"Twist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shall counter, with disdain, His feeble efforts to explain Or justify such deeds. It will be funny if I fail To twist young Gunner Grogan's tail, That being what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... number of the cab while seeming quite indifferent to what was going on; Asie and Europe puzzled him beyond measure. He thought that the Baron was the victim of excessively clever sharpers, all the more so because Louchard, when securing his services, had been singularly close. And besides, the twist of Europe's foot had not struck his ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... used when jointing the edges of the boards. Two laths or strips of wood are planed up to exactly the same width, having their edges straight and parallel. One edge of each lath may, if desired, be bevelled a little. The method of using these "twist sticks" or "winding laths" is to put them on the board as indicated, and sight along their top edges. The winding laths, being much longer than the width of the board, show ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... but it's that, As the Public insists upon knowin', Missis MATHEW 'as told me so, pat, Wich likeways 'as good Missis BOWEN. You can't floor their argyments, quite, 'Owsomever you twirl 'em or 'twist 'em; They say, and I fear they are right, There is somethink ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... their certainty appear mechanical. They will commit grave errors at times, when circumstances present unusual difficulty. They will often leave too much space, or too little, between the combs. This they will remedy as best they can, either by giving an oblique twist to the comb that too nearly approaches the other, or by introducing an irregular comb into the gap. "The bees sometimes make mistakes," Reaumur remarks on this subject," and herein we may find yet another fact which appears to prove ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... was enough, for the head was mashed flat. Then Sam threw the body into the bushes, there to quiver and twist for several hours to ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... word to say, so violent and abrupt was the transition of subject. It was as though she had been gazing down through a powerful magnifying glass, trying to untangle with her eyes a complicated twist of moral fibers, inextricably bound up with each other, the moral fibers that made up her life . . . and in the midst of this, someone had roughly shouted in her ear, "Look up there, at that distant cliff. There's a rock on it, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... eh? Throwing bouquets at yourselves." Del Bishop grinned at them, and made to depart as quickly as he had come. "But twist yourselves. Some sick men in a cabin down here. Got to get 'em out. You're needed. And don't be all day about it," he shouted over his shoulder as he ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... yourself most fair to see: Quick! hurry now! no time for more delaying! In just five hours a caller will be here, And you must look your prettiest, my dear! Begin your toilet right away. I know How long it takes you to arrange each bow - To twist each curl, and loop your skirts aright. And you must prove you are au fait to-night, And make a perfect toilet: for our caller Is man, and critic, poet, artist, scholar, And views with eyes of all." "Oh, oh! Maurine," Cried Helen with a well-feigned look ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... CONTARIETY. Does the crime consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me ill-will or did me ill-offices; and I, in return, were indifferent towards him, or did him good offices. Here is the same relation of CONTRARIETY; and yet my conduct is often highly laudable. Twist and turn this matter as much as you will, you can never rest the morality on relation; but must have recourse to ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... and vice ne'er separately exist, But in the same acts with each other twist. (From ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... conducting himself as he did. Ah, here is another hit at me—'Yet I would rather do either than live in a home made unpleasant by the persistent hostility of one member.' He is trying to set his father against me. Well, he won't succeed. I can twist Dr. Paul Crawford round my finger, luckily, and neither his son nor anyone else can ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... his hands closed on her shoulders. She started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... wild olive stands for the Gentiles, the good olive tree for Israel, the branches broken off, but which may be grafted in again, for the Jews. Thus to this theory of interpretation the whole Bible responds easily and reasonably. With this kind of interpretation one need not twist and distort the sacred Word in order to understand it. I trust the day is near when men will expound the sacred Scriptures by ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... at Constantinople, and the sixth century churches and mosaics at Ravenna, the Christian slope establishes itself in Europe.[10] In the same century it took a downward twist at Constantinople; but in one part of Europe or another the new inspiration continued to manifest itself supremely for more than six hundred years. There were ups and downs, of course, movements and reactions; in some places art ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... the lotus imagery is retained but is given a subtle twist—the lotus-leaves themselves, rather than the lover's inmost heart, being shown as ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... attempts at smartening his appearance. He gave his fiery mustache a heavenward twist; he dragged into sight a pair of black-edged cuffs, deepened the crease in his middle by tightening his belt another hole, and set off, jaunty as a zoo rhinoceros, across the south ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... pretty twist you give to my words, I must declare," she said; "but not new by any means. Little Adrienne Bourcier could tell you that. She says that you have vowed to her over and over that you dream about her, and wish for her, and wait for her, precisely ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... his hat (with a jaunty twist on one side), and swung his stick gaily, and left the room. For the first time, in my experience of him, he went out without his pipe; and (a more serious symptom still) he really did not appear to ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... the moaning of the storm outside the building and the scraping and zooming of the instruments, string and reed, around him, felt his head spin; but whether from the lozenge (that had suffered from the companionship of a twist of tobacco in Elias Sweetland's pocket), or the dancing last night, or the turbulence of his present emotions, he could not determine. Year in and year out, grey morning or white, a gloom rested ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... brown, strong, went to the officer's hat weighing down a pile of papers on the table. With a quick twist, Forrest ripped off the tassled gold cord which distinguished it, smoothing out the loop of bullion between thumb ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... are nothing more than Joint-stock Companies, Limited,[1] may become bankrupt. They may not be able, as was the case during the cotton famine, to compete with large capitalists in the purchase of cotton, or in the production of cotton twist. Co-operative companies established for the purpose of manufacturing, are probably of too speculative a character to afford much lasting benefit to the working classes; and it seems that by far the safer course for them to pursue, in times such as the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... gate she dismounted without ever missing a note, gave the warped stake a certain twist and jerk which loosened the wire loop so that she could slip it easily over the post, passed through and dragged the gate with her, dropping it flat upon the ground beside the trail. There was no stock anywhere in the coulee, and she would save a little trouble by leaving ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... earlier chapter we have urged photoplaywrights to keep in touch with the market so as to avoid writing on trite themes. But that practise will not help the conscious plagiarist. Why should he invent a new twist when he can steal one? This would seem to be his short-sighted logic. Fortunately, there are not many unscrupulous writers who deliberately attempt to sell to editors stories which are simply adaptations of more or less well-known stories or plays. A great deal has been said about ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of course he could not have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, snap!—and away he went, pop into the hole; and peeped out and twiddled his whiskers, as much as to say, ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... slowly to the door and paused to wait for his mother. There was a turn of the door latch, a vigorous twist of a key in the lock; the door flew open and Emily Hartright walked in. She apparently did not see her husband who stood and eyed her angrily as she entered and began to ascend the steps to ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... liar," he said thickly. But he seemed annoyed. Then his face cleared, and he too laughed, derision in his tone. "Anyway, he's dead and can't lie no more, and your word against mine ain't more'n an even break. So if your nosing sheriff gets gay with me I'll twist his ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Tryan passing pale and worn along the street, had a secret sense that this man was somehow not that very natural and comprehensible thing, a humbug—that, in fact, it was impossible to explain him from the stomach and pocket point of view. Twist and stretch their theory as they might, it would not fit Mr. Tryan; and so, with that remarkable resemblance as to mental processes which may frequently be observed to exist between plain men and philosophers, they concluded that the less they ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... expected, so far as I expected anything, to see some familiar neighbour, with the familiar demand for a twist of tape or a case of needles, so that I confess to being not a little surprised and even startled by what my eyes did rest upon. The doorway framed a wholesome picture of a ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Latin, conning Caesar for labor and Dr. Erasmus for play, and kept up my other studies as well, reading for the first time, I remember, the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. For the rest, I busied myself learning to make snow-shoes, to twist cords out of flax, to mould bullets, and to write legibly, or else ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... elephant join the camels. That is to say, we kept about one hundred yards behind them because I could not let the monkey bound from camel hump to camel hump, and it would not do to let the elephant put his trunk about the camels' necks and twist them. ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... however, would so much diminish the buccal orifice, and twist its corners, as to cause great deformity. The addition of an incision horizontally outwards, at one or both angles of the mouth, will do away with such risk, and allow the surfaces to come together without puckering; while by stitching the skin and mucous membrane ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... "Sibyl," while I built a sand fortress round her; or she read "Venetia," "Oliver Twist," "The Life of Mary II.," "Romany Rye," and "The Lives of the Last Four Popes." She remembered Pio Nono with unflagging interest, and mentions his serious illness, and then his recovery. She read "a queer biography ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... resembles most the best specimens of the latter. The light cinnamon bark is thick and of shreddy-fibered texture, but so concretely compacted as to render the surface evenly ridged by very long, big bars of bark. These sweep obliquely down on the long spiral twist of swift water lines. The top is conic, the foliage is in compressed, flattened sprays, upright, thickened, and somewhat succulent; if not a languid type, at least in no sense rigid. It bears some resemblance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... forehead, her eyebrows, the setting of her eyes, the turn of her temples, the shape of her ears and the twist they took where they joined her head, her nose as narrow as the dull edge of a knife, her nostrils, the oldish-looking nasolabial line, the depressions at the corners of her mouth, her beautiful yet brutal ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... were half fed, and, at that, the food was oftentimes so vile that starving men rejected it. The deputy who kept the jail was cruel and malignant, and took delight in torturing his prisoners. He would come in sometimes under pretence of looking at my irons to see if they were safe, and would twist and turn them about so that I suffered intolerable pain, and blood flowed from my wounds made by these cruel irons. Such abuse as he could give with his tongue he dispensed freely. Of course he was a coward, and he never dared ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... She was a large mule, and in good condition; indeed, there was some flesh on her bones. She was a dark chestnut with a white star on the forehead, a little white on her fore feet, and white below the hocks on the hind legs; she had a soft eye, and a peculiar twist in jerking ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... I should say not, sir! Sometimes, at certain seasons of the mint, he might just sort of take a twist at the leaf, to sort of release a little of the flavor, you know. You don't want to be rough with mint. Just twist it gently between the thumb and finger. Then you set it in nicely around the edge of the glass. Sometimes ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... trailer attached to the wireless outfit on my airship is crossed with the wire from the power plant. There's a short circuit somewhere. Don't come too close, for it may burn through any second and drop down. Then it will twist about ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... sick, or can be sick. We know, Father and Mother of us all, that there is no such thing as a really diseased stomach; that the disease is the Carnal Mortal Mind given over to the World, the Flesh and the Devil; that the mortal mind is a twist, a distortion, a false attitude, the Hamartia [hamartia, sin] ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... young lady might never know what become of it and cry and make a fuss as she did about the last. Then seeing that she was finished, with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, or rather I didn't shoot her as well as I should, for the beggar gave a twist as I fired, and now she's bit me right through the hand. I only hopes you won't have to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the Act, as foxes' bites is uncommon poisonous, especially when they've been a-eating ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... a while. His spirits simultaneously were swept away; his countenance changed colour; and clinging to old lady Chia, he readily wriggled her about, just as one would twist the sugar (to make sweetmeats with), and could not, for the very death of him, summon up courage to go; so that her ladyship had no alternative but to try and reassure him. "My precious darling" she urged, "just you go, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... may be regarded as a fair specimen of the artist's manner. He was of the school of Bernini. He followed the sculptors who infinitely prefer unrest to repose in art. He dearly enjoyed a tour de force in stone. He liked to deal with marble as though it were the most plastic of materials: to twist it this way and that, and rumple and flutter it as though it were merely muslin. To have carved a wig in a gale of wind would have been a task particularly agreeable to this class of artists; they would have ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... sudden twist of the road hid the city from view; only the outlying churchyard remained in sight, with its white monuments and granite crosses, over which the dark yews, wet with the rain and shaken by the gale, sent showers of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... There was a tearing screech from the rash flesh-eater, and he was plucked back sidewise, all four feet in air, deeply impaled on three of those gigantic spines. While he clawed and writhed, struggling to twist himself free, his companion sprang hardily to the rescue. She hurled herself with all her weight and strength full upon the stegosaur's now unprotected flank. So tremendous was the impact that, with a frightened grunt, he was ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... beneath the plumage of the peacock, the beak and talons of the bird of prey. For they were there, and needed only a vote of the senate to batten on nations of which the senate had never heard. Loan him an army, and "that woman" was to give geography such a twist that today ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... own back-yard. Periodic wars are fought, a few thousand of the enemy are dissolved with ray guns, after which the factions retire by common consent and throw a banquet at which the losing country is forced to take the wives of the visitors, which is a twist not ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... been grinning a little, no doubt thinking, along with everybody else in the room, that I was drunk or crazy; but this last twist took the smile off his face clean enough, and he came to his feet with a bound. I awaited him. But young Lord Strepp and Forister grabbed him and began to argue. At the same time there came down upon me such a deluge of waiters and pot-boys, and, may be, hostlers, that I couldn't have ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... not cloud it over with some petty question as if ruffled by a breeze. It is [thought] characteristic of the most helpless stupidity, not to find something which you may make obscure by most intricate measures and involve in very hard and rigid conditions, which you may twist and twist again. For you may simply say: "Write to me,"—here comes a question, if not from Grammar then from Logic, if not from Logic then from Physics,—"What motions are made in writing?" Or, from Metaphysics, ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... adjustment of a brake. This process over, if he still feels pain in the lower extremities, his foot is buckled upon an iron sole which oscillates in any direction according to its method of connection with the power, from side to side, so as to twist the leg about forty-five degrees each way, up and down, to imitate the trotting of the foot, or with a motion which combines several. A variety of other apparatus gives play to other muscles; but I have said enough to show the idea of its modus ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... the fingers, as described and illustrated, take a piece of cloth or handkerchief, twist it cornerwise, and tie a hard knot midway between the two ends. This knot should be placed over the artery, between the wound and the heart, and the ends carried around the limb and loosely tied. A stick, five or ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... is twist so sore, For as soon as they have said In manus tuas once, By God, their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... white as old sail; That I'm a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny, But fit for the planks for to walk in foul weather; That I ha'n't e'er a notion of the worth of a guinea, And that you, Poll, can twist me about as a ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... the book to her. Morte d'Arthur. Kitty's eyebrows, a hundred years or more ago, would have stirred to tender lyrics the quills of Prior and Lovelace and Suckling: arched when interested, a funny little twist to the inner points when angered, and when laughter possessed her. . . . Let Thomas indite the sonnet! Just now they ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... in the Alps than among us. As transplanted, the dinky little bow at the back is an affectation purely—but in these parts it is logical and serves a practical and a utilitarian purpose, because the mountain byways twist and turn and double, and the local beverages are potent brews; and the weary mountaineer, homeward-bound afoot at the close of a market day, may by the simple expedient of reaching up and fingering his bow tell instantly whether he ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... is the costume of the women of Cariai. The men on the contrary go naked. The women cut their hair, or let it grow behind and shave the forehead; then they gather it up in bands of white stuff and twist it round the head, just as do our girls. The Admiral had them clothed and gave them presents, and a bonnet of red wool stuff for their father; after which he sent them away. Later all these things were found upon the shore, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... them as they come or go. Perhaps of all the strange things in life, the sudden sympathies and the headstrong passions which spring up in a day or a night between certain men and certain women are the strangest. I look upon you, Doctor, as a very clever fellow with just a little twist in his brain, or let us say a 'fad' about spiritual matters; but in one of your more or less fantastic and extravagant theories I am half disposed to believe, and that is the notion you have of the possibility of some natures, male and female, having met before in a previous state ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Equally crave the shilling For a pot of beer or an ounce of twist As they trudge to their homes through the mire and mist From the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... sisters on the train can't do enough; they seem to be trying to exceed the self-sacrifice of the sisters you have left behind. You twist yourself so that you can get a glimpse of the flying country. It's green, undisturbed, unmarred by shells—there ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... A young man was coming down the steps of the post-office. He was a more than ordinarily good-looking young fellow, deeply tanned, with a rather humorous twist to his shaven lips, and with steady blue eyes. He was dressed in quite common clothing: the jersey, high boots, and sou'wester ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap and a shriveled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless but the rudely carved gap that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... any giant. He flew at me like an arrow. I turned round on my left foot, so that he found nothing in front of him. But I thrust him in the throat, and the knife went in so far that my hand was under his chin. I gave the blade such a twist that it broke. That was the end. The blade was carried out of the wound by a gush of blood as thick as my arm, and he fell ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... for fear you 'd be offended if I did n't go the first dance with you," said Tom, remorsefully, watching Polly as she settled the bow of her crushed sash, which Tom had used as a sort of handle by which to turn and twist her; "I can do the Lancers tip-top; but you won't ever want to dance with me any more," he added, as he began to fan her so violently, that her hair flew about as if in a gale ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... struggle with him now: The transports that I felt, To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes, Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course, And all my mind was happiness and thee:— But now," etc., "My powers are blasted; 'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... family, winning only censure. But when the depleted flock could not furnish half the eggs the family needed, she took it upon herself to lay one daily, and was considerate ate enough to render it unnecessary for the little girl to go out and bring it in, by depositing it in the hay-twist box behind the kitchen stove, in the linen-barrel in the entry, or on the canopied bed. Then she found an appreciative friend in the little girl's mother, who, whenever she heard a proud, discordant announcement, half crow, half cackle, blessed ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... your opinion, from what you know of the working-man generally, that they all have this twist in their heads?" ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... thongs of Ali's sandals were united just below the instep with brass buttons; stooping he took off that of the left sandal, and gave it a sharp twist; whereupon the top came off, disclosing a cavity, and a ribbon of the finest satin snugly folded in it. He gave the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... managed to deliver the little twist of paper, placed in his hand by Vesey. Inasmuch as the matter had been managed with so much care, he deemed it right that no one should see the transfer to ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... sawn out of pieces 5-1/2 by 10 inches, and nicely rounded off on all but the bottom edge, which is planed flat and true. The positions for the holes through which the shelf eyes will project must be marked accurately, to prevent the stand showing a twist when put together. The simplest method of getting the marks right is to cut a template out of thin card and apply it to the two ends in turn, using the base of each as the adjusting line. Fret-saw the holes, cutting ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... business as well as a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived, almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution. To many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can so easily contrive for themselves, direct bribery was not to be thought of. Dr. Legrand seemed to thoroughly understand this twisted and diseased conscience, and had a remedy to offer. What persuasion he used, ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... baby—it almost seems to me I've seen someone who looks like him—especially the eyes. And that merry little twist to his mouth. I can't seem to think who it is." Jane puckered her forehead and the ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the meat, a little at a time, into the hopper, turn the handle of the machine briskly, and take care the skin is only lightly filled. When the sausages are made, tie the skin at the other end, pinch them into shape, and then loop them by passing one through another, giving a twist to each as you do them. Sausage-skins, especially if preserved, should be well soaked before using, or they may make the sausages too salt. It is a good plan to put the skin on the water-tap and allow the water to run through it, as thus ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... calculate them. Some of these witches could, by a single word, cause people to fall down dead; others made women go with child three years instead of nine months; while others, by certain invocations and ceremonies, could turn the faces of their enemies upside down, or twist them round to their backs. Although no witness was ever procured who saw persons in this horrible state, the witches confessed that they had the power and exercised it. Nothing more was wanting to ensure ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... not like her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pugdog's tail. There it was, however. There was no doing anything with it. Wilkins she was and Wilkins she would remain; and though her husband encouraged her to give it on all occasions as Mrs. Mellersh-Wilkins she only did that ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... was about Davis' throat, dragging him back, yet he managed to give the captain's wrist a sharp twist which flung the revolver high in the air to drop with a splash into the river ere he fell in a tangle with his assailants ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... perched on the slanting roof shakes of the casino. It was big as a squash court, and as high and as square. Every wall was glass. It couldn't have been in greater contrast to the contrived hominess of the casino if they'd thought about it for a year. Then, for the last twist, the furnishings were straight out of the old Southwest—Navajo rugs, heavy, Spanish oak desks, and a pair of matching couches or divans of whole steer leather stretched over ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... known that morning, when he began to prate about our being kings, that the crust of his common-sense was wearing thin. I suppose that after leaving me he must have come across the coffers in which the Abbot kept his robes of state, and that the sight of them started his folly with a twist; for he lay below me on the marble floor of the chapel, arrayed like a prince of the Church. The mitre had rolled from his head; but the folds of a magnificent purple cope, embroidered with golden lilies and lined with white silk, flowed ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... had but one long string, But one low song, but one brief wingy flight, Is voiceless, for my bowstring is cut off. Sever two locks of hair for my sake now, Spoil those bright coils of power, give me your hair, And with my mother twist those locks together Into a bowstring for me. Fierce small head, Thy stinging tresses shall scourge men ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... "Loubra." Every male who then takes unto himself a helpmate, loses a front tooth, which is knocked out of him. The natives generally tattoo their arms and breasts, but not their faces; many carry a long white wooden pin, or a feather, pierced through the thin part of the nose; and they all twist kangaroo teeth and the bones of fishes more or less in their hair. Every thing small and diminutive they call "Pickaninnie," and any thing very good, "Merri jig." Their language is a queer, rattling, hard-sounding gibberish, incomprehensible to most people; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... been a gala day, and he had been given a large, sugared twist to take with him, and it tasted delicious; but somehow or other he began to cry all at once ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... by a word with Natalie Rathbawne, Cavendish himself could hardly have told. At most, he was conscious of a faint hope that in some turn or twist of the conversation he might have a chance of thanking her, of telling her that he rejoiced in her happiness, and of bidding her good-by. For paramount in his mind lay the thought of his approaching downfall, inevitable, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... rolling on his back. That twist of his head had overbalanced him. And before he could recover himself and scramble to his feet, we had sprang over the fence and got him securely tied ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... by the breeze, Likest a bird, glided the waters, Till twenty and four hours thereafter The twist-stemmed vessel had travelled such distance That the sailing-men saw the sloping embankments, The sea-cliffs gleaming, precipitous mountains, Nesses enormous: they were nearing the limits At ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... like the one I had taken under the crab-tree. I thought I would show them that there wasn't so much difference after all. But it did not suit the head mechanic at all. He looked at me with his head on one side, and then took hold of mine by the chin and the hair and gave it a twist. I had never worn it at that angle in my life, and I knew it would put my collar all wrong; but I had to do what he told me. He arranged my coat so that it should look as if it had been made to fit somebody else, and disposed my arms in such a way as to give the sleeves the appearance of trouser ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... stout Friar looked upon Robin for a long time, his head on one side, and with a most waggish twist to his face; then he slowly winked his right eye. "Nay, good youth," said he gently, "I doubt not that thou art in haste with thine affairs, yet thou dost think nothing of mine. Thine are of a carnal nature; mine are of a spiritual nature, a holy work, so to speak; ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... so many years, a few minutes more is no great matter. His adorable Alice is this man's one joke. Some of those furrows in his brow have come from trying to understand her, he owes the agility of his mind to trying to keep up with her; the humorous twist in his mouth is the result of chuckling ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... winter snow, and even the building, with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines, which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its forsaken corners, with a moan and a whisper always desolate to the sensitive ear, but from this ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... possessed the rare, warm vitality that is irresistible. A native of Hampton, still in his thirties, his sharp little nose and twinkling blue eyes proclaimed the wisdom that is born and not made; his stiff hair had a twist like the bristles in the cleaning ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... go suddenly and jolted the other under the chin with the heel of his left hand. The man arched backward, but Phillips caught a knee in the chest that sent him slithering across the deck. As he strove to twist to his hands and knees, he saw ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... what your highness asked for, you got,' says she. 'In all your life now, did you ever see a finer trick or a nicer twist? Faix! I think it was a rale trick upon trick, and a twist upon twist! Your brother may go back now, as quick as he likes, and tell his father that as soon as the Gubbaun is done polishin' the statues, we'll be very glad to see him back, and Boofun too, and we'll take iligant ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... You twist and turn one's words about and give them a different meaning from what was intended. If I wanted to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... those documents with you I'll take them up to my room and look them over. It's only a matter of my signature, isn't it? You and Mr. Comly can give the final twist to prehistoric art. I'll be ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the festival:—"The tree was erected in the afternoon, while the greater part of the crew took a walk; and the lonely hut shone with wonderful brightness amid the snow. Christmas upon a Greenland iceberg! The tree was artistically put together of firwood and mat-weed, and Dr. Laube had saved a twist of wax-taper for the illumination. Chains of coloured paper and newly-baked cakes were not wanting, and the men had made a knapsack and a revolver case as a present for the captain. We opened the leaden chests of presents from ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... tried to shake the mystery out of them and to infuse them with an endurable meaning. What had she meant by her feeling being a kind of religion? It was the religion simply of the family laws, the religion of which her implacable little mother was the high priestess. Twist the thing about as her generosity would, the one certain fact was that they had used force against her. Her generosity had tried to screen them, but Newman's heart rose into his throat at the thought that ...
— The American • Henry James
... Wyncomb Farm, whom he thought a poor creature both as a man and a farmer; and he fancied that if his daughter married Stephen Whitelaw, he might become the actual master of that profitable estate. He could twist such a fellow as Stephen round his fingers, he told himself, when invested with the authority of ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the fair-grounds, early, in order to secure a comfortable seat for David where he should not miss one twist of a rider's supple body, they were as delighted as children truanting from school. It was the most exhilarating thing in the world,—this clever little trick on the sleeping porch and the white cot, on egg-nogs and beef juice and ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... suited Louise better than this change of arena for the exercise of her wilfulness and witchery. Before she had been many days in the French capital she was able to twist her aunt round her little finger—indeed her power of captivating was, to the end of her life, her chief dower—and to obtain all the freedom she wanted. And it was not long before her allurements won the admiration of the dissolute Duc de Beaufort, High Admiral of France, a man skilled in all the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... chief dies bravely, We bind with green one wrist— Green for the brave, for heroes One crimson thread we twist. Say ye, oh gallant Hillmen, For these, whose life has fled, Which is the fitting colour, The green one, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Down-looking wistful from the city-wall, And, seeing him in front of Ilium, dragg'd 540 So cruelly toward the fleet of Greece, O'erwhelm'd with sudden darkness at the view Fell backward, with a sigh heard all around. Far distant flew dispersed her head-attire, Twist, frontlet, diadem, and even the veil 545 By golden Venus given her on the day When Hector led her from Eetion's house Enrich'd with nuptial presents to his home. Around her throng'd her sisters of the house Of Priam, numerous, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Dalton; peculiar twist to his mental machinery somewhere." Sandford blows a cloud of smoke and eyes it meditatively. "Leaving business that way, chopping it all to pieces in fact; and ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... beat thoroughly with a fork until light; refill the skins with the seasoned potato, fit the broken portions together, and reheat in the oven. When hot throughout, wrap the potatoes in squares of white tissue paper fringed at both ends. Twist the ends of the paper lightly together above the fringe, and stand the potatoes in a vegetable dish with the cut end uppermost. When served, the potatoes are held in the hand, one end of the paper untwisted, the top of the potato removed, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... no reason why the news of Laura should disquiet him—by no possible twist of his imagination could he bring the event of her marriage into any direct bearing on his own life, yet as he walked at his rapid, nervous pace toward his home in Thirty-fifth Street, he felt a burning sore like a great jagged ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... operation of barbed wire making is continuous and rapid. The advantage of two strands is the automatic adjustment to changes of temperature. When heat expands the strands, the twist simply loosens without causing a sag, and when cold contracts them, the twist tightens, all without materially altering the relative lengths of the combined wires. A barbed wire machine produces from 2000 to 3000 lb of wire per ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... microscope, the fiber is seen to be, not a hollow cylinder, but rather a flattened cylinder, shaped in cross-section something like the figure eight. But the chief and valuable characteristic is that the flattened cylinder is not straight, but twisted. It is this twist which gives its peculiar and overwhelming importance to cotton, for without this apparently fortuitous characteristic, the spinning of cotton, if possible at all, would result in a much weaker and less durable ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... I could see you, I could explain by example what I cannot well do in words. To commence, a hairspring, when there is no power applied to balance from the jewel pin, should be, when pinned, just as free from any twist or cramping as it would be if lying flat and free on a smooth piece of glass, before it has been pinned at either end, and when it is pinned in the watch (at stud and collet) it should be thus free. To bring it thus requires demonstration that cannot be made on paper, unless you could make diagrams, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... little twist to her mouth, which seemed to indicate that if she spoke she should express her contempt of such an opinion, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... have had all this out before and I am very tired. Would you mind if I asked you to wait until morning?" Willa gave her hair a final twist and turned from the mirror. "I am honestly sorry Kearn Thode missed those dances with you to-night, but it ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... not very careful, we shall be apt to mistake the meaning of Scripture, and make it say what we like, and twist it to suit our own fancies, and our own ignorance. Therefore we must never, with texts like this, say positively, 'It must mean this. It can mean only this.' How can ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... rightly or wrongly, that the great statesman nourished enmity towards himself. He called him, as has been said, "a good man in the worst sense of the term, conscientious with a diseased conscience." He watched with much amusement, as illustrating the moral twist in Gladstone's temperament, the "Colliery explosion," as it was called, when Sir R. Collier, the Attorney-General, was appointed to a Puisne Judgeship, which he held only for a day or two, in order to qualify him for a seat on a new Court of Appeal; together with a very ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... temper bend with godlike goodness, Not half thus courted. 'Tis thy nation's glory To hug the foe that offers brave alliance. Once more embrace, my friends—we'll all embrace. United thus, we are the mighty engine Must twist this rooted empire from its basis. ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... the idols, cruel, suspicious, mad; it is even found in the buildings: in the friezes of the religious porticoes, in the roofs of the thousand pagodas, of which the angles and cable-ends writhe and twist like the yet dangerous remains of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... necessary at all, why we should not be content with a fragmentary consciousness of the world, without attempting to gather the dispersed lights of science to one central principle. To critics like J. S. Mill, Comte's effort after system seems to be the result of an "original mental twist very common in French thinkers," of "an inordinate desire of unity." "That all perfection consists in unity, Comte apparently considers to be a maxim which no sane man thinks of questioning: it never seems to enter into his conceptions that any one could object ad initio, and ask, Why this universal ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... [the Inca] moved by this discourse, asked for baptism. It was at once given to him by that reverend padre who aided him so much with his exhortation that although he was sentenced to be burned alive, he was given a twist of rope around his neck, by means of which he was throttled instead[9] but when he saw that they were preparing for his death, he said that he recommended to the governor his little sons, so that he might take them with him, and with these last words, and while the Spaniards ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... drawn herself away, distressed, protesting, her fair head turned aside, until with a slight twist and narrowing of her hand she succeeded in slipping it from the glove which she left a prisoner in his eager clasp. "There! Yo' can keep the glove, co'nnle," she said, breathing quickly. "Sit down! This ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the middle. I scolded the old man as I had never done during the whole course of my life; but he excused himself, saying that one of my predecessors had given him the manuscript for waste paper, as it had lain about there ever since the memory of man, and he had often been in want of paper to twist round the altar candles, etc. The aged and half-blind pastor had mistaken the folio for old parochial accounts which could be of no ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... consolation which results from such divorces of the name from the thing; for our labels, sometimes written upon parchment, sometimes upon leather, sometimes upon wood, as each material happened to be recommended by gardening authorities, and fastened on with packthread, or whip-cord, or silk twist, had generally parted company from the roots, and frequently become utterly illegible, producing a state of confusion which most undoubtedly we never expected to regret: but this year we had followed the one perfect system of labels of unglazed china, highly varnished ...
— The Lost Dahlia • Mary Russell Mitford
... widow start and redden angrily; but the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes ablaze with all the courage that the mountain woman knew and yet with another courage to which the primitive creature was a stranger—a courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her hands ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... heavier branches of the building trade ... [and] in the workshops of joiners, carpenters, cabinetmakers, turners, carvers, and by amateurs and others," were considered a "most important exhibit" at the Centennial. The auger had attained a perfection in "the accuracy of the twist, the various forms of the cutters, the quality of the steel, and fine finish of the twist and polish." The ancient pod or shell auger had nearly disappeared from use, to be replaced by "the screwed form of the tool" ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh
... applying any kind of force, whether discipline or authority or fear or the tyranny of public opinion or the necessity of engaging in some totally incongenial occupation. Worst of all influences are those that thwart or twist a man's fundamental impulse, which is what shows itself as conscience in the moral sphere; such influences are likely to do a man an inward danger from which he will ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... dear face twist a smile The way it used to do; And keep on cheery all the while, Rememb'ring hating's not your style— Germans ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... mistake to herself without any pain or humiliation. She had but one feeling, and that was confined to her family. She cared little how she twisted and turned among these new-comers at the bishop's palace so long as she could twist her husband into the warden's house. She cared not which was her friend or which was her enemy, if only she could get this preferment ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... extinguisher had covered it. She stood in the doorway for a breathless instant, then ran back into the cabin, and, catching the candle from the table, stepped out into the blackness; instantly the wind bore the little flame away!—then seemed to grip her, and twist her about, and beat her back into the house. In her terror she screamed his name; and as she did so, another flash of lightning showed her his ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... shining eye? Some anniversary, some combination of present associations and past recollections—a tendency to fly from himself, besetting at times the most self-controlled—might have caused this change in his appearance. Ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, and dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a difficulty. But the difficulty ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... chumming with Angelo, playing with her sister's babies, running about in her pretty car. It was like living in the clouds indeed, with the world of chaos beneath. For there was the struggle of reconstruction going on, the tremendous heave and pull of masses seeking to dominate, the subtle writhe and twist of politics, a whole world straining and sinewing to rise dominant out of the molten bed of human lava left from the volcanic ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... all stand out clear and hard, and the coal-smoke from the railway blots the landscape where it rises, yet is quickly scattered by the mountain breeze. Between you and the little town lies the prairie over which the stage road runs straight and hard as a pike until, nearing us, it begins to twist and turn among the foot-hills for a climb across the ridge into the valley of Lodge Pole Creek beyond. Lodge Pole indeed! The creek valley has not a stick of timber far as one can see it. Follow it to its source, two days' trot or tramp up towards Cheyenne Pass, and there you find them, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... now stepped forward, and, with a peculiar twist of the hips and shoulders, which those only who have seen it can picture to themselves, said, "Plase your honour's honour, I have a little word to say too about the dog." "Say it then," ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the united States the territory ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... hours unceasingly? He would surpass him. When his turn came, nine should not suffice. He would be more dull, contradictory, and intolerable, than his rival by an hour, at least. He would repeat precedents, twist sentences, misconstrue maxims, and so perplex and entangle his own intellect that his hearers had no way of getting rid of the pain he excited; except by falling a-sleep, or determining not to listen. It must be owned however he had some charity for them; for to sleep ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... questions to watch the colonel, who had gone to a closet and taken out a pair of rubber gloves. Putting them on, he took the watch from its tissue paper wrappings, and then, holding it under the gleaming light on his table, he gave a twist to the case, pressed on a certain point in the rim with the end of his lead pencil and a tiny needle shot ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... it and be a man," said Brennan. He put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Jimmy flung it aside with a quick twist and a turn. "Please, Jimmy," pleaded Brennan. Jimmy left his chair and buried his face in ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... different from that employed to make a thread of raw silk, which consists of filaments, each several thousand feet long, laid side by side, almost without twist, and glued together into a solid thread by means of the "gum" or glue with which each filament is naturally coated. If this radical difference be borne in mind, but very little mechanical knowledge is required to make it evident that the principle of spinning ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... up to Alec furiously, as if he meant to seize him by the throat, but Alec, with a twist of the ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... at this unexpected twist which was not in the brain-manuscript of her play at all—which indeed threatened to take her play right out of her hands. "Please go, Larry!" she cried desperately. "And please give me a chance! You'll spoil it ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... I long to stuff their little pockets full of anything—everything, that other little pets have. I want to get them round me, and tell them some comical stories to take the care-worn look out of their anxious little faces. I want to see them twist their little heads round when they hear a noise, instead of keeping them straight forward as if they were "on duty." I want to know if anybody tucks them up comfortably when they go to bed, and gives them a good-night kiss. I want to know ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... sort of the throng laughed uproariously, and turned to stare at the poor girl. But cries of "Shame! shame!" rent the air. Perrin stepped forward, and, with a well-planted blow and a skilful twist of his leg, he ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... into an eager anticipation: he took pride in his proficiency as a strangler; his coarse heavy hands, like those of a Punjabi wrestler, were suited to the task. Grasping the cloth at the base of a victim's skull, tight to the throat, a side-twist inward and the trick was done, the spine snapped like a pipe-stem. And he had been somewhat out of practice—he had regretted that; he was fearful of losing ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... way that would make any woman mad. I might twist myself into as many knots as you have. I might say that I had caused this disaster; that March evening my hand was too true. For I knew then the man ought ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick |
