"Twisting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Lord Mayor of DUBLIN in his inaugural address, "is showing its fangs." Meanwhile Cardinal GIBBONS is busy twisting the Lion's tentacles. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... Twisting and turning, here and there in the semi-darkness, stumbling, and sometimes falling over the uneven floor, ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... in a paternal voice, leaning forward benevolently and twisting my snuff-box in my fingers. "Come, my dear Madame, and speak fearlessly; have you nothing to reproach yourself with? Have you had no impulses of—worldly coquetry, no wish to dazzle at the ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... dug and for an hour found nothing but beech roots, while my mother seemed as if she were going mad, sometimes running about muttering to herself, sometimes stooping into the hole and howling, sometimes throwing herself on the grass and twisting her hands together above her head; she went once down the hill to a pool that had filled an old gravel pit, and came back dripping and with wild eyes; 'I am too hot,' she said, 'far too hot this St. ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... skipper himself, set to work at drilling holes in several of the great rocks that lay in the green tide beyond the mouth of the harbor, their heavy crowns lifting only a yard or two above the surface of the twisting currents. All this was but the beginning of a task that would require weeks, perhaps months, of labor to complete. It was Black Dennis Nolan's intention to construct, by means of great iron rings, bolts and staples, ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... with the sight of the Crisis, as she came drifting through the tiers, turning, and twisting, and glancing along, just as the Amanda had done before her. The pilot carried her to moorings quite near us; and Talcott, Neb and I were on board her, before she was fairly secured. My reception was very favourable, Captain Williams having seen the account of the "Yankee ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... or parts in textile art precedes the use of spun threads, but the one use leads very naturally up to the other. In employing rushes, stems, grasses, etc., the smaller strands were doubled to secure uniformity of size, and when a number of parts were used they were combined into one by twisting or plaiting. In time the advantage in strength and pliability of twisted strands came to be recognized, and this led to the general utilization of fibrous substances, and finally to the manufacture of suitable fibers by manipulating the bark of trees and plants. ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... bright, pleasant day when Chang Wang stepped into the boat of his uncle, to drop slowly down the great Yang-se-kiang. Many a civil word he said to Fing Fang and his sons, for civil words cost nothing. Chang Wang sat in the boat, twisting the ends of his long mustaches, and thinking how much money each row of plants in his tea-fields might bring him. Presently, having finished his calculations, the miser turned to watch his relations, who were pursuing ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... "Ha!" he scoffed, twisting his immense iron-grey moustaches with complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal, my dear, but you 're not capable ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Sweet. North America, 1736. When planted in rich, moist soil, this soon forms an attractive mass of twisting and twining growths, with distinct glossy foliage in summer and brilliant scarlet fruit in autumn. The flowers are inconspicuous, the chief beauty of the shrub being the show of fruit, which resembles somewhat those of the Spindle Tree (Euonymus), and to which it is nearly allied. ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... room were upon her, awaiting her decision; and at last, half blind with her tears, she began fumbling in her jacket, where she had pinned the precious money. And she brought it out and unwrapped it before the men. All of this Ona sat watching, from a corner of the room, twisting her hands together, meantime, in a fever of fright. Ona longed to cry out and tell her stepmother to stop, that it was all a trap; but there seemed to be something clutching her by the throat, and she could not make a sound. And so Teta Elzbieta laid the money on the table, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Twisting his white moustache, and buttoning his overcoat across the vast acreage of his shirt-front, Polycarp disappeared from Hugo's ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... boomerang of argument, which one throws in the opposite direction of what he means to hit, and which seems to be flying away from the adversary, who will presently find himself knocked down by it. It is not like the irony of Timon, which is but the wilful refraction of a clear mind twisting awry whatever enters it,—or of Iago, which is the slime that a nature essentially evil loves to trail over all beauty and goodness to taint them with distrust: it is the half-jest, half-earnest of an inactive temperament ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... doubtless "a surfeit of such vanities and a willingness to give a fair chance to the rising beauties of the age." But the most conscious of the fair was Mollie below, whose face was flushed and whose brown fingers were nervously twisting the ribbons in her lap, and I saw Buck nudge her ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... destined to facilitate their dispersion from the parent nest, which takes place at dusk; and almost as quickly as they leave it they divest themselves of their ineffectual wings, waving them impatiently and twisting them in every direction till they become detached and drop off, and the swarm, within a few hours of their emancipation, become a prey to the night-jars and bats, which are instantly attracted to them as they issue in a cloud from the ground. I am not prepared to say that the other insectivorous ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Lord Delacour, who came to inquire of Miss Portman how his lady did. The baronet, after twisting his little black stick into all manner of shapes, finished by breaking it, and then having no other resource, suddenly wished Miss Portman a good morning, and decamped with a look of silly ill-humour. He was determined ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... outfitted, loaded from this port, officered and manned by the men of this town? Where the great shipyards down whose ways slipped vessels of any magnitude; the ropewalks where black slaves trod the weary miles twisting the hemp to lift the sails made in Alexandria sail lofts? Where the great docks, wharves and warehouses ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... of Mount Lowe. Here they take an electric car that winds five miles on towards the sky. There is hardly a straight rail in the track. Every minute a new thrill, and no two thrills alike. Five miles of winding and squirming, twisting and ducking, ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... well hop in while he's backing and twisting like that, can I?" she laughed. He was acutely aware of a strained, nervous note in her voice, as of one who is confronted by an undertaking ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... stray germs,—no one asking, no one heeding, brought by a sunbeam, spat out by a toad—no one caring where it dropped. Rather,—it grew there by the river, and such millions of reeds grew with it, that neither waters nor winds could care for a thing so common and worthless, but the very snakes twisting in and out despised it, and thrust the arrows of their tongues through it in scorn. And then—I think I see!—the great god walked by the edge of the river, and he mused on a gift to give man, on a joy that should be a joy on the earth for ever; and he passed by the lily ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... he would be a subject to it always. All the elements of his captivity lay so entirely outside of him, beyond his power to measure or comprehend, that a feeling of helplessness came over him. He again had the sense of being swept twisting in an irresistible flood. But his confusion was dominated by one great assurance—nothing should deprive him of Ludowika. An intoxicating memory invaded him, touched every nerve with delight and a tyrannical hunger. His fibre seemed to crumble, his knees turn to dust. Years ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... after the departure of the trio, Fernandez sat meditatively regarding me in silence, twisting and turning Mateo's note in his fingers meanwhile. At length, with just the ghost of a smile flickering over his features, he said, tapping the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Until then, it seemed to me that I rode as in a dream, seeing my thoughts before me, but having no power to look within or consider myself. One thing too moved before me whenever I closed my eyes; and that was the slow twisting frieze of the five figures against ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you might have killed that chap? What him say? said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. He say, said I, that you came near kill-e that man there, pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. Kill-e, cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly expression of disdain, ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale! Look you, roared the Captain, I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... boulder, and, acting as a key log, held in check the whole drive. Then began a wild scene, which once beheld can never be forgotten. Stopped in their mad career, the logs presented the spectacle of unrestrained passion. The mighty, heaving, twisting mass groaned, pressed and writhed for freedom, but with the awful grip of death the sturdy key log held firm. Steadily the jam increased in size, and whiter threw the foam, as one by one those giant logs swept crashing down, to be wedged amidst ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... and sped those maddened winds, curling and twisting, rising and falling, mixing in and out as though some unknown power might be ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... Vivian made no reply. He was advancing to the door. And then as he paused before the stricken Hun, and saw the glitter of a tear on the piquant gold-and-black lashes, the young man's twisting heart seemed suddenly to loosen, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... wrist. Roke glowered hideously at the smiling Gavin. Brice could feel no compunction for his own behavior. For he remembered the hurled knife and the brutal kicking of the dog. Yet he repented him of the hand-twisting trick. For if he and Roke were expected to work together as Milo had said, he had certainly made a most unfortunate beginning to their acquaintanceship, and just now he had added new and painful aggravation to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... weapon, or spread out and adhere to the surrounding points of rock, a black, inky fluid is ejected from the soft, pulpy, and slimy body; and then, after raining blow after blow upon it, it lies unable to crawl away, but still twisting and turning, and showing its red and white suckers—a thing of horror indeed, the embodiment of all that is hateful, wicked, and malignant ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... their feints, suddenly rushed together, and the swarthy arms of the monster slipped around the white body of Pierre. For a moment they whirled, twisting ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they were in some great surprise, both of them. The Jew held up his hands, looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself into a thousand shapes, twisting his body and wringing up his face this way and that way in his discourse, stamping with his feet, and throwing abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury. Then he would turn and ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... fellow about forty years old, is watching a grape vine, still bare, which is winding and twisting like a snake along ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... sprig from an ash-leaved sugar maple close by, according to a habit he had of twisting something in his lips during intervals of talk, Mr. Davidson walked down the slope with Robert. While they are discussing crops, with the keen interest which belongs not to amateurs, we may enlighten the reader somewhat concerning the municipal system of self-government ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... one in a trap. 'Ah, you rascal!' said he, as he saw him struggling, 'I'll teach you to steal my fat geese!—you shall hang on the tree yonder, and your brothers shall see what comes of thieving!' The farmer was twisting a halter to do what he threatened, when the fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before, thought there could be no harm in trying whether it might not do him one more ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers' quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... Romano, we think—for it is long since—there, by no process, with mere change of scene, could the figure have reciprocated characters. Long, grotesque, fantastic, yet with a grace of her own, beautiful in convolution and distortion, linked to her connatural tree, co-twisting with its limbs her own, till both seemed either—these, animated branches; those, disanimated members—yet the animal and vegetable lives sufficiently kept distinct—his Dryad lay—an approximation of two natures, which to conceive, it must be seen; analogous to, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... grin at his anonymous correspondent's unfriendly gibe was just twisting his lips when a double knock sounded on the living room door, which he had ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... settled once and for all the earthly concerns of her father. The space between her and the body seemed peopled with spectral beings, which moved to and fro in the dimly lit room. Her father lay on his back, the flames from the fire making weird red and yellow twisting streaks ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... beside his cot. His eyes opened and then shut quickly, with a startled look, in which doubt struggled with wonderful happiness. His hand stole out fearfully and warily until it touched her apron, and then, finding it was real, he clutched it desperately, and twisting his face and body toward her, pulled her down, clasping her hands in both of his, and pressing them close to his face and eyes and lips. He put them from him for an instant, and looked at her ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... was undergoing an experience far from pleasant, if we are to judge from the account which he gives in a letter written the following day: "Some used me brutally in all sorts of ways, jostling me about, pushing me, pinching me, twisting my arms and hands. I must, however, admit that others cried: 'Do not harm him.' In truth the bourgeoisie showed itself what it is everywhere: brutal and cowardly. For you know that I was delivered by some sharpshooters who put to flight three or four times their number ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... Amy faintly, and twisting her handkerchief. "Oh dear me, I know you're so tired. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... lace at any time, Lille ranks next in merit as a hand-made lace. The mesh is clearer and larger than most French or Belgian laces, being made by the simple twisting of two threads on four sides. The patterns are simple, and are outlined with a loose flax thread of silky appearance. The straight edges which characterise Old Lille lace certainly did not lend elegance to it. A large manufacture in black lace was commenced, and the black silk mantles ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... that's the way you feel," Larry murmured, his lips twisting. "But it isn't fair. It's your job to come out. We all have to ...
— Beyond the Door • Philip K. Dick
... leaves. The nettle has found its chance in life, its one fitting vacancy, among the ditches and waste-places by roadsides or near cottages; and it has laid itself out for the circumstances in which it lives. Its near relative, the hop, is a twisting climber; its southern cousins, the fig and the mulberry, are tall and spreading trees. But the nettle has made itself a niche in nature along the bare patches which diversify human cultivation; and it has adapted its stem ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... latter end of the journey the ocean interested us. An ocean always seems so unreasonable to inlanders. And that morning when there was "a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking," Henry came alongside and looked at the seascape, all twisting and writhing and tossing and billowing, up and down and sideways. He also looked at his partner who was gradually growing pale and wan and weary. And Henry heard this: "She's on a bender; she's riz about ten feet during the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... nevertheless, delayed his bound for an instant, and the hunter avoided its effect by a rapid jump, and with the butt-end of his gun struck at the lion with all his power, as he turned upon him. The dreadful creature seized it with his teeth, but with such force, that instead of twisting it out of the hunter's hand, he broke it short off by the barrel. The hunter immediately attacked him again, but his weapon was too short, and the lion fixed his claws in his breast, tearing off all his flesh, and endeavored to gripe his shoulder with his mouth, but the gun-barrel was of ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... this coming summer - and then up, up, up among the dark pines leading over the Black Forest Mountains. Mile after mile of steep incline has now been trundled, following the Bench River to its source. Ere long the road I have lately traversed is visible far below, winding and twisting up the mountain-slopes. Groups of swarthy peasant women are carrying on their heads baskets of pine cones to the villages below. At a distance the sight of their bright red dresses among the sombre green of the pines is suggestive of the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... for she had expected to see a den. The agent's polite manner and rather elegant appearance disconcerted her, for she had expected to meet a coarse and illiterate boor; and finally, Victor Chupin, who was standing twisting his cap near the fireplace, attired in a blouse and a pair of ragged trousers, fairly alarmed her. Still, no sign of her agitation was perceptible on her countenance. Not a muscle of her beautiful, proud face moved—her glance remained clear and haughty, and she exclaimed in ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... along the ditches with beds of wild roses. Outside the dikes the tawny current of the creek clamored almost ceaselessly, quiet only for a little while at high water. When the tide was low, or nearly so, the creek was a shining, slippery, red gash, twisting hither and thither through stretches of red-brown, sun-cracked flats, whitened here and there with deposited salt. Where the creek joined the Tantramar, its parent stream, the abyss of coppery and gleaming ooze revealed at ebb tide made a picture never to be forgotten; for the tidal Tantramar does ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... if to move away; then paused, and, twisting his gold chain, said, "And how am I ever to be what the happy one bade me, if you will not ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Never mind," I answered, twisting my handkerchief carelessly round the tingling palm, "I must get used to it. Peggy is sick and there is no one to carry water now but myself. When she is well, she will never let me do any ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... picked up the trail. Through a notch in the brow of the cliff a solid bar of water shot forth. The solid bar, in its fall broken to a misty spray, fell into a mossy basin at the cliff's foot, regathered, and then, sliding and twisting in its rock-strewn bed, gurgled among nodding flowers and slender, waving willows that were fanned into motion by the breath of the falling spray. Where the brook crossed the trail Zephyr stood still. Not all at ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... his back, his body being almost concealed by the grass, which was a foot high. In the air he waved his legs to and fro, twisting and twining them. The boys could not help laughing at the curious appearance of the two black objects waving slowly about. The herd of deer stood staring stupidly at the spectacle. Then, as if moved ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... of Southern magnanimity was that of W.T. Wigfall, a volunteer aide to General Beauregard. As he stood watching the progress of the battle from Cummings' Point and saw the great volume of black smoke curling and twisting in the air—the storm of shot and shell plunging into the doomed walls of the fort, and the white flag flying from its burning parapets—his generous, noble, and sympathetic heart was fired to a pitch that ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... show when he's shut up, and—Out there where that dry ditch runs, we'll back-fire. You take this sack and come and watch out my fire don't jump the ditch. We'll carry it around the house, just the other side the trail." He was pulling a handful of grass for a torch, and while he was twisting it and feeling in his pocket for a match, he looked at her keenly. "You aren't going to get hysterics and leave me to fight it alone, ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... isn't one of 'em in the West End would have done half so well. There she was, looking the picture of distress, and there was his lordship, twisting his moustache, and eyeing her as one who was at his wits' end to know what to do. If he didn't take long to come to a resolution, put it down to Dolly's blue eyes—he couldn't see the colour of them at that time of night, but he could feel them, I'll be bound; ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... wickedness and malevolence of his heart. He was rating me very impertinently for some supposed fault, which had no being save in his own jealous brain, when I attempted to reason him out of his belief in the spirit of calm Christian argument. But how do you think he answered me? He did so, sir, by twisting his mouth at me, and remarking that such sublime and ridiculous sophistry never came out of another mouth but one (meaning yours) and that no oath before a kirk session was necessary to prove who was my dad, for that he had never seen ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... followed. The essential fact of Pentecost is neither the sound and fire, nor the speaking with other tongues, but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that was the gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor learned by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the plain meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues which their users recognised to be their own. The significance of the fact will appear presently, but first note the attestation of it by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... saw a head appear above her quarter-railing, a very round head whereon was a mariner's red cap. Came a puff of smoke, the sharp crack of a caliver, and one of the officers beside Don Miguel threw up his hands and, twisting on his heels, fell clashing in his armour. When I looked again for the red cap, it was gone. But Don Miguel waited, silent and impassive as ever. Suddenly he gestured with his hand, I saw the heave of the steersmen's shoulders ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... other end whips against the middle, and the skin is thus struck twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous song. We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of the countenance, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck—in other words, breaking his bell short off—and silencing that young gentleman, as to my experience and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... But then I had such beautiful tackle that even the most skilled native fisherman had no chance when competing with me. My lines were of twenty-seven-strand white American cotton, as thick as a small goose-quill, and easily handled, never tangling or twisting like the native cinnet; and my hooks were the admiration and envy of all who saw them. They were of the "flatted" Kirby type, eyed, but with a curve in the shank, which was five inches in length, and as thick as a lead-pencil. I had bought these in Sydney, and during the ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... published under the title History of the French Revolution. One notices especially an engraving bearing the legend, Poverty of Peasants under Louis XIV. In the foreground a man is fighting some dogs for some bones, which for that matter are already quite fleshless. Beside him a wretched fellow is twisting himself and compressing his stomach. Farther back a woman lying on the ground is eating grass. At the back of the landscape figures of which one cannot say whether they are corpses or persons starving are also stretched on the soil. As an example of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... and the twisting stems burst in the smoke and flew off like arrows; black shadows ran about distractedly on the red horizon. They could hear the shrieks of those who were in the huts; the elephants, oxen, and horses plunged in the midst of the crowd crushing it together with ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... fens of Scythia green with rustling reeds; From where the Danube winds through many a land, And Mareotis laves the Egyptian strand, To rendezvous they waft on eager wing, And wait assembled the returning spring. Meanwhile they trim their plumes for length of flight, Whet their keen beaks, and twisting claws, for fight; Each crane the pygmy power in thought o'erturns, And every bosom for the battle burns. When genial gales the frozen air unbind, The screaming legions wheel, and mount the wind. Far in the sky they form their long array, And land and ocean stretch'd immense survey, Deep, deep ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... again emptied the porridge into the bag, and the next minute he rolled on the floor, twisting himself about as if in agony, uttering loud groans the while. Suddenly he ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... Rennes; but now and then he stopped and looked hard at her, and when she went to bed she found her little dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing was dead, but still warm; she stooped to lift it, and her distress turned to horror when she discovered that it had been strangled by twisting twice round its throat the necklet ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... engaged, I kept hearing the bells ringing and tinkling incessantly, and, while I was hurrying to put on my dress in order to inquire the meaning of this, Caroline and Adelaide rushed in, exclaiming that men were climbing the walls of the house, and the tinkling of the bells was caused by their twisting them off the wires. These women, whose natural color was bright mulatto, now looked ashy. I do not think that I spoke a word, but just flew into the nursery, took the children, and ran up the stairs. As I passed by the sitting, room, I met Kate, all disheveled, running out and saying that men ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... screw the head off the stalk. He imagined himself doing it—with one hand, a twisting movement. Not seriously, of course. Just a simple indulgence for his exasperated feelings. He wasn't capable of murder. He was certain of that. And, remembering suddenly the plain speeches of Mr. Jones, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... picture,—mamma put it up in the nursery. No, she is not like that, not at all, much prettier; and then my lady is sorry about something,—except when she smiles at me. She has her hair put up like this, and this," the child went on, twisting her own bright locks. ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... of a second the two men's eyes encountered; then Siward glanced at the dog, and turned on his heel with the slightest shrug. And that is all there was to the incident—an anxious, perplexed puppy lugged off by a servant, turning, jerking, twisting, resisting, looking piteously back as his unwilling feet slid ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... is twisting two threads into one for the purpose of weaving. The single thread, as wound off from the cocoon, is designated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... cocinero lit a fire against the rock, and in a very few minutes an iguana which we had shot that day was spitted and roasting before it. It looked strange to see this hideous creature, in shape between a lizard and a dragon, twisting and turning in the light of the fire; and its disgusting appearance might have taken away some people's appetites; but we knew by experience that there is no better eating than a roasted iguana. We made a hearty meal off this one, concluding it with a pull at the rum flask, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... game have you got?" asked Mr. Grant, twisting his head and looking at Oliver from under ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... boys, this part of the process was carried on at some distance from the cabin. Thereafter, when the weather was clear, Philip exposed the skin to the smoke of a smouldering fire, devoting such time as he had to rubbing and twisting the hide while it turned to ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... the slaves began howling and beating their heads, and he to whom the young man had spoken fell down with his face in the dust, and lay there twisting ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... and smiled unbelievingly. Her recollection of Pink Upham was of a big red-faced fellow overgrown and awkward, with a disgusting habit of twisting every one's remarks into puns, and of uttering trite truths with the air of just having discovered them. The warning whirr of a clock about to strike made her spring down from the stool ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Gaudissart, twisting his watch-key. "I shall have the honor to call for you to-morrow. Meantime, send the wine at once to Paris to the address I have given you, and the price will ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... It was a dismal affair little more than an elevated marsh. When the tide was out on Duck Island, its extended dreariness was potent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay were all hard facts. Occasionally, here and there, could be seen a few green tussocks, with their scant blades, their amphibious flavor and unpleasant dampness. And if you chose ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... seine and hauled out until she was abreast of the Blackbird. She drew close up to her massive hull a great heap of salmon, struggling, twisting, squirming within the net. The loading began. Her men laughed and shouted as they worked. The gill-net fishermen watched silently, scowling. It was like taking bread out of their mouths. It was like an honest man restrained by a policeman's club from taking ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... answered, twisting his quid from the left to the right cheek, "she vas foundtz; and vat is droltz de bags of flour she have in de praam, dough dey been long timetz in de vater, vere quite ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... to the north," Reade conjectured, studying the oddly-shaped, rapidly moving and twisting blackish cloud, "but we're going to be right in line with the main storm that is traveling ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... in creating this festive garment. The dyeing process had developed unsuspected moth holes. The blue and the gray serge did not dye exactly the same shade, nor were they of quite the same texture. However, by twisting and turning and adding a yoke of black silk, which had for years been Lizzie's Sunday neck scarf, a result was produced that completely satisfied the little dressmaker ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... wondering. No one knew the man, and some thought he was a maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he rode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, overturning, crashing—annihilating the weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... rifle" was to be found in the hands of almost every backwoodsman. The barrel was heavy and from three feet to three feet and a half in length, so that the piece, when set on the ground, reached at least to the huntsman's shoulder. The bore was cut with twisting grooves, and was so small that seventy bullets were required to weigh a pound. In loading, a greased linen "patch" was wrapped around the bullet; and only a small charge of powder was needed. The grin was heavy to carry and difficult to hold steadily ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... "I'll let them see I'm not afraid of them," and, without pausing now, he walked to the side, caught up the bucket, and twisting one end of the line round his left hand, went to the open gangway of that side of the vessel to throw down the bucket into the clear, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... second the invitation, but stood moodily twisting his tawny moustache, and staring out into the garden in an absent ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... made for their comfort and refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of all commendation. But they want more amusement, and particularly (as it strikes me) something in motion, though it were only a twisting fountain. The thing is too still after their lives of machinery, and art flies over ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... finished his, and, being a lad of restless habit, he took up the arrow which lay beside him, and began toying with it. First he untied the piece of stuff, smoothed it, and put it into his pocketbook, while his eyes filled with tears; then he continued listlessly twisting the arrow in his fingers, while he listened ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child’s paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant, bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... "On thy back," said he sharply, and seizing the arbalest, and taking a stroke forward, he aided the desired movement. "Hand on my shoulder! slap the water with the other hand! No—with a downward motion; so. Do nothing more than I bid thee." Gerard had got hold of Denys's long hair, and twisting it hard, caught the end between his side teeth, and with the strong muscles of his youthful neck easily kept up the soldier's head, and struck out lustily across the current. A moment he had hesitated which ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... began—the money, arms, etc., being furnished by the rebel agents in Montreal or Quebec. Of the details of this affair, as carried out, the people have been fully advised by the newspapers, and, to all intents and purposes, the raid has been a success, or has operated in this manner by the winding and twisting course of the Canadian law courts, which seem to be actuated by no fixed principles, but wavering between the fear of the public opinion of the American people, and their desire to aid the rebels in overturning the government—and had it not ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... better, became worse. We then shifted our work, and I took charge of the load, while the tired Indian fixed the lasso. I was just making my third ascent, when Sumichrast, who had gone on before us to reconnoitre the ground, made his appearance above. When he saw me stumbling and twisting about, falling now on my side, and now on my knees, toiling to advance a single step, my companion burst into a fit of laughter. I had then neither time nor will to do as he did, and his ill-timed mirth vexed me. At last I caught hold of the stake, bruised ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... making which was coming out of the chimney, and the longish darkish shadow was moving up the side of the old man's woodshed out there, and on up the slant of the snow-covered roof, making me think of a great big long darkish worm twisting and squirming and crawling up a stick in the summer-time.... There must have been almost a foot of snow on the roof of that woodshed, I thought, and that reminded me of the snow man at the bottom of Bumblebee hill, and when I noticed that the shadows of the trees out there were getting very ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... elbows on his knees, idly twisting a seal ring on his little finger. The searching eyes of the ambassador ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... in his joy at being free, this creature with the magnificent appetite would immediately rush to the next hook, only to be caught there when the lines were drawn in. If the shark failed in his efforts to gnaw himself free, he would try, by twisting and turning, to break either the hook or the chain; but man had foreseen this possibility and had made the hook to turn with him. With exemplary patience 'the grey one' would continue his twisting until he had been drawn right up to the side of the boat and a second hook made fast in him. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... Meg was writing to her father to report the traveler's safe arrival, Jo slipped upstairs into Beth's room, and finding her mother in her usual place, stood a minute twisting her fingers in her hair, with a worried gesture and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... doubt in her mind. Contarini himself was too thoroughly Venetian not to understand what Beroviero was doing, and when the two came upon him, he was drawn up to his full height, one gloved hand holding his cap and resting on his hip; the other, gloveless, and white as a woman's, was twisting his silky mustache. Beroviero had manoeuvred so cleverly that Marietta almost jostled the young patrician as she ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... about 75 feet long. This antenna will have capacity of about 0.0001 m. f. If you want an antenna of two wires spaced about three feet apart I would make it about 75 feet long. Bring down a lead from each wire, twisting them into a pigtail to act like one wire except near the horizontal ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... rode east she would come eventually to the road along which she had walked from Echo, Idaho. Lorraine had had enough of that road. If she went north she would—well, she would not meet Mr Lone Morgan again, for she had tried it twice, and had turned back because there seemed no end to the trail twisting through the sage and rocks. West she had not gone, but she had no doubt that it would be the same dreary monotony ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Ed, "but we wouldn't like to walk home from this point." He was twisting the wheel so that the launch almost turned. Then a sound like ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... suspected that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a personage as insignificant as me. I saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of boxes. By then he was wearing shoulder-straps. He was twisting and twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient General. In three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still rather handsome and adroit. One could see that by the time he was thirty ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... What she had begun with was her surprise at her appearing to have left him on Tuesday anything more to understand. The parts, as he now saw, under her hand, did fall more or less together, and it wasn't even as if she had spent the interval in twisting and fitting them. She was bright and handsome, not fagged and worn, with the general clearness; for it certainly stuck out enough that if the American ladies themselves weren't to be squared, which was absurd, they ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... of the pelvis he was able to maintain himself erect. He usually picked up objects with his teeth, and could hold a coin in the axilla as he rolled from place to place. His rolling was accomplished by a peculiar twisting of the thorax and bending of the pelvis. There was no history of maternal impression during pregnancy, no injury, and no hereditary disposition to anomalous members. Figure 112 represents a boy with congenital deficiency of the lower extremities who was exhibited a few ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... at times almost into wretchedness. That St. Eval should so soon forget her, that he should love again ere six months had passed, could not fail to be a subject of bitter mortification to one in whose bosom pride still rested. She would not have thus tormented herself with turning and twisting Mary's information into such ideas, had she not felt assured that he had penetrated her weakness, and despised her. Fickleness was no part of St. Eval's character, of that she was convinced; but it was natural he should cease to love, when he had ceased to esteem, and in the society ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... But our good resolutions do not last long and in time we forget the strained eyes and bowed backs, or, what is worse, value our bit of lace all the more because it means that some poor woman has put her life and health into it, netting and weaving, purling and knotting, twining and twisting, throwing and drawing, thread by thread, day after day, until her eyes can no longer see and her fingers ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... became henceforth his life's passion. Nay, Bismarck did not ask that the member be dismissed! That would be punishment too coarse. Instead, Bismarck decided that the best revenge would be to print the address piecemeal and thus keep the member in suspense;—something like twisting the cords a little each day till the victim ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... unfortunate man sank, upon striking the water; but presently the man beside me sang out "There he is!" pointing at the same time down at the water about thirty feet from our bows; and, peering down, I at length caught sight, indistinctly, of what looked like a human form, twisting and writhing a few feet below the surface. I instantly dived, and the next moment found myself within arm's reach of the man, whom I seized by the hair and dragged to the surface, when all that I had to do was to fling my arms about his body, and hold ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... may be examined, if necessary), and formally refused in the end to respect our rights. We are highly aggrieved that any canton in our Confederacy should lose all regard to justice, and that 'new contrivances should be found for twisting and glossing over our covenants and treaties,' so that no one may be bound to let law be law. Of such 'glossing over,' our forefathers knew nothing; in their time also everything went better than now. Then, too, our Confederates of Schwyz ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... Cara stood twisting a spray of maidenhair fern round and round her fingers till the tiny pale green leaves shrivelled up and dropped off and only the wiry ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... was moving at last. Jimmy Powers ran ashore for his peavie. Roaring Dick, like a demon incarnate, threw himself into the work. Forty men attacked the jam at a dozen places, encouraging the movement, twisting aside the timbers that threatened to lock anew, directing pigmy-like the titanic forces into the channel of their efficiency. Roaring like wild cattle the logs swept by, at first slowly, then with the railroad rush of the curbed freshet. Men were everywhere, taking chances, like cowboys ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... came into Katherine's face; she dropped the ribbon from her hand, and turned to the servant, who stood twisting a corner of her ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... maddened by the pain, Prosper thought of nothing but to get free. He swung his long arm upward and landed a heavy blow on Raoul's face that dislocated the jaw; then twisting himself downward and sideways, he fell in toward the wall. Raoul plunged forward, stumbled, let go his hold, and pitched out from the tower, arms ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... sweep of water rushing off the polished sides than on to them, and the instant that we touch that sweep we shoot away with redoubled speed. No, the rock is not as treacherous as the whirlpool and twisting billow. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... sponge, it disturbed countless crabs, rock scorpions and creeping, leech-like things that ran blindly into the holes in the limestone; and, at the water-line, the sea-weed, licking hungrily at the wall, rose and fell, the great arms twisting and coiling like ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling. She looked ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... re-uniting them into one mass. It was marvellous to watch the blond ringlets streaming like jets of liquid gold between the silver of her fingers; and her arms undulating like swans' necks as they were arched above her head in the act of twisting and confining the natural bullion. If you have ever by chance examined one of those beautiful Etruscan vases with red figures on a black ground, and decorated with one of those subjects which are designated under the title of 'Greek Toilette,' then you will have some idea of the grace ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... of Short-tailed Blacks, a half-dozen tadpoles wandered off now and then, each scum-mumbling by himself. Shortly his positivism asserted itself and back he wriggled, twisting in and out of the mass of his fellows, or at the approach of danger nuzzling into the dead leaves at the bottom, content only with the feeling of something pressing against his sides and tail. His physical make-up, simple as it is, has proved perfectly adapted to this touch system ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... unfortunately said; the more as the tutor in order to keep his eye on the door, by which he expected Mr. Pomeroy to re-enter, had turned his back on the staircase. The lie was scarcely off his lips when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and, twisting him round with a jerk, brought him face to face with an old friend. The tutor's eyes met those of Mr. Dunborough, he uttered one low shriek, and turned as white as paper. He knew ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... experience?" But when I looked up and saw his face, I was ashamed, and ran and kissed him, and straightened his glasses so that he could see me with both eyes. But, dear Heart, his eyes were too full of tears to fire upon me. And as I sat there upon the arm of his chair, twisting his sacred beard, this is what he told me. When my mother died, he said, and left me a little puckered pink mite in his arms, he had solemnly dedicated me to God. And he declared, moreover, that he could not be faithless to his vow by giving me in marriage to an infidel. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... it up the same as usual last night," he said to Mrs. Gresley. "There's been somebody about as has tampered it off its hinges. Yet nothing hasn't been touched, the coal nor the stack. It doesn't seem natural, twisting the gate off ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... approached him swiftly, grasping his shoulders and twisting her face into his. She was a horrible thing—filthy of breath, dirty, with dribbling mouth and red eyes. Her few long black teeth hung loosely like tusks and the folds of fat on her chin curled down on her great neck. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... doctrine of Hell come from? I will tell you; from that fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl of wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter of malicious apes. And I despise it with every drop of my blood ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... bandage (mentioned above); drink two-thirds of a glass of cold water; and spend fifteen to twenty minutes in the following exercises, before dressing: Abdominal lifting with deep breathing, auto-massage, leg raising, trunk twisting, trunk bending—forward and to sides; lying down for the trunk raising, and sitting for the trunk circumduction. Immediately following these exercises, go to stool. Have feet raised from the floor eight or ten inches, in order to simulate the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various |
