"Contortion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... examine the fetters, learning, as I had anticipated, that they fastened with a lock. I sat gazing at the steel bracelets in the light of the lamp which swung over my head, and it became apparent to me that I had gained little by my contortion. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... brother, and two uncles then gathered about the Negro as he lay fastened to the torture platform and thrust hot irons into his quivering flesh. It was horrible—the man dying by slow torture in the midst of smoke from his own burning flesh. Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd of 10,000 persons. The mass of beings 600 yards in diameter, the scaffold being the center. After burning the feet and legs, the hot irons—plenty of fresh ones being at hand—were rolled up and ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... distressing truth, termed counter. "Counter" it is with a vengeance; and not only so, but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the urchins aforesaid, which shall have done first. The shock-headed man, with chin dropped into his neckerchief, and mouth twisted into every unimaginable contortion, as though grinning through a horse-collar, has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of growls and groans truly appalling, though evidently to his own great comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the clarinet, the flute—but how shall we describe them! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... self-command with which they looked the present in the face. She had to be content with saying:—"Of course we know nothing of the intentions of Providence. But it's no use pretending that it would not feel very—queer." She had to clothe this word with a special emphasis, and backed it with an implied contortion due to teeth set on edge. She added:—"All I know is, I'm very glad it wasn't me." After which she was clearly not responsible if the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... legs and violently clutched each other by any part of the body on which they could get a grip. Before the astounded gaze of the onlookers they swayed, nearly fell, then went round in circles, at the same time executing every sort of conceivable contortion. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
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