"Twisted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning the movement forward was resumed. There was a small stream to cross, and a long hill, and then they entered into the depths of a primeval forest, where the tops of the trees were a hundred feet and more overhead, and the great twisted roots lay sprawling in all directions, covered partly with moss and decayed leaves. The trail was still visible, but the branches of the trees on either side met overhead, cutting off the sunlight and making it ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... forgot that cudgelling I gave you? At each stroke You grinned and twisted with a grace, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... distribution of the black mica, which forms little ramified veins. The Spaniards call this rock Piedra Mapaya (the map-stone). The little fragment which I procured indicated a stratified rock, rich in white feldspar, and containing, together with spangles of mica, grouped in streaks, and variously twisted, some crystals of hornblende. It is not a syenite, but probably a granite of new formation, analogous to those to which the stanniferous granites (hyalomictes) and the pegmatites, or ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly, But as surely false, in their quaint presentment, However to pastor and flock's contentment! Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes, With his provings and parallels twisted and twined, Till how could you know them, grown double their size In the natural fog of the good man's mind, Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps, Haloed about with the common's damps? Truth remains true, the fault's in the prover; The zeal was ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... to the former, and no wonder if a single thread was not so strong as a twisted one, Mr. Fletcher (as it is said) died in London of the Plague, in the first year of King Charles the ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... shortly turns up in the shape of my wheel, with no less than eleven spokes broken, and the rim considerably twisted out of shape. Kiftan Sahib surveys 'the damaged wheel a moment, draws his own rawhide from his kammerbund, and rises to his feet. With a hoarse cry of alarm the negro vanishes into the surrounding gloom; the next moment is heard his eager chuckling laugh, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... There was a constant fidgeting about, and getting up and sitting down again, to let some of the more nervous ones who had resolved upon a decided rain escape to safer quarters. Half of the people had their heads twisted around to get a peep at the sky, to see what the clouds ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... twisted the wheel in the wrong direction, and the big machine swerved obediently. The next moment Miss Greeby was knocked down and writhed under the wheels. She uttered a tragic cry, but little Silver ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... de Cardoville threw down upon a chair the gray beaver hat she had worn to cross the garden, and displayed her fine golden hair, falling on either side of her face in long, light ringlets, and twisted in a broad knot behind her head. She presented herself without boldness, but with perfect ease: her countenance was gay and smiling; her large black eyes appeared even more brilliant than usual. When she perceived Abbe d'Aigrigny, she started ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... battle raged in his proud and twisted spirit, which took everything so hard—his nature imperatively commanding him to keep his work and his power for usefulness; his conscience telling him as urgently that if he sought to wield authority, he must ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bombs began to detonate, fifty fathoms down. The Mekinese duty-officer below had just learned that the spies' signalling device was cut off, when a detonation lifted the hull of the Mekinese cruiser and shook it violently. Another twisted its tail and crushed it. A bomb hit sea bottom a quarter-mile away. More bombs exploded still nearer, in close contact with the giant hull. A two-ton bomb clanked into contact with its metal plating ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... said Eunice, unwinding herself from the comfortable, twisted-up position in the steamer chair, which she loved. "Couldn't you let him cry a little while ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... relativity of morals, the strength of time, the fertility of matter, the variety, the unspeakable variety, of possible life. Everything is measurable and conditioned, indefinitely repeated, yet, in repetition, twisted somewhat from its old form. Everywhere is beauty and nowhere permanence, everywhere an incipient harmony, nowhere an intention, nor a responsibility, nor a plan. It is the irresistible suasion of this daily spectacle, it is ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... that of the Indian. The pony was of a bright cream color, slender, and with a perfect head and small ears, and one could see that he was quick and agile in every movement. He was well groomed, too. The long, heavy mane had been parted from ears to withers, and then twisted and roped on either side with strips of some red stuff that ended in long streamers, which were blown out in a most fantastic way when the pony was running. The long tail was roped only enough to fasten at the top a number ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... ground. The Carl then picked up the head and threw it at the body with such aim and force that the neck part of the head jammed into the neck part of the body and stuck there, as good a head as ever, you would have said, but that it bad got twisted the wrong way round. The Carl then lashed ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... were entering, side by side, a glittering establishment whose interior seemed to be walled chiefly in bevelled glass, so that everywhere the curious observer saw himself and twisted fractions of himself. The glass was relieved at frequent intervals by elaborate enamelled signs which repeated, 'No gratuities.' It seemed that the directors of the establishment wished to make perfectly clear to ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait; Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm nor hauberk's[1] twisted mail, Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant! shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears; From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!' Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... merely as the greatest of his earthly goods, which he believed he held in due subordination to more heavenly benefits. Those lives are no doubt the most peaceful in which self-interest and duty coalesce, and Trenholme's life at this period was like a fine cord, composed of these two strands twisted together with exquisite equality. His devotion to duty was such as is frequently seen when a man of sanguine, energetic temperament throws the force of his being into battle for the right. He had added to his school duties voluntary service in the small ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of the collection come from the deposits representing the town of Troy; they are all twisted, broken, and charred, bearing witness to the fierceness of the flames in which the town perished. These discoveries reveal to us the daily life of the people of Troy. Judging from the number of boars' tusks ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... Saturday night, about a fortnight after this; and while the web of strong, coarse homespun cloth, which was to furnish Mac and his boys with their year's stock of outer clothing, was being duly lifted, rubbed, banged on a bench, and twisted by the strong hands of about thirty men and women, Jim led the roaring choruses, and manipulated his end of the cloth with a vigor which at once delighted and ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... running with a stout piece of twine which he twisted around the wrists of Haines. Then he jerked the outlaw to his feet, and stood close, his ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... willows. In the center of the picture, disclosing its bends and reaches, Ausable river flowed on its way to Lake Champlain. In places its waters were almost hidden by grape vines that clambered and twisted around bush and tree, forming "Laocoon groups" in which they were ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... trails, or over the sunlit slopes sheeted in pale lavender wherever the wild lilacs were in bloom. Often, emerging from some thicket of dwarf oak they caught glimpses of a sapphire sea held between red, twisted branches of manzanita as in a frame. About them rang the music of the meadow larks. Merry shouts of bathers floated up from the beaches far below, mingled with the distant click of golf balls on ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... at a distance like little woods inclosed each in a circle of thin beech-trees. Coming closer, on opening the worm-eaten stile, one fancied that he saw a giant garden, for all the old apple-trees, as knotted as the peasants, were in blossom. The weather-beaten black trunks, crooked, twisted, ranged along the inclosure, displayed beneath the sky their glittering domes, rosy and white. The sweet perfume of their blossoms mingled with the heavy odors of the open stables and with the fumes of the steaming dunghill, covered with hens and their chickens. It ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... His iron-gray hair was rampant, his dressing gown fell away from his throat and showed the knotting of the great cords that ran down into his shoulders, and his dark eyes glittered under their heavy, black brows, while his mouth was twisted and white. Then, as I looked, something happened. A stealthy padding of feet came around the house from the garden and up the back steps, under the budding rose vine that was climbing through the trellis as if to clutch at the light, and a huge figure loomed ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ends tugged and pulled, and laboured long to strangle and overthrow the poor old turret, but in vain, for it withstood all their endeavours. Now that is exactly the condition of my poor stomach: there is a rope twisted round it, and the malicious devils are straining and tugging at it, and, faith, I could almost think that I sometimes hear them shouting and cheering each other to their task, and when they are at it I always have the little turret and its tormentors before my eyes.' He complained ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... met an old friend whom he had almost forgotten. It was the scrawny youth with the twisted nose and the husky voice who had been a second in his corner the night he fought Battling Rodriguez to get money to pay for his father's funeral. He remembered the youth as Murphy when he met him lounging at the counter of a cigar stand at the entrance ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... moments before the receiver and twisted the call slip around one of his fingers. In a moment the affairs of state and the destiny of the city slipped from his shoulders and his mind took up ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... out a bellow of rage. He strode forward to make sure for himself. Roughly he seized his prisoner by the hair of the head and twisted the face toward him. ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the yellow spatterdock Nuphar advena, but he knew its large leaves of rich green, where the black bass or pickerel sheltered themselves from the summer sun, and its yellow balls on stout stems, around which his line so often twined and twisted, or in which the hook caught, not to be jerked out till the long, green, juicy stalk itself, topped with globe of greenish gold, came up from its wet bed. He knew the sedges along the bank with their nodding tassels and stiff ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... is managed in different ways: some pluck out and destroy all except a lock hanging from the crown of the head, which they interweave with wampum and feathers. But the women wear it very long, twisted down their backs, with beads, feathers, and wampum, and on their heads they carry little coronets ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... across a swollen river with a line, he got into difficulties, became entangled in the line which was tied round his neck, and having also a bag containing 300 Spanish silver dollars on his back, he sank and was swept away. Some time afterwards Wafer found Gayny lying dead in a creek with the rope twisted about him and his ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... yellow and white, were gathered only to be gazed at, carried for a while, then cast aside for others fresher and fairer. And now they came to cool rills that flowed, softly murmuring, among mossy limestone, or blocks of red or grey granite, wending their way beneath twisted roots and fallen trees; and often Catharine lingered to watch the eddying dimples of the clear water, to note the tiny bright fragments of quartz or crystallized limestone that formed a shining pavement below the ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... midnight the girls had melted lead in an iron spoon, and dropped it into buckets of water, amid bubbles of laughter, to see what the occupations of their future husbands would be. They fished out the results with eager faces, and twisted them to suit their hopes. Carette's piece came out a something which Jeanne Falla at once pronounced an anchor, but which young Torode said was a sword, and made it so by a skilful touch ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... rubbed with sweet bees'-wax, a twy-eared bowl newly wrought, smacking still of the knife of the graver. Round its upper edges goes the ivy winding, ivy besprent with golden flowers; and about it is a tendril twisted that joys in its saffron fruit. Within is designed a maiden, as fair a thing as the gods could fashion, arrayed in a sweeping robe, and a snood on her head. Beside her two youths with fair love- locks are contending from either side, with alternate speech, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... two or more styles. Where the strands or parts were uniform in size and rigidity they were simply interlaced, but when one strong or rigid series was to be kept in place by a pliable series, the latter were twisted about the former at the intersections as in ordinary twined weaving. The heavy series of strands or parts were held together side by side by the intertwined strands placed far apart, a common practice yet among native mat-makers. Much variety of character ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... business, the task was entrusted on this occasion to the head prompter,—a clever man in his way, but wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to understand, Mr. Browning's meaning. Consequently, the delicate, subtle lines were twisted, perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous in his hands. My "cruel father" [Mr. Elton] was a warm admirer of the poet. He sat writhing and indignant, and tried by gentle asides to make me see the real meaning of the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... powerful frame; his countenance, hard, strongly marked, and furnished with a thick, black beard, bore testimony of exposure to many a blast, but it still preserved a prepossessing expression of good humour and benevolence. His turban, which was formed of a cashmere shawl, sorely tached and torn, and twisted here and there with small steel chains, according to the fashion of the time, was wound around a red cloth cap, that rose in four peaks high above the head. His oemah, or riding coat, of crimson cloth much stained and faded, opening at the bosom, showed the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... good gallant steed, That will not ask a kind caress, To swim the Santee at our need, When on his heels the foemen press,— The true heart and the ready hand, The spirit stubborn to be free, The twisted bore, the smiting brand,— And we are Marion's ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... returned to the place at which they had passed the night. Having straightened the protection-wires, which had become twisted, and arranged their impedimenta, they set out, and were soon once ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... meet us, arriving in the whirl and blur of a handspring. He did not shake hands with us; instead, his greeting took the form of stunts. He turned more handsprings. He twisted his body sinuously, like a snake, until, having sufficiently limbered up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and knees touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the palms of his hands. He whirligigged and pirouetted, dancing and cavorting ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... oars, with which he had been slowly rowing the boat, and caught up his pole. Then, as the boys watched, they saw him reel in his line and lift from the water a big fish, which sparkled in the sun as it leaped and twisted, trying to ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... velvety eyes smiled a twisted little smile. His slim brown fingers never stopped in their work of guiding the pen ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Balisarda's lightest blows, Nor helm, nor shield, nor cuirass could avail, Nor strongly tempered plate, nor twisted mail. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... in the cabin looking-glass ten minutes later. He twisted his beard in his hand and tried to imagine how he would look without it. As a compromise he went out and had it cut short and trimmed to a point. The glass smiled approval on his return; the mate smiled too, and, being caught in the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... the South African name of a medium-sized red antelope (q.v.), marked with white lines and spots, belonging to a local race of a widely spread species, Tragelaphus scriptus. The males alone have rather small, spirally twisted horns. There are several allied species, sometimes known as harnessed antelopes, which are of a larger size. Some of these such as the situtunga (T. spekei) have the hoofs elongated for walking on swampy ground, and hence have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... never thought anything was too good for that young one." Then she burst out with a sob louder than her sister's. Eva had usually a coarsely well-kempt appearance, her heavy black hair being securely twisted, and her neck ribbons tied with smart jerks of neatness; but to-day her hair was still in the fringy braids of yesterday, and her cotton blouse humped untidily in the back. Her face was red and her lips swollen; she looked like a very bacchante ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ante-chambers, and a piece of fringe getting loose in the air, had fallen upon the King's wig, from which it was removed by Livry, a gentleman-in-waiting. Livry also opened the bundle, and saw that it did indeed contain the fringes all twisted up, and everybody saw likewise. A murmur was heard. Livry wishing to take away the bundle found a paper attached to it. He took the paper and left the bundle. The King stretched out his hand and said, "Let us see." Livry, and with reason, would not ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... friend into the place like anxious relatives who conduct a physician into a sick-chamber. The poor patient lay on the floor in a very bad way. Two wheels were off, the axle was bent, the wire spokes were twisted, the saddle was off, and the brake was ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... or 'something twisted,' and is thus the opposite of 'righteousness,' or rather of what is 'straight.' It is thus like our own 'right' and 'wrong,' or like the Latin 'in-iquity' (by which it is happily enough rendered in our version). So looking ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... impulse that suggested succor; and he was sure she had strangled it, when her hands fell nerveless at her side, and she raised her bowed head. If the finger of paralysis had passed over her features, they would not have appeared more hopelessly fixed. Mechanically she twisted and coiled her hair, and took the hat and shawl which the officer held ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Pete twisted his hat in his hands. He did not know what to say. Slowly he backed from the room, turned, and strode out to Andy White. Andy wondered what Pete had been up to, but ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... grinned the ancient, and stood, hands on hips and face twisted into a grim smile, while the stranger laid hold of the rusty iron and started upwards, with no slightest idea where the end of the venture ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... poor suppliant! As he stepped over the threshold his foot twisted, and he fell to the ground. Of course, everybody was firmly convinced of his guilt, and what could the poor boy say when his own appeal to the god ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... drama has been somewhat discredited of late; it has been overworked and twisted to strange uses in these days of dolorous literature; but it must do service again here, not because this story is dramatic in the restricted sense of the word, but because some tears may perhaps be shed intra et extra muros ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... unschooled nature. It is the same question as that of the deformed pelvis,—one of degree. The facts of mal-vitalization are as much to be attended to as those of mal-formation. If the woman with a twisted pelvis is to be considered an exempt, the woman with a defective organization should be recognized as belonging to the invalid corps. We shudder to hear what is alleged as to the prevalence of criminal practices; if back of these there can be shown ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that his countrymen make their hives of the best plank, and never less than an inch and a half in thickness. The shape is that of an old-fashioned churn, and the hive is covered on the outside, halfway down, with twisted rope cordage, to give it greater protection against extremes of heat and cold. The hives are placed in a dry situation, directly upon the hard earth, which is first covered with an inch or two of clean, dry sand. Chips are then heaped up all around them, and covered with earth banked up in a sloping ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... adrift on a floating funeral pyre. Hermod would have succeeded in his mission, had not Lok, the Spirit of Evil, interposed to thwart him. For this, Lok was bound in prison, with cords made of the twisted intestines of one of his own sons; and he will remain imprisoned until the Twilight of the Gods, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... hardened and misshapen by manual labor, but if ugly, then ugly with the majesty of the twisted, tempest- defying oak, over hers. "Believe me, Margaret, you love me. You have loved ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... eyes and dragged himself to a sitting position, sweeping the blood of his shallow wound from his forehead. He searched out the axe. With it he first smashed in the whiskey jugs. Then he wrecked the cutter, chopping it savagely until it was reduced to splinters and twisted iron. By the time this was done, his antagonists were in the throes of returning consciousness. He stood over them, ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... leggings which had been twisted round, and, skirting the shell hole, started out on his voyage of discovery, feeling rather dizzy at first, but surprised to find that his cap was still upon his head, for he had not yet been served out with a ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... considered we were just starting, and that was many weeks ago. We have kept on going over six counties which are comfortably large, even for California, and we are still going. We have twisted and tabled, criss-crossed our tracks, made fascinating and lengthy dives into the interior valleys in the hearts of Napa and Lake Counties, travelled the coast for hundreds of miles on end, and are now in Eureka, on Humboldt Bay, which was discovered by accident ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... in availing myself of the opportunity; and there, not a dozen feet from me, lay twisted about, something like a double S, a large specimen of the serpent I had so often heard about; and a curious shrinking sensation came over me, as I noticed its broad flat head, shaped something like an old-fashioned pointed shovel, with the neck quite small behind, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... outer cases may be removed. The cases removed, the rest of the cocoon is soaked in warm water until the gummy matter is softened and the fibres are free enough to be reeled. In the latter process the ends of a number of cocoons, varying from five to twenty, are caught and loosely twisted into a single strand. The silk thus prepared forms the "raw silk" of commerce. Sometimes a number of strands of raw silk are twisted into a coarse thread, thereby forming "thrown silk." For convenience in handling, both raw and thrown silk are ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... the dangerous angle, he grasped a broken edge of the rock outcrop about which the path twisted, and pressed hard with both feet upon the edge of the narrow causeway. It was a hazardous experiment, and the result of it startling, for there was a crash and a rattle, and Geoffrey remained clinging to the rock, with one foot in a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... had stood they saw a shattered trunk not more than twenty feet high. Upon the ground in every direction lay torn and twisted limbs and smaller branches, just as they had been violently hurled when that terrible electric bolt struck with ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... He turned and twisted across and back, Choosing the places to wade or swim, Picking the safest and shortest track, The pitchy darkness was clear to him. Did he strike the crossing by sight or smell? The Lord that ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... she saw the spring sunshine gilding the gray branches of the park trees. Here and there elms spread tinted with green; chestnuts and maples were already in the full glory of new leaves; the leafless twisted tangles of wistaria hung thick with scented purple bloom; everywhere the scarlet blossoms of the Japanese quince glowed on naked shrubs, bedded in ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... This ancient structure, indeterminate in age and style of architecture, was built upon uneven ground. To save expense and trouble, in the distant days of its inception, it had been built upon two levels, without the excavating for foundations. Time and the weather had warped and twisted the old wooden floors and beams so that by this date it had numerous levels. Yet the remaining furniture was of substantial oak, and here and there could be seen evidence of the expenditure, in days long past, ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... put him to bed again, and sent for the doctor, as they ought to have done in the beginning. It transpired that he had twisted a tendon out of place, and could never have gotten well without attention. Then he gripped the sides of the bed, and shut his teeth together, and turned white with agony, while the doctor pulled and wrenched away at ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... that I have this human weakness myself. String is my foible. My pockets get full of little hanks of it, picked up and twisted together, ready for uses that never come. I am seriously annoyed if any one cuts the string of a parcel instead of patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring themselves to use india-rubber bands, which are a sort of deification ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... they rested in the wood, made fresh bowstrings from the twisted gut of the deer, cut the skins up into long strips, thereby obtaining a hundred feet of strong cord, which Ned thought might be useful for snares. Here, too, they shot several birds, which they roasted, and from whose feathers, tied on with a thread-like fiber, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... opium-eaters. It is there that, towards the evening, you may see the lovers of opium arrive by the different streets which terminate at the Solymania (the greatest mosque in Constantinople): their pale and melancholy countenances would inspire only compassion, did not their stretched necks, their heads twisted to the right or left, their back-bones crooked, one shoulder up to their ears, and a number of other whimsical attitudes, which are the consequences of the disorder, present the most ludicrous and the most ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... thus established becomes the basis for new operations in the future, and may be twisted and perverted to serve other ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... returning leisurely home, I traversed the Campo Vaccino, and leaned a moment against one of the columns which supported the temple of Jupiter Stator. Some women were fetching water from the fountain hard by, whilst another group had kindled a fire under the shrubs and twisted fig-trees, which cover the Palatine Hill. Innumerable vaults and arches peep out of the vegetation. It was upon these, in all probability, the splendid palace of the Caesars was raised. Confused fragments of marble, and walls of lofty terraces, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... of the skins of bears, deer, antelope or elk, and the top covering was a blanket or robe made of the skins of small fur-bearing animals, such as rabbits, hares, wildcats and foxes. The skins were cut in narrow strips, which were loosely twisted so as to bring the fur entirely around on the outside, and then woven into a warp of strong twine made of the fine, tough, fibrous bark of a variety of milkweed (Asclepias speciosa). These fur robes were very warm, ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... is said, occurred at the time of his birth, one of his feet was twisted out of its natural position, and this defect (chiefly from the contrivances employed to remedy it) was a source of much pain and inconvenience to him during his early years. The expedients used at this period to restore the limb to shape, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... twisted right under the ankle, and the broken, crushed bones of the foot pressed right up where the instep should be. The pain must have been sunthin' terrible, and very often a toe drops off, but I spoze they are glad of that, for it would make the little lump of dead flesh they call their feet smaller. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... therefore a message to inform him of what was going on, and to desire his presence and advice. On his return to the city, he met the messengers of Don Diego, and having learnt the state of affairs, he twisted off the head of an excellent falcon which he carried on his fist, saying that fighting must now be followed, not the sports of the field. After a secret consultation with the rest of the Cabildo on the proper measures to be pursued on the present emergency, he left the city the same night, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the glow; the water in the Gate was pale lilac; the sky close to the horizon burned orange, but above turned to a pale green that made with its lucent colour alone infinite depths and spaces. Below, the darker waters twisted and turned with the tide. The western headlands were ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... and not make dreams your master, If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with triumph and disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can stand to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by Knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the work you've given your life to broken, And stoop and build ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the thing had drawn and examined it carefully. The mechanism was unfamiliar, but a glance at the muzzle told him that it was a projectile weapon of some sort. The twisted grooves in the barrel were obviously designed to impart a spin to the projectile, to give it ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Walky, "that's another thing that kin honestly be laid to Lem Parraday's openin' that bar at the Inn. That's where Jack got the liquor that twisted his brain, that led him astray, that made him a thief—— Jefers-pelters! sounds jest like 'The Haouse That Jack Built,' don't it? But poor Jack Besmith has sartainly built him a purty poor haouse. And there's steel bars at the ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... days it had been like holding her way through a whirlpool. The foam and uproar of the water had beat upon her fragile bark of life, had twisted it and turned it again and again to the one goal where she would not be. Tante had been the torrent, at once stealthy and impetuous, and the goal where she had wished to drive her had been marriage to ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... on to the bigger man like a wild cat, till at last Dawes fell with a crash, losing his presence of mind. Paul went down with him. Pure instinct brought his hands to the man's neck, and before Dawes, in frenzy and agony, could wrench him free, he had got his fists twisted in the scarf and his knuckles dug in the throat of the other man. He was a pure instinct, without reason or feeling. His body, hard and wonderful in itself, cleaved against the struggling body of the other man; not a muscle in ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... them. To sit so comfortably and privately in chairs that twisted round, so that if a passenger should start staring at Anna-Felicitas one could make her turn her back altogether on him; to have one's feet on footstools when they were the sort of feet that don't reach the ground; to see the lovely autumn country ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose, Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain, And inly groaning sought his couch again; Yet, as he went, he backward cast his view, And bade his ancient power a last adieu. So, when some sturdy swain through miry roads A grunting porker to the market goads, With twisted neck, splash'd hide, and progress slow, Oft backward looks the swine, and half disdains to go. "Ah me! how fallen," with choaking sobs he said, And sunk exhausted on his welcome bed; "Ere yet my shame, wide-circling through the town, Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown, Oh! be it mine, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... directions in the court. At the right the corner of the steeple wall is seen slightly jutting out. Nestling against it is a small monastic cemetery surrounded by a light, grilled iron fence. Marble monuments and slabs of stone and iron are sunk deep into the earth. All are old and twisted. It is a long time since anyone was buried there. The cemetery contains also some wild rose-bushes and two ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... Cutter, with but an instant's lapse. "You say I can't twist their heads about. But I HAVE twisted them." ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... parties of armed men appeared in good order, clothed and armed like those they had seen at Cotoche. In the next place, ten men in very long white mantles came from one of the temples, having their long black hair twisted up in rolls behind. In their hands these men held little earthen fire-pans, into which they cast gum anime, which they call copal, with which they perfumed the Spaniards, ordering them to depart from the country on pain of death. They then began to beat upon small kettle drums, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... in an absent way, not so much addressing the two men before him as the noisy crowd without. But when Shmul heard these words, he twice jumped into the air, and twisted his cap ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... Mrs Crowther, coming in. "I came to see how the baby was getting on. Eh, how they do get hold of you, don't they, little things. I must have him a minute," she said, taking him from Mrs Hankworth's knee. "No, you're not the first baby I've had hold of," she added to the little creature, who twisted about with protesting noises. She smacked its soft thighs, and held its warm head against her cheek. "I'm right down silly over a baby!" she exclaimed, laying it back on Mrs ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... in Fig. 40, as used in England. We know of nothing of the kind used in this country. For ourself, we have made of coarse wire-netting, a screen, which is attached to the pipe by hinges of wire. Holes may be bored with a bit through even a hard tile, or a No. 9 wire may be twisted firmly round the end of it, and the screen ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... impatience I seized the two long plaits, and twisted them now this way, now that. Astonishing the difference which hair-dressing can make! I have read of a heroine who passed successfully as her own twin sister by the simple device of plainly brushed hair and puritanical garments, the sister, of course, sporting marcelle waves and Parisian ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... conversation ensued, a little English and much Danish, when Dr. D—— fortunately produced Captain Washington's Esquimaux vocabulary, and, aided by the little son of our host, we soon twisted out all the news Herr Agar had ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... danger and pitiful condition, thinking only of those dear lost ones there in that abode of hell, and maddened at the impossibility of rescuing them. It was a wild hurly-burly of voices and of tongues, of despairing yells, hysterical sobs, heart-rending prayers; and as I stumbled over the twisted and broken rails, that stood upright like bent wires, and stooped over the bulwark, I beheld a spectacle so terrible that every nerve of my body, every heart-string, revolted at it. Even now they ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... the red man had but the rudest. He made wigwams, canoes, bone fish-hooks with lines of hide or twisted bark, stone tomahawks, arrow-heads and spears, clothing of skins, wooden bows, arrows, and clubs. He loved fighting, finery, gambling, and the chase. He domesticated no animals but the dog and possibly ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the story above; and down this pipe he had dropped his little string-tied cylinders of banknotes, satisfied that his hoard was safe! There seemed something pitifully ironic in the elaborate, insane craftiness of the old man's fear-twisted, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... question, it should be remembered, was one of those suspension bridges formerly employed by the Incas, and still used in crossing the deep and turbulent rivers of South America. They are made of osier withes, twisted into enormous cables, which, when stretched across the water, are attached to heavy blocks of masonry, or, where it will serve, to the natural rock. Planks are laid transversely across these cables, and a passage is thus secured, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... photograph of the group of trees you will see a number of pots of flowers. The flowers are disks and squares of different bright-colored tissue-paper, each one with its centre pinched together and twisted into a stemlike piece, which is pushed down into a buttonhole-twist spool. Around some of the flowers a smaller square of green may be used ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... he held me off and bent his foil against my breast at pleasure chafed me greatly, and showed me how much I had yet to learn, besides making me somewhat less vain of my size and strength. For my antagonist was but a small man, and yet held me at a distance with consummate ease, and twisted my foil from my hand with a mere turn of his wrist. Still, he had the grace to commend me when the bout was ended, and I at once arranged to take two lessons daily while ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... He twisted his head round so his voice would ascend the hallway. "Hey, fellers and skoirts," he called; "you that's fixin' to leave! Hurry on down here quick and see Algy, the livin' peppermint lossenger, before he melts away ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... a luxury to be reckoned with in that impoverished home; and besides, all the family had always used paper "lighters" daintily twisted, and crimped at top, nor was Elinor Sturtevant one to go behind her own traditions. But, at that moment, Alfaretta had already wasted three lighters without igniting the new wick when again that loud knocking ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... and fumbled and tried to stop the quern, but however much he twisted and fingered it, the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth reached so high that the man was very near drowning. He then pulled open the parlor door, but it was not very long before the quern had filled the parlor also, and it was just in the very nick of time that the man put his ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... still. There were other Judiths in the world, but the voice—he knew the voice—somewhere he had heard it. The moon was coming; it had crossed the other man's feet and was creeping up his twisted body. It would reach his face in time, and, if he could keep from ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... Sir John twisted between his fingers the stem of his champagne-glass and studied thoughtfully the motes of at the heart of the amber wine. "You see," he began thoughtfully, "it's such a difficult story to tell—difficult because ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... reached the cab. He swung a leg over the sill and at that moment, a surge of current whipped his suit. He twisted, grabbed for a handhold and missed and shot up towards the surface. In that same instant, Troy shot up out of the seat, holding the end of the belt in one hand and grabbing for Alec's ankle with the other. He caught it and ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... told, he sat in silence; he had not spirit or inclination to tell his mother and sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to ask it. Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his exemplary effort must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others; Maggie was living through, over and over again, the agony of the moment in which she had rushed to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... parents left, a watch came by express to the Magan homestead, and when Connor opened the hunting-case cover, after changing its position till he could see something besides his own twisted face reflected in it, and after wiping away the spray that would come into his eyes, ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... had to do the most difficult trick of all. With the Giant as the base, and Cecco, the other tumbler, above, Gigi made the top of a living pyramid that ran, turned, twisted, and capered as the great strength of the Giant willed. At a signal they managed somehow to reverse their positions. All stood upon their heads; Gigi, with his little green legs waving in the air, heard shouts of applause which always greeted this favorite act. But the sound gave him ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the trouble; but it didn't. The torsion of the shaft was so great that one governor still managed to get ahead of the others. Well, it was a serious state of things, and I worried over it a lot. Finally I went down to Goerck Street and got a piece of shafting and a tube in which it fitted. I twisted the shafting one way and the tube the other as far as I could, and pinned them together. In this way, by straining the whole outfit up to its elastic limit in opposite directions, the torsion was practically eliminated, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... twisted into a knot and my right arm hurt so I could only use my left hand. Besides, I am ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield |
