"Wry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rougher than I care to have it," responded Mrs. Blake with a wry grimace and putting her hand to her breast as if to appease disturbing qualms. "It was so stuffy in the cabin I could not bear it. It's more pleasant here but it's getting a little cool and I think I'll go below. Where have you ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... we shall have it all right." Then another set took their places on the griddle; these held together, they turned—triumph at last! but they did not look inviting. Mrs. Thorne tasted one, she then made a wry face. "Joanna," she said, with forced calmness, "you can throw this batter away." Then she went back to the dining-room, looking very hot and red, and said meekly to Philip: "The cakes are a failure this morning, we ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... whether you or Dent must inherit this; decide for yourselves; I imagine you will end it in the quarrel. How black it is, and what black sermons flew out of it—ravens, instead of white doves, of the Holy Spirit. He was the friend of Jonathan Edwards." She made a wry face as he put the box back into the closet; and she laughed again as ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, if there be pleasant deaths. So may be will finish the merry amours of the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... went abroad. He recommended me to a Dram of it at the same time, with so much Heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the Knight observing that I [had] made several wry Faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the World against the Stone ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... bad as that—elderly. This will stagger you; but I assure you that until the other day I jogged along thinking of myself as on the whole still one of the juveniles.' He makes a wry face. 'I crossed the bridge, Roger, without ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... relation or affinity appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct." Beattie also had commented on "that wonderfully penetrating and plastic faculty, which is capable of representing every species of character, not as our ordinary poets do, by a high shoulder, a wry mouth, or gigantic stature, but by hitting off, with a delicate hand, the distinguishing feature, and that in such a manner as makes it easily known from all others whatsoever, however similar to a superficial eye." (Quoted in Drake's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... ahead to make preparations. The general, who was fishing in vain for an invitation to her seat, handed her ladyship into the carriage with a heavy sigh; upon which his bosom friend, Master Simon, who was just mounting his horse, gave me a knowing wink, made an abominably wry face, and, leaning from his saddle, whispered loudly in my ear, "It won't do!" Then, putting spurs to his horse, away he cantered off. The general stood for some time waving his hat after the carriage as it rolled down the avenue, until he was seized with a fit of sneezing, from ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... London, to see them together. If Lumley caught her at that psychological moment, she'd very likely go off with him, out of mere desperation and bravado. That would be so terribly like Nan.... What a desperate, wry, cursed business life is.... On the other hand, she may just be going about with Lumley on her own terms not his. It's her own affair whichever way it is; what we've got to do is to contradict the stories Rosalind is spreading whenever we get the chance. Not that one can scotch ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... don't," cried Sydney, with a wry face and a shudder; "it's horrid. I declare, when I'm a doctor, I'll never give any ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... and merry, and had such pretty red cheeks, every one gave him work willingly, and when luck was good the master's daughters gave him a kiss beneath the porch, as well. When he again fell in with the shoemaker, the tailor had always the most in his bundle. The ill-tempered shoemaker made a wry face, and thought, "The greater the rascal the more the luck," but the tailor began to laugh and to sing, and shared all he got with his comrade. If a couple of pence jingled in his pockets, he ordered good cheer, and thumped the table in his joy till the glasses ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... He made a wry face, as it occurred to him for the first time that the Reverend Wesley Elliot was about ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... absent friend," he said, making a wry mouth. "I detest all those artists, and all those writers, and all politicos who are thieves; and I would go even farther and higher, laying a curse on all idle lovers of women. You think perhaps I am a Royalist? ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the face and figure to disguise well; as a Turk, for instance'—Dave made a wry face—'or as an Arab, and even Bob could manage to transform himself into a passable Algerian. Your discovery of this morning, Dave, simply means that, from this moment, in addition to the task of ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... congregation was so anxious to wound the minister's feelings as little as possible that the grant in aid of the East Elgin Mission was embodied in a motion to increase Dr Drummond's salary by two hundred and fifty dollars a year. The Doctor with a wry joke, swallowed his gilded pill, but no coating could dissimulate its bitterness, and his chagrin was plain for long. The issue with which we are immediately concerned is that three months later Knox Church Mission called to minister to it the Reverend Hugh Finlay, a young man ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the monkeys had been cooked the appetites of all the party had considerably increased. Although the midshipmen made some wry faces at first, after a few mouthfuls they went on eating monkey as if they had been accustomed to it all their lives. Nick and Pipes advised that they should keep up the fire all night, as otherwise they might find that somebody ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... man never glanced towards their carriage as he passed, but mademoiselle, who was still a few steps behind, made a wry face at Kendricks. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a wry mouth. Dupin, the Contra-Guerrilla chief, was a brave Frenchman. But the quality of his mercy had made his name a shudder on the lips of all ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... almost exactly the same words which Kate had used to him about the port wine. There may have been good produced by the small quantity to which he listened, as there is good from the physic which children take with wry faces, most unwillingly. Who ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council collar levy accept affect deference emigrant prophesy sculptor plaintive ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... then by yourself, and then come down to your parson, and boast of it, as if it was pure old metheglin? I sat last night with the Mater Gracchorum—oh! 'tis a Mater Jagorum; if her descendants taste any of her black blood, they surely will make as wry faces at it as the servant in Don John does when the ghost decants a corpse. Good night! I am just returning to Strawberry, to husband my two last days and to avoid all the pomp of the birthday. Oh! I had forgot, there is a Miss Wynne coming forth, that is to be handsomer than my Lady Coventry; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Albert made a wry face, but he knew that he must yield to necessity. Dick began the task the next morning, and it was long, tedious, and most wearing. More than once he felt like abandoning some of their goods, but he hardened his resolution with the reflection that all were precious, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... the First Lieutenant, with a little wry smile, as the shadow-fingers of the might-have-been tightened momentarily round his heart. "No, I think you'd better wait till Mummie comes." Shrill voices and peals of laughter sounded ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... paces. M. de Bargeton looked as if he had just come out for a walk. He was the first to fire; the ball lodged in M. de Chandour's neck, and he dropped before he could return the shot. The house-surgeon at the hospital has just said that M. de Chandour will have a wry neck for the rest of his days. I came to tell you how it ended, lest you should go to Mme. de Bargeton's or show yourself in Angouleme, for some of M. de Chandour's friends might ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... to my namesake, I am glad to hear so good an account of him. Now, cousin, I really take an interest in the lad, and beg you will not make any wry faces over an honest expression of my opinion. If you want the boy to make a first-rate merchant, and SUCCEED, don't send him to me at present. Of course, I will receive him, if you insist upon it. But, in my opinion, it will only spoil him. I tell you frankly, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... girl will not look at you unless you are a fashionable fellow—don't put on any more wry faces, but think of the prize—and I must have you well up in all the accomplishments. For the rest, you are what I call, a finely-formed, good-looking, and rather graceful fellow, if you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... our boat unprotected, so it was necessary to tell off by lot a certain number of our men to stay with it and guard it. All the men were so eager for exploration that those upon whom the lots fell to remain behind with the shallop made rather wry faces; but Lancelot cheered them by telling them that theirs was a position to the full as honourable as that of explorers, and that in any case those who looked after the boat one day should be relieved and go with the exploring party on the next ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a glass and she, vanquished, drank and drank, making a wry face because of the alcoholic intensity of the liquid. She continued weeping at the same time that her mouth was relishing the heavy sweetness. Her tears were mingled with the beverage that was slipping ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... wry smile, "I don't know that it was very much of a ray, after all; but I'll tell you what happened. I had been running up and down office stairs from before nine o'clock until about three in the afternoon, without result, and I became heartily sick of it; and just by way of a change, I ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... me, otherwise employed, Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 95 Everyone knows for what his excellence Will serve, but no one ever will consider For what his worst defect might serve; and yet Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder In search of a distorted ash?—I find 100 The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man Arriving at the palace on my errand! No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up— White satin here, to set off my black hair; 105 In ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... pulled a wry face, but bowed assent. It would empty his stables very nearly, but he knew when he could not help himself. Mahommed Gunga clapped a hand to his mouth and ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... many great wrongs that they have many amends to make if they follow God, which must diminish much their money. Then are these folk, alas, woefully bewrapped, for God pricketh them of his great goodness still. And the grief of this great pang pincheth them at the heart, and of wickedness they wry away. And from this tribulation they turn to their flesh for help, and labour to shake off this thought. And then they mend their pillow and lay their head softer and essay to sleep. And when that will not be, then they ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... pointing to his thorax, and smiling at the wry faces the major was making. "Wash it down, Senor, with a glass of this claret—or here, Pepe! Is the Johannisberg cool yet? Bring it in, then. Perhaps you prefer ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... Amy came back, with a wry smile. "Really, Betty," she turned to look at the Little Captain closely, "aren't you the least little bit nervous about what ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... made a wry face but he immediately went to speak to his aged cousin, looking threateningly at the crowd who had dared to giggle at anyone ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... that ignored her equivocal position. She was grateful to him, but even his chivalry hurt. She watched him under her thick lashes as he went back to the Sheik and sat down beside him, refusing his host's proffered cigarettes with a wry face of disgust and a laughing reference to a "perverted palate," as he searched for his own. The hatred she had been prepared to give him had died away during dinner—only the jealousy remained, and even that had changed ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... circumstances. Don't you remember my bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I must have made faces wry enough to frighten a cat, you never vouchsafed a remark, and I did not hear the ghost of a laugh. Poor Dora was ready to read to me by the hour, and to fetch and carry for me all day long, but when she tried ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Congreve cou'd not be pleased with: And if the Town shou'd be so refin'd to admit of nothing but what is Natural, we can't expect that ever he will gratifie us with another Tragedy. Durfey and Motteux wou'd write no more Farces; Guildon and Tom. Brown, &c. wou'd be the Saints with wry Mouthes and scrue'd Faces: Mr. Guildon indeed has Philosophy enough to support himself under such a Calamity, and knows a Method to prevent starving; for who can think that he who writ Blunt's Life can be at a loss for a decent dispatch of his own? ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... well as your spotty butterflies," answered the woman jealously. "That's nonsense, though. Don't mind me, Ban," she added with a wry smile. "Plain colors are right for you. Browns, or blues, or reds, if they're not too bright. And you've tied it very well. Did it take ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... given her proper directions. She often pours a spoonful of scalding soup into his worship's mouth, before the relative heat between the liquid and the papillary nerves has been properly determined; at which, in the aforesaid true feminine spirit, she is apt, while he makes wry faces, to burst into a violent fit ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Barbara Harding, with a wry smile, glancing about the deck of the Halfmoon. "I cannot see that we are either through it handily or through it at all. We have no masts, no canvas, no boats; and though I am not much of a sailor, I can see that there is little likelihood of our effecting a landing ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with the citoyennes Elodie, Rose, and Julienne crowding round him, Desmahis looked at Philippe Dubois—he did not like the man and suspected him of having played him a practical joke—with a wry smile, and towering above him ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... might tempt any sick appetite, or a well one, even. As she brought out each of these victuals, together with a bottle of wine and a large bottle of milk, she first offered it to us, and when it was duly refused with thanks, she made the invalid eat and drink, especially the milk which she made a wry face at. When she had finished they all began to question whether her fever was rising for the day; the good sister felt the girl's pulse, and got out a thermometer, which together they arranged under her arm, and then duly inspected. ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... a volunteer regiment camping in Virginia came across a private on the outskirts of the camp, painfully munching on something. His face was wry and his lips seemed to move only ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Sultan History of Mahummud, Sultan of Cairo Story of the First Lunatic Story of the Second Lunatic Story of the Retired Sage and His Pupil, Related to the Sultan by the Second Lunatic Story of the Broken-backed Schoolmaster Story of the Wry-mouthed Schoolmaster Story of the Sisters and the Sultana Their Mother Story of the Bang-eater and the Cauzee Story of the Bang-eater and His Wife The Sultan and the Traveller Mhamood Al Hyjemmee The Koord Robber ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... directed all of the other bears to fall to and help prepare the feast; for in fulfillment of the agreement they had become servants. With many wry faces the bears, although bound to act becomingly in their new character, according to the forfeit, served up the body of their late royal master; and in doing this they fell, either by accident or design, into ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... servants?" persisted Nan. "They'll hardly allow my arrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass without comment! I really think, Peter," she added with a wry smile, "that it would have been simpler all round if you'd allowed me ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... his wry clothing, and moved slowly up the Calle Grande through the hot sand. He moved without a destination in his mind. The little town was languidly stirring to its daily life. Golden-skinned babies tumbled over one another in the grass. The sea breeze brought him appetite, but ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... took a cigarette case from a side pocket of her coat, extracted a cigarette and lighted it from one of the candles. Simon did not smoke himself, and he disliked intensely the sight of a woman using tobacco. He glanced at Ocky, and to her deep satisfaction made a wry face at the cloud of smoke she ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... gave the thing a wry look and put it back in the specimen bag. "Except for the fact that it has killed every one of our test specimens, we don't know what's ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Pareea began tossing the intruders by the scuff of the neck back into the sea—hundreds, thousands, of half-naked, tawny-skinned savages welcoming the white men back to the islands discovered by them. Chief among the visitors to the ship was Koah, a little, old, emaciated, shifty-eyed priest with a wry neck and a scaly, leprous skin, who at once led the small boats ashore, driving the throngs back with a magic wand and drawing a mystic circle with his wizard stick round a piece of ground near the Morai, or burying-place, where the white men could erect their tents beside ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... know first as last," said he, "for we have had enough trouble about that house. It was let last year for ninety; we're asking seventy because it is the house in which Mr. Minchin was shot dead. Still want to see it?" inquired the house-agent, with a wry smile. ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... take or give light to the world. What starres so ere you are assur'd to grace The[81] firmament (for, loe, the twinkling fires Together throng and that cleare milky space, Of stormes and Phiades and thunder void, Prepares your roome) do not with wry aspect Looke on your Nero, who in blood shall mourne Your lucklesse fate, and many a breathing soule Send after you to waite upon their Queene. This shall begin; the rest shall follow after, And fill the streets ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... novels," says he, with a wry glance at the skipper's dog-eared romance. "Nursemaids an' noblemen? I'm chary. I've no love, anyhow, for the things o' mere fancy. But I'm a great reader," he protested, with quick warmth, "o' the tales that are lived under the two eyes ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... manager, they would have tossed him in a blanket. I was confounded by this sad turn of affairs, the manager was incensed, the players very merry; and the poor forlorn poet, with great patience, but a somewhat wry face, took the comedy, thrust it into his bosom, muttering, "It is not right to cast pearls before swine," and sadly quitted the place without another word. I was so mortified and ashamed that I could not follow him, and the manager caressed me so much that I was obliged ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... remorseful eyes. "What a fool—what a fool whiskey in a man's tongue is—what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug, and repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what a fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry face, "Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean to hit him so hard—not half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old men started off ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... if Barbara would be with her father on this trip. Barbara had, he knew, been two years on the continent, "finishing," Allison called it, always with a wry face and a gesture toward his wallet pocket. He was wondering, as he came down the stairs, if she would ask him again if—if . . . and then, at the sight of a seated figure outside on the top step of the veranda, he pulled ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... said Sir Jasper to Captain Armytage, for which Gillian was not grateful, or thought herself not, for she made a wry face. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spilt mercury and set her to gather it up again, showed her prisms, and made her look through a bit of tourmaline, and in every way conceivable to him strewed the path of learning with flowers—then she began to feel a little interest in the place and left off making wry faces at the dirt ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... looks like a little baked apple, all wrinkled up; but it's right sweet. Ugh!" added Horace, making a wry face; "you better look out when they're green: they pucker your mouth up a good ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... the miller. "Mebbe it's what she's been doing to me?" and he wreathed his thin lips into a wry grin. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... he has "come to smile at his troubles," his smile seems to be a grim one. We must all of us eat a peck of moral dirt before we die, but some must know more precisely than others when they are eating it; some, again, can bolt it without wry faces in one shape, while they cannot endure even the smell of it in another. "An Earnest Clergyman" admits that he is in the habit of telling people certain things which he does not believe, but says he has no great fancy for deceiving himself. "Cantab" must, I fear, deceive ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... faintly recurrent sense of actuality he thought of his three rooms in Bloomsbury and of the hundred and fifty pounds a year on which he lived, and with a wry smile he handed her the book, took stock of her rich clothes, bowed and turned away.... For his imagination it was enough to have met and loved her in that one moment. She had broken down the intellectual detachment in which he lived: the icy solitude ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... now to be done? Why, clearly make the best of the matter, eat the chop and leave the sherry. So I commenced eating the chop, which was by this time nearly cold. After eating a few morsels I looked at the sherry: "I may as well take a glass," said I. So with a wry face I ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. We shall hardly be able to do this if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past or over our anxiety for the future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or uneasiness about what is to come. There is a time, of course, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... oil-dealer, "that's nothing to do with me; Eugene will see to that. He will get the money advanced by a banker in Paris. You see, I selected an appointment bringing in a good income. Eugene at first made a wry face, saying one must be rich to occupy such posts, to which influential men were usually nominated. I persisted, however, and he yielded. To be a receiver of taxes one need not know either Greek or Latin. I shall have a representative, like Monsieur Peirotte, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... generally to shuffle about in company with a little fellow that was fat on one side and lean on the other. That is to say, he was warped on one side as if he had been scorched before the fire; he had a wry neck, which made his head lean on one shoulder; his hair was smugly powdered, and he had a round, smirking, smiling, apple face, with a bloom on it like that of a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. We had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, who had, I suspect, been promoted to his ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... a wry face, as if he were ready to cry. He drew the peasant a few steps aside, and said in a voice trembling with emotion: 'Why are you so hard on me, gospodarz? You see, my sons don't hit it off with each ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... footed and in company with Mohammed, he first proceeded to the holy well, Zem-Zem, said to be the same that was shown by God to Hagar. [130] They found the water extremely unpleasant to the taste, and Burton noticed that nobody drank it without making a wry face. It was impossible at first to get near the Black Stone owing to the crush of pilgrims. However, they occupied the time in various prayers, blessed the Prophet, and kissed the finger tips of the right hand. They then made ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... are sound!" replied the Queen, raising her hand to the high lace ruff, which oppressed the breathing of one so accustomed to the outdoor air. "But when, like him, a man must give up deer-stalking and at every movement makes a wry face and can scarcely repress a groan—it might move a stone to pity!—he ought to choose another motto. Persuade him to do so, Quijada, if ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Sykes with a wry grin. "You see, I knew right away Vidac was doing something funny way back—" He paused to sip his tea. "Way back before we landed on Roald." He grinned broadly at the people seated around the table in the ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... continued Lefever. "But the barns at Calabasas are burning—telephone wires from there cut, too—they had to pick up the Thief River trunk line to get a message through. Makes it bad, doesn't it?" Lefever pulled a wry face. "Duke, there's somebody yet around Calabasas that needs hanging, isn't ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... introduced us, she had set up the machine so cleverly, had so carefully fitted the pegs, and oiled the wheels so thoroughly, that nothing jarred; then, when she saw I did not make a very wry face, she set the springs in motion, and the woman spoke. Finally, my mother uttered the decisive words, "Miss Dinah Stevens spends no more than thirty thousand francs a year, and has been traveling for seven years in ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... catalona performed her usual dances, wounded the animal, and with its blood anointed the sick person, as well as some of the others among the bystanders. Then it was divided and cleaned, in order that it might be eaten. The catalona looked at the entrails, and making wry faces and shaking her feet and hands, acted as if she were out of her senses—foaming at the mouth, either because she was incarnate as the devil, or because she so feigned so that credit might be given her. In this way ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... It was the worst beer, bar none, I've ever had. I can taste it now." He made a wry face. Then he cocked his head on one side. "I suppose you're wondering who I am?" ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the first article of all, and the last or secret article, contained the whole marrow of the treaty. It may be well understood, therefore, with what wry faces the Spanish plenipotentiaries ultimately ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and their faint glance fell on the top of Rosy-Lilly's head as she bent over his hand. With a wry smile he shut them again, but to his surprise, he felt rather gratified. Then Jimmy Brackett came in and whisked the child away. "'S if he thought I'd bite 'er!" mused ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the bird, and made broth of it. Friday was much struck to see me eat salt with it, and made a wry face; but I, in my turn, took some that had no salt with it, and I made a wry face at that. The next day I gave him a piece of kid's flesh, which I had hung by a string in front of the fire to roast. My ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... ag'in," said Shif'less Sol, with a wry smile. "Seems to me this is about the longest footrace I ever run. Sometimes I like to run, but I like to run only when I like it, and when I don't like it I don't like for anybody to make me do it. But here goes, anyhow. I'll keep on ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in wartime. But explain why some people want to play with trip- hammers and loaded guns. We know they do. And so, though aware that there were spy-hunting listeners all around, a mad desire to utter the forbidden tongue obsessed me. Wry faces from Marie, emphasized by repeated pinches at each threatened outbreak, brought me back to ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... "Come on, skipper," said he; "it's all or none aboard the lugger, and I think it will be none. Up you go; wait a second in the room above, and I'll find you an old cutlass. I shan't be longer." He turned to me with a wry smile. "We're not half-armed," he said; "they've caught us fairly on the hop; it should be fun! Good-by, Cole; I wish you'd had another round for that ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... in the street at this moment drew the attention of all to the window, where an accident presented a very ominous warning to those within (see plate). "A regular break down," said Echo. "Floored" said Transit, "but not much the matter." "I beg your pardon, sir," said a wry-mouthed portly-looking gentleman, who stood next to Bob; "it is a very awkward circumstance to have occurred just here: I'll bet ten to one it spoils all the play to-night; and if any of those newspaper fellows get to hear of it, Fishmongers' Hall and its members ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... is as I thought, father! The work I love best, and can do best! Whose is the nativity? Not mine, I know; for I was born in the glad time when Venus ruled the year. Anael, her angel, held his wings over me against this very wry-faced, snow-chilled Saturn, whom I am so glad to see in the Seventh House, which is the House of Woe. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. After all, the infernal valley was alive. And then, to rejoice him still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and down the deck from sea-sickness. He will not take enough of the sailor's fare to do him any good, and the wry faces which he makes over a few mouthfuls are pitiful. Before he could get the sails shifted, I am sure the wind would change, and though the crew try to be polite, they can't help laughing to see what an awkward hand he is at doing any thing. There goes the "Heave ho!" which sounds ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... trying to make five dollars do the work of fifteen," answered Ruth, with a wry smile. "Money doesn't stretch well," ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... filled a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... judgments about society and history into all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-Human Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot read Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insight sandwiched in between ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... laying hold of one of the lesser tufts of his beard, and, laughing the while, plucking it so hard that she tore it out of his chin. Which Nicostratus somewhat resenting:—"Now what cause hast thou," quoth she, "to make such a wry face? 'Tis but that I have plucked some half-dozen hairs from thy beard. Thou didst not feel it as much as did I but now thy tugging of my hair." And so they continued jesting and sporting with one another, the lady jealously guarding the tuft that she had torn from the beard, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... me with offered handfuls of gold and jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and performing the most antic homage, as if they thought I expected reverence, and meant to humour me like a maniac. But ever, as soon as one cast his eyes on the shadow behind me, he made a wry face, partly of pity, partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, as if he had been caught doing something inhuman; then, throwing down his handful of gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in peace, and made signs to his companions to do the like. I had no inclination ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... Wilcox," Sira said, with a wry smile. "I would rather trade places with Mellie than be espoused by ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... and while Helene and Wallie stood wondering as to what the silence meant, Pinkey with a wry smile upon ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... clergy hereabouts, is that while they look on the Church and its formularies as something even more sacred than the Cross itself, I have believed in it as the most effective instrument for teaching the Cross." Mr Steele pulled a wry mouth. "At this moment I seem to be the bigger fool. They may be right: the Church may be worth a disinterested idolatry: but as a means to teach mankind the lesson of Christ it has rather patently failed to do its business. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Hatton stood over her, holding a small glass to her lips. Tessie drank it obediently, made a wry little face, coughed, wiped her eyes, and sat up. She looked from one to the other, like a trapped little animal. She put a hand to ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Sara made a wry face over the tea. It tasted flat, and she could well imagine the long-boiling kettle from which the water with which it had ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... wry face, as if he did not care to have anybody speak of Mr. Meadow Mouse as a friend of his. And he did not quit the stone wall until he had seen Mr. Meadow Mouse venture forth ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... this account of our proposed companion with rather a wry face, and after murmuring that perhaps he was a little mad, inquired ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... resume the struggle. They could not lie in this position all night, Travis thought with a wry twist of amusement. He shifted his hold, and got the lightning-quick response he had expected. But it was not quite quick enough, for Travis had the other's hands behind his back, cupping ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... itself stands in a vale on the bank, and at the conjunction of two small rivers, so the country rising every way, but just as the course of the water keeps the valley open, you must necessarily, as you go out of the gates, go uphill every wry; but when once ascended, you come to the most charming plains and most pleasant country of that kind in England; which continues with very small intersections of rivers and valleys for above fifty miles, as shall appear in ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... my screaming, comes down and finds me in convulsions. In the hope that some diascordium would relieve me, the good old man runs to his room and brings it, but while he has gone for some water I hide the medicine. After half an hour of wry faces, I say that I feel much better, and thanking all my friends, I beg them to retire, which everyone does, wishing me a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... his own country (a qualification absolutely necessary to a freethinker) yet those forms which he ridicules, are the very same that now pass for true worship in almost all countries: I am sure some of them do so in ours; such as abject looks, distortions, wry faces, beggarly tones, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... selection. They have, also, during a long period, been directly acted on by the physical conditions of the countries which they inhabit. The so-called artificial races, on the other hand, are not so uniform in character; some have a semi-monstrous character, such as "the wry-legged terriers so useful in rabbit-shooting,"[602] turnspit dogs, ancon sheep, niata oxen, Polish fowls, fantail-pigeons, &c.; their characteristic features have generally been acquired suddenly, though subsequently increased in many cases by careful selection. Other races, which certainly must ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... of symmetry, anamorphosis^; ugliness &c 846; talipes^; teratology. asymmetry; irregularity. V. distort, contort, twist, warp, wrest, writhe, make faces, deform, misshape. Adj. distorted &c v.; out of shape, irregular, asymmetric, unsymmetric^, awry, wry, askew, crooked; not true, not straight; on one side, crump^, deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned^, ill proportioned; ill-made; grotesque, monstrous, crooked as a ram's horn; camel backed, hump ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... form retain faith, spight, wreathe, wrath, broth, froth, breath, sooth, worth, light, wight, and the like, whose primitives are either entirely obsolete, or seldom occur. Perhaps they are derived from fey or foy, spry, wry, wreak, brew, mow, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... that. The worst thing is my not being able to get my conditions off the bulletin," said Betty, making a wry face. ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... and risk of carriage of crockery rendered the prices prohibitive, and even the tin mugs were prized as among their most precious possessions. Luka and Godfrey also dipped in their cups as an act of civility, but the latter made a wry face when it approached his lips, for the odour of the blubber was very strong, and he took an opportunity, when none of the Ostjaks were looking, to pour the contents of the tin upon the ground beside him; but to the Ostjaks the smell and flavour of blubber was no drawback, and men and women ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces; But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter My sober house. By Jacob's staff, ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... instruction set, and every one of the major general-purpose microcomputer OSs so far (CP/M, MS-DOS, Unix, OS/2, Windows NT) was either genetically descended from a DEC OS, or incubated on DEC hardware, or both. Accordingly, DEC is still regarded with a certain wry affection even among many hackers too young to have grown up on DEC machines. The contrast with ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... for when he would have appointed Gallatin Secretary of State, he found Giles of Virginia and Samuel Smith of Maryland bent upon defeating the nomination. The Smith faction was, indeed, too influential to be ignored; with a wry face Madison stooped to a bargain which left Gallatin at the head of the Treasury but which saddled his Administration with Robert Smith, who proved to be quite unequal to the exacting duties of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Plover, Charadrius obscurus, Gmel. (Maori name, Tututuriwhata); Crook-billed, Anarhynchus frontalis, Quoy and Gaim. The authorities vary in the vernacular names and in the scientific classification. See also Sand-Plover and Wry-billed-Plover. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... do with some, but many of our chaps would require the dose you mention to be repeated pretty often before it would effect a cure; and what's more, they'd be very willing patients, and make no wry ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... organizations limped somewhat in the earlier days and only their natural financial genius, combined with the national practice of economy, enabled them to develop that orderly team work so natural to the Englishwoman. Mlle. E. told me with a wry face that she detested the new clubs formed for knitting and sewing and rolling bandages. "It is only old maids like myself," she added, "who go regularly. After marriage French women hate to leave their homes. Of course they go daily to the ouvroirs, ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and Pen, faithfully to the minute, did make her appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her first glass of vinegar with a wry face; but after it was swallowed she began to feel intensely good and ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... come to light now in any case. It would very likely cost her—oh, all the gold and glamour of the world. It would be bandied about in gossip over the tea-tables, in the street, at the Clubs, in the Press. Sir Chichester ought to be happy, at all events. The thought struck her with a wry humour, and brought a smile to her lips. He would accomplish his dream. Without effort, without a letter or a telephone call, or a rebuff, he would have such publicity as he could hardly have hoped for. "Who ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... partook of a tolerably substantial basin of broth and bread. Just as the light was fading away, Atkins approached my bedside with something in a wine-glass which he invited me to swallow. I drank it off, made a wry face at its decidedly nauseous flavour, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood |
