both abuse him and laugh.—Ivan danced marvellously—especially 'the fish.'—The chorus would thunder out a dance tune, the young fellow would step into the middle of the circle, and begin to leap and twist about and stamp his feet, and then come down with a crash on the ground—and there represent the movements of a fish which has been thrown out of the water upon the dry land; and he would writhe about this ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... to indulge in them. "Oh, dear! how mad she will be. Well, I can't help it. Girls should n't have secrets from their fathers, then there would n't be any fuss," thought Polly, as she watched Mr. Shaw twist up the pink note and poke it back among the flowers which he took from her, saying, shortly, "Send Fanny to ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... putting the ball in play. The old idea was that service should never be more than merely the beginning of a rally. With the rise of American tennis and the advent of Dwight Davis and Holcombe Ward, service took on a new significance. These two men originated what is now known as the American Twist delivery. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... gave a typical service excuse when he said that the Army could not practically arrange for the mass reassignment of black soldiers or the restriction of their assignments to certain geographical areas to avoid discrimination.[19-26] The Air Force added a further twist. Replying to a similar request, a spokesman wrote that limiting the number of bases to which black airmen could be assigned would be "contrary to the policy of equality of treatment."[19-27] There was, however, one exception to the refusal to alter assignments for racial reasons. Both ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... should land and eat with them: this we refused, but sent the periogue on shore with the tobacco, which was delivered to one of the soldiers of the chief, whom we had on board. Several of them now ran along the shore after us, but the chief threw them a twist of tobacco, and told them to go back and open their ears to our counsels; on which they immediately returned to their lodges. We then proceeded past a continuation of the low prairie on the north, where we had large quantities of grapes, and ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... not only listened to recitations but appealed to the artistic in the newly developing woman. She rolled her hair from neck to brow in a "French twist" and set on the top of it an "Alsatian bow," which stood like gigantic butterfly wings across her proud head. The long basque of her school dress was made after the newest pattern and had smoke-pearl buttons, in overlapping groups ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... picket should be placed upon the best grass, and their places changed often. The ropes to which they are attached should be about forty feet long; the picket-pins, of iron, fifteen inches long, with ring and swivel at top, so that the rope shall not twist as the animal feeds around it; and the pins must be firmly driven into ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... building and threw it to a distance; hearing of these feats the Raja of the country sent for him and took him into his service; but here also he caused trouble. He insisted on being treated with deference. Going up to the highest officials he would tell them not to twist their moustaches at him, and knock them down. On the throne in the palace when the Raja was absent a pair of the Raja's shoes was placed and every one who passed by had to salaam to these. This our hero flatly refused to do. In fact he became such a nuisance that he ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... houses and scurried into open doors. Suddenly it was getting exciting. Down another lane then came a noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and no force could ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... fitful gleam at that—came from a rushing stream that took its source high up among the hills. This brook first seen off to the extreme left of the house, came dashing down the rocks until it reached a level. Then, swinging round with sudden swirl it engirdled the place, and after many a curious twist and turn got straight again and went onward far off among the neighboring fields and lost itself at last in the Oswegatchie. The interior of the house was just as wild and dreary as the exterior. The rooms, for the most part, were too large for comfort. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... down to books and figures. Maybe you'll take to the work. If you do you ought to stand a good chance of dying a rich man, and you'll be comfortably off the day you hand that paper to my partner. Not a word now, not a word. I know what you want to say. Twist your lips into a smile again. Look as if you were happy whatever you feel, and when all's said and done you ought to be happy. Whatever the end of it may be we'll get our bellies full of fighting to-day, and what has life got to give a man better ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... hit against the floor at an angle. The pipe, with the first blow, will start to bend. With a few more strokes the desired bend will be obtained. The bending spring can now be pulled out. Put a little water in the pipe, then put one end of the spring in the vise, twist the pipe, and the spring will come out when the pipe is pulled away from it. The bending spring holds the pipe cylindrical while it is being bent. Without the spring, the pipe would be badly crushed at the bend and rendered almost unfit for service. Another good way to bend ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... and twist, with a new hat, and, silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me L3, and the other 40s.—I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing. So that I hope I shall ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... confined under the care of their bonnes or duennas. In the evening he strolls about the Palais, joins some friend or another, with whom he takes his caffe, and sips his liqueurs in the Salon de Paix or Milles Colonnes; he then adjourns to the opera, where, for two hours, he will twist himself into all the appropriate contortions of admiration, and vent his joy, in the strangest curses of delight, the moment that Bigottini makes her appearance upon the stage; and, having thus played ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... only a trifle. To do her justice, Mrs. Watkins drove a very thriving trade; the very carters had a partiality for the shop, and would lurch in about twelve o'clock, with their pipes and hob-nailed boots, for a twist of tobacco or a slice of cheese, and crack ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... half drowned we got him sober enough to tell where he had left you; but he swore you were a priest, and his evident sincerity caused us all to roar with laughter. This angered him, and he said: "Ye may twist me head an' dhroun me intirely, but I wull niver spake another wurrud about the jintelman at all, at all," and sure enough we could get ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Drill Presses, Scrolls, Circular and Band Saws, Saw Attachments, Chucks, Mandrels, Twist Drills, Dogs, Calipers, etc. Send for catalogue of ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... takes the looking-glass from the wall and puts it on the back of a chair; then sits down in front of it and begins washing his face.) Didn't I know rightly I was handsome, though it was the divil's own mirror we had beyond, would twist a squint across an angel's brow; and I'll be growing fine from this day, the way I'll have a soft lovely skin on me and won't be the like of the clumsy young fellows do be ploughing all times in the earth and dung. (He starts.) Is she coming again? (He looks out.) Stranger girls. ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... daughter lose her name, And to Mounchenseys house convey our arms, Quartered within his scutcheon; th' affiance, made Twist him and her, this ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... have not in general the intellectual or business ability of the Chinese. They are courteous in their relations with strangers. The common people are frugal and industrious. The Manchu family is generally large. The women's feet are unbound; they twist their hair round a silver bangle placed cross-wise on the top of the head. The Manchus have no literature of their own, but as the language of the court Manchu has been ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Herepol had meant to leave his prisoner loose. But there were those in Gilbert's train who told him, and with truth, that if he did so, no man's life would be safe. That to brain the jailer with his own keys, and then twist out of his bowels a line wherewith to let himself down from the top of the castle, would be not only easy, but amusing, to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the tavern green to sit upon his knee and twist those fierce mustachios of his, and their mothers ceased to snatch them away when they learned to know him better. Sometimes in his leisure hours he pored over his tattered little Bible with muttering lips and found pleasure ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... twitched as she fumbled with button and buckle, but at last spurred boots, stockings, jacket, and dusty riding skirt fell from her; undergarments dropped in a circle around her bare feet; she stepped out of them, paused to twist up her dark hair tightly, then, crossing the moss to the stream's edge, picked her way out among the boulders to the ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... like, yet already so unlike his mother's! The same brown eyes, with the same twinkle, but tonight instead of being inscrutable, boyishly hard. The same tender mouth, with tonight an unboyish sardonic twist. What Jason's father's face might have said one could not know, for it was hidden under a close-cropped brown beard. He turned the leaves of his Bible composedly, looking up only as the meeting reached a final triumphant ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... moonlight. Imagine a hammer, one end of which had been beaten out into a longish tapering spike, with a handle something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted it very carefully in his grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... went to the Back Kitchen that night after quitting Arthur Pendennis at his staircase-door in Lamb-court, the gin-twist and deviled turkey had no charms for him, the jokes of his companions fell flatly on his ear; and when Mr. Hodgen, the singer of "The Body Snatcher," had a new chant even more dreadful and humorous than that famous composition, Foker, although he appeared his friend, and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then," said the cuckoo, "and you won't have to twist your neck to see over my shoulder. Are you comfortable now? And, by-the-by, as you may be cold, just feel under my left wing. You'll find the feather mantle there, that you had on once before. Wrap it round you. I tucked it in at ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... amounted to an embezzlement. Prosecution was waived, and he was assisted to leave Australia and make a fresh start in New Zealand, whence he had never ceased to endeavour to gain whatever he could from Boola Boola. He could twist Eustace round his finger, and Harold, though loathing and despising him, would do anything for his mother, but was resolved, for Eustace's sake, to keep them at a distance, as could only be done by never allowing them a sufficient sum at once to obtain a passage home, and he knew the habits ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that it must step off. No use in saying "Highst!" or anything else. Nothing but kicking the ox in the leg with your free foot will stir it. In addition to these troubles of the ox-driver, the oxen know how to "turn the yoke:" they can twist their heads in the yoke after a fashion that enables them to stand facing the plough and staring at the driver. If they "turn the yoke" while drawing a cart down a side-hill, the cart, with the driver in it, slips about in front of them, and drags them down the gulf face foremost. The noisiest being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... place the instrument far enough from the clamped block of wood to make the threads that are stretched between quite taut. Now commence the twisting by turning the large wheel quickly with an even motion in the direction that continues to twist up the threads, keeping the left hand on the instrument to steady it, for it gradually slides towards the block as the twisting continues. When corkscrew-like knots begin to come in the threads, stop revolving the wheel, ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... opposite direction; continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him; clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew moustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o'clock to-night I'll call again; after such a refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... now satisfied with only tearing off the scalp. This is usually taken from the crown of the head, of a small circular size; sometimes however they take the whole integuments of the skull, with which they ornament their war jackets and leggins, or twist into a brush for the purpose of keeping off the mosquitoes. The scalp is their glory and triumph, and is often carried by women stretched upon a stick, and hung with various articles so as to make a jingle to men when ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... prosaic melodic contours, to be used so magnificently by Handel, were never allowed to harden and fossilise in Purcell's music. Even where a phrase threatens us with the dry and commonplace, he gives it a miraculous twist, or adds a touch of harmony that transforms it from a dead into a living thing, from something prosaic into something poetic, rare and enchanting. Let me instance at once how he could do this in the smallest things. This is ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... of the fire, than at the ends, so that they would naturally bend of their own weight; but the soldiers, to increase the damage, would take tongs and, one or two men at each end of the rail, carry it with force against the nearest tree and twist it around, thus leaving rails forming bands to ornament the forest trees of Georgia. All this work was going on at the same time, there being a sufficient number of men detailed for that purpose. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... were escalading a wall at night, as was their wont upon illicit love-adventures, Giomo whispered to his master: 'Ah, my lord, do let me cut the rope, and rid ourselves of him!' To which the Duke replied: 'No, I do not want this; but if he could, I know he'd twist it round my neck.' ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... aqueducts of Seranus, the Roman camp of Holderlock, or vestiges of Theodoric, according to their fantasy. The only thing about these ruins which could be considered remarkable is a stairway to a cistern cut in the rock. Inside of this spiral staircase, instead of concentric circles which twist around with each complete turn, the involutions become wider as they proceed, in such a way that the bottom of the pit is three times as large as the opening. Is it an architectural freak, or did some reasonable cause determine such an odd construction? It matters little ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... young ones, and ma was so strict! Pa was away most of the time getting a living. My pa, you know, was a pilot. It wasn't a fat living for so many of us, but that wouldn't have mattered long as we had enough to eat. But ma, poor soul, because of that twist her mind had taken through sorrow, was always seeing something wrong in everything we did; she never could be quiet or contented. The boys didn't get so much of it: they were off out of doors and later at their trades; but me, I was kept in to help with ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... the Hound, following every twist and turn which Granny Fox made, just as she wanted him to. Back and forth across the old pasture and way up among the rocks on the edge of the mountain Granny Fox led Bowser the Hound. It was a long, long, long way from the Green Meadows and the Green Forest. Granny ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... head, while the man who fails to do so runs the risk of smashing the fingers of the comrade who holds it. It was not much more pleasant when he gripped the drill in turn, for, though the other man stood on a plank inserted in a crevice, Weston had to kneel on a slippery slope of rock and twist the drill each time the hammer descended. The concussion jarred his stiffened hands and arms. The distressful stitch also was coming back into his side, and once or twice his companion cast an expostulating ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... we dug down to the fountain spring of Canadian loyalty? Not at all. These are not springs. They are national states of mind. These characteristics are psychology. What is the rock bottom spring? One sometimes finds the presence of a hidden spring by signs—green grass among parched; the twist of a peach or hazel twig in answer to the presence of water; the direction of the brook below. What are the signs of Canada's springs? Signs, remember; not proofs. Of proofs, there ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... glass vessel of water, and introduced also a great fat lob-worm; each leech seized the worm, the one took the head, the other the tail. As the worm got gradually swallowed the two leeches came to very close quarters, and at last touched. What was to happen? would they twist and writhe about and break the worm, and so share the "grub" between them? No; the one fellow quickly proceeded to swallow his antagonist. I watched him carefully, and he succeeded in getting down the red lane ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... without further delay. The name of the fly of my first choice is, I believe, the Border Fancy; the brown turkey wing showed well in the water, and the irregular mingling of lemon, red, and black of the pig's wool, relieved by a band of silver twist, made altogether a very attractive lure. The boat was crossing diagonally to our course, and I was leisurely getting out line, when a trout plucked at the fly. I saw him, as it were, knocked aside rudely, and shall always believe ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... well have been—your head," Paul answered, with a twist of his sensitive mouth. He had not quite got over his few moments of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... one of her hands, but she put both behind her back. At this repulse the young gentleman winced, then smiled gravely, then pleasantly,—and then with a whimsical upward twist to his wide mouth. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... completely, that they curse the iron bars. Then Lancelot asserts that, with the Queen's consent, he will come inside to be with her, and that the bars cannot keep him out. And the Queen replies: "Do you not see how the bars are stiff to bend and hard to break? You could never so twist, pull or drag at them as to dislodge one of them." "Lady," says he, "have no fear of that. It would take more than these bars to keep me out. Nothing but your command could thwart my power to come to you. If you will but ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Sarah Tatum was his wife. He used to walk a mile and a half every day, on purpose to escort her to school. When they rambled through the woods, in search of berries, it was his delight to sit beside her on some old stump, and twist her glossy brown ringlets over his fingers. A lovely picture they must have made in the green, leafy frame-work of the woods—that fair, blue-eyed girl, and the handsome, vigorous boy! When he was fourteen ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... in the opposite direction, continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him, clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew mustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o'clock tonight I'll call again; after such a refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... shoulder to the right hip. The preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies. Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of priests and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... their fathers in hunting expeditions" (402. 566). Mr. Powers records that he has seen a Wailakki Indian boy of fourteen "run a rabbit to cover in ten minutes, split a stick fine at one end, thrust it down the hole, twist it into its scut, and pull ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... on me, Mr. Manders, if because I go and get excited, and twist off a button in my excitement, as I suppose I must have done—unless it's a judgment on me—it's rather hard lines if you give me away when I never should have given ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... agitation, or attraction prompted the impulse, nobody knows; but she took the scissors, and, bending over the sleeping youth, cut off one of the curls, or rather crooks,—for they hardly reached a curl,—into which each lock of his hair chose to twist itself in the last inch of its length. The hair fell upon the rug. She picked it up quickly, returned the scissors to the table, and, as if her dignity had suddenly become ashamed of her fantasies, hastened through the ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... of lowering, breathless calm, with an insufferably close atmosphere that rendered hard work exceedingly trying, and the black, working canopy of cloud that overhung us continued to writhe and twist itself into the most extraordinary shapes, while it showed no sign of dispersing. This state of affairs continued until about four o'clock in the afternoon, when a light, puffy, southerly breeze sprang up which gradually ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... oath had fired the spirit of a people proud to wear their tartans, because of the Highland sentiment which they clothed! But to use it to compass a private quarrel, to twist its possible tragedy into healing honour, that was appealing! My sergeant I must support outwardly, and my stratagem would secure this, without putting Red Murdo in peril. He, probably, had a secret inkling that I was searching for ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... special trip in his carryall to fetch the old lady. Captain Zebedee and Mrs. Mayo beamed from their pew. Dr Parker and his wife smiled at them across the aisle. Didama Rogers's new bonnet was a work of art and her neck threatened to twist itself off as she turned to see each one who ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fame, and find myself—O, what?— A most conspicuous monster! Crown my head, Pile Caesar's purple on me—and what then? My hump shall shorten the imperial robe, My leg peep out beneath the scanty hem, My broken hip shall twist the gown awry; And pomp, instead of dignifying me, Shall be by me made quite ridiculous. The faintest coward would not bear all this: Prodigious courage must be mine, to live; To die asks nothing but weak will, and I Feel like a craven. Let me ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... minute of that beauty!" cried the little man; "what would he not give to appear under that enchanting form!" The magician hereupon waved his stick over his head, pronounced some awful magical words, and twisted him round three times; at the third twist, the men in company seemed struck with astonishment and envy, the ladies clasped their hands, and some of them kissed his. Everybody declared ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brother,' shrieked the little creature, 'help me, and put me back into the river, and I will repay you some day. Take one of my scales, and when you are in danger twist it in your ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... Match, where the delight and pleasure of both parties, is bent upon one subject. How fast doth this writhe and twist the Bands of Wedlock and love together! Certainly to be of one mind, may very well be said to be happily married, and called ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States, and say they are not clear and imperative. "No person," ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... nobody at all except Des Grieux, and he is but as a sketch to an elaborate picture. She will wander after Pallas, and would like to think that she would like to be of the train of Dian (one shudders at imagining the scowl and the shrug and the twist of the skirt of the goddess!). But the kiss of Aphrodite has been on her, and has mastered her whole nature. How the thing could be done, out of poetry, has always been a marvel to me; but I have explained it by the supposition ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... suffered sun-stroke or went crazy while bound up in this manner, because the sun's heat intensely aggravated the agonies of thirst. But the sun-bath consummated Major Bach's greatest ambition. It caused the victim to writhe and twist more frantically, which in turn forced him to shriek and ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... keeps his head and face quite smooth, and never shaves himself. The shaving the head was originally a sign of subjection imposed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is now so completely the national custom that prisoners feel it a deep disgrace when their hair is allowed to grow. Coolies twist their five feet of pigtail round their heads while they are at work, but a servant or other inferior, only insults his superior if he enter his presence with his pigtail otherwise than pendent. The gaming house, whose open ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... horror of sin, there comes an increasing sense of sympathy with Him, and an increasing appreciation that we cannot go into the depths of what He knew here. In the best of us sin is ingrained. Jesus was wholly free from taint or twist of sin. He knew it only in others. Now He, the pure One, purity personified, was coming into closest contact with sin, and sin at its worst. He had been in contact with sin in others. He had seen its cruel ravages ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... He did twist the front wheels dangerously near to the outer edge of the shelf road. Mr. Boltwood gazed at the hand on the wheel. With a quick breath Claire looked at the side of the road. If the car ran off, it would shoot down forty feet ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... 'of course you can twist my words, if you like. You SAY it was an affair of honour. Well, I can't, of course, tell you that—I can't—I mean, you must see that that's just the point! Was ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mayor of Ipswich might think that the satire was pointed at him. There can be little doubt, however, that Nupkins was drawn from a London Police Magistrate, and is, in fact, another portrait of the functionary whom he sketched specially for "Oliver Twist" under the name of Mr. Fang. Nupkins, however, is more in the comedy vein—ridiculed rather than gibbeted—than was Mr. Fang. We have only to compare the ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... had changed, and, down beneath all her vanity and wilfulness, there was now a dangerous regard and passion for him which, under happy circumstances, might have transformed her life—and his. Now it all served to twist her soul and darken her footsteps. On every hand she was engaged in a game of dissimulation, made the more dangerous by the thread of sincerity and desire running through it all. Sometimes she started aghast at the deepening intrigue gathering in her path; at the deterioration in her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... aiming its missiles or into a huge machine for long-distance night-bombing work capable of carrying from two to a dozen men and from two to four tons of bombs. During this time the strictly fighting plane, usually a single-seater, increased in speed, "ceiling," and agility till it could dart, twist, and dive about, three to five miles above the trenches, protecting friendly bombing and observation planes below from enemy attack or swooping down to send enemy planes in flames to ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... crushed foot than from fright that Gwenda had fainted, for she was a brave girl. Though fully alive to her danger she had not lost consciousness until her foot had been crushed, and even then not before she had seen Will's rush to her rescue, and his energetic twist of ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... eighty-year-old male flirt, who had a thousand chorus girls on his staff, and could give the Sultan of Turkey cards and spades and little casino in the harem game. "You will go along, won't you, bub?" and he gave my thumb another twist, and I said, "You bet your life, but I won't do a thing to you and Leopold before we get out of the Belgian hare belt," and so here we are, looking ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... fashion of the eighteenth century. Having spread about town a slander relating to Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempre, he was challenged by her husband and was wounded in the neck by a bullet, which wound brought on him a kind of chronic twist of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... like a madman. "You are the cause of all this trouble," he said; "you are a chameleon, you can twist everything." ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... His weakness, the twist of pain about his mouth, the weariness in his eyes, scared us then. The Philosopher, who had not yet begun to feel in his bones the heat of the old tropical fever which afterwards made him toss at nights and call out strange words, shook his head and spoke with the enormous ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... meaning are better than Ins. by S. (the latter when used, should be as perfect as possible). EAR ... EEL makes a weak In. by S. to some persons, but it would make a much more vivid first impression to most persons to deal with them in this way: EAR ... (w)ring ... twist ... wriggle ... EEL. But "Bivouac ... aqueduct" is a perfect In. by S. as to the last syllable of the former and the first syllable of the latter, since those syllables are pronounced exactly alike. We may connect Bivouac to Rain ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... poets, each seeing a vision. The lonelier version of liberty was a sort of aristocratic anarchism in Byron and Shelley; but though in Victorian times it faded into much milder prejudices and much more bourgeois crotchets, England retained from that twist a certain odd separation and privacy. England became much more of an island than she had ever been before. There fell from her about this time, not only the understanding of France or Germany, but to her own long and yet lingering disaster, ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... olive is an artificial beauty; to make it look like an umbrella is the ne plus ultra of arboriculture. But the present race of olives, twist and torment them as we will, are inferior to those of the times of our grandfather. 'Towards the close of the last century, there was a winter night of intense frost; and when the morning broke, the trees ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... their companions to suck it out when they can't reach the part with their own mouths. But they depend chiefly upon their wonderful dexterity in warding off the stoops or blows of the snakes, as they twist them round their necks and limbs with seeming carelessness. While they are doing so, the eye of the spectator can hardily detect the stoops of the one and the guards of the other. After playing in this way with the most venomous snakes, they apply them to the animals. Elephants have died from ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... seven hot and iceless years. I have laid up enough things among the moths and rust. Ice against the rainy day I will provide, but ice for my children and my children's children, ice for a possible cosmic reversal that might twist the equator over the poles, I will not provide for. Nor will I go into ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... be to invent them. (Not wait to find them.) Having small self-reliance they can not bear to face life alone. With no self-sufficingness, they must have the countenance of others. It is these pressing needs that will hurry the primates to build, out of each shred of truth they can possibly twist to their purpose, and out of imaginings that will impress them because they are vast, deity after deity to ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed, we must"). "I'll tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded, and Dickon grinned, because when the little wench tried to twist her tongue into speaking Yorkshire it amused him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain. When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see him to-morrow mornin'—an' bring tha' creatures ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... arrived at my old home, the place of my childhood days, I there found Elder John Twist, who was waiting my coming. We stayed in that neighborhood a few days, and then started on. My uncle was going our way with a wagon for about one hundred miles, and we accompanied him. I passed through Kaskaskia, where I was ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... whistling under his breath, and, with a single skilful twist, he rolled a cigarette from a muslin bag of tobacco labeled ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... twist And twine, twist and twine, A riotously beautiful design Whose elements consist Of eloquent spirals, fair and fine, Embracing cranes and lions, who exist Seemingly free, yet tangled ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... she's up chamber. She'll be down in a minute, she said; she thought she'd have time afore supper to get to the bottom of the big chist, and see if that 'ere vest pattern ain't there, and them sticks o' twist for the button-holes, 'cause Roxy she says she never see nothin' so rotten as that 'ere twist we've been a-workin' with, that Mis' Pennel got over to Portland; it's a clear cheat, and Mis' Pennel she give more'n half a cent a stick more ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a six-foot individual, entirely out of his class and far too small to fight with him, it is murder. An alligator will seize the leg of a rival and by violently whirling around on his axis, like a revolving shaft, twist ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... saw, full of accursed instruments of torture horribly contrived to cramp, and pinch, and grind and crush men's bones, and tear and twist them with the torment of a thousand deaths. Before it, were two iron helmets, with breast-pieces: made to close up tight and smooth upon the heads of living sufferers; and fastened on to each, was a small knob or anvil, where the directing devil could repose ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... with a sly up-twist of his voice. Whatever and whoever the Invaders were, he said, they did not like Bulgarians. If they'd knocked out the raiding party simply to test their weapons against human subjects, at least they had chosen suitable and pleasing subjects for ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... With a twist of his thick lips, he rolled the evil-smelling cigar he was smoking from the left corner of his mouth to the right; and held out a fat and not too clean hand, which, as it closed round mine, brought ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome |
