"Writhe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gibbering ghost with war outworn, And thy faint life in Hades not begun? Art thou a man that holdst my grief in scorn, And yet dost live, and look upon the sun? If man,—methinks thy pleasant days are done, And thou shalt writhe in torment worse than mine; If ghost,—new pain in Hades hast thou won, And there with double woe shalt ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong mother for you—" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to apologize to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... The monists themselves writhe like worms on the hook to escape pluralistic or at least dualistic language, but they cannot escape it. They speak of the eternal and the temporal 'points of view'; of the universe in its infinite 'aspect' or in its finite 'capacity'; they say that 'qua absolute' it is one thing, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Anti-Vivisection Societies, and Homes of Rest for Horses, and a hundred such institutions, and they will find contributors to these institutions stirring not one finger when hundreds of thousands of men writhe under hails of shrapnel, and crowds of homeless women and children fly in terror before the unavoidable calamities or the superfluous brutalities of war. They will see a generation shaken and shuddering as the ghastly picture ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... all but a little light, and I was left alone on my back. By the tricks I had long since learned in the jacket, I managed to writhe myself across the floor an inch at a time until the edge of the sole of my right shoe touched the door. There was an immense cheer in this. I was not utterly alone. If the need arose, I could at least rap knuckle talk ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the inner folds of her tight fitting sheath kept me prisoner, and treated my Cock to the most delicious contractions and pressures, till I was so inflamed, Cupid's charger plunged on his mad career once more, making my dark beauty writhe and squirm in the excess of her ecstatic emotion; several times we seemed to stop by mutual consent, and lay for a while enjoying those heavenly sensations. After thus delaying the final crisis to the uttermost, the moment came when the life ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... talking, All of us together, You flash forth sudden utterance Of buried things That writhe in obscure life Within our minds' last darkness. That which we think and say not You say and think not. In us these thoughts Like worms stir vilely. But from you they depart as sudden butterflies Crimson and green against ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... God!—I will fight with you once more, and I will leave you so maimed and so disfigured that you can woo no woman to ruin again and jest at her shame and agony with no man—for none can bear to look at you without a shudder—and you will lie and writhe to be given the coup de grace." He lifted the hilt of his sword and kissed it. "That I swear," he said, "by this first ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... come within a few hundred paces of them when they all fell to the ground as if struck with a thunderbolt, and began to howl and whimper, and to writhe, as if suffering the most excruciating pain. They stretched out their hands, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... perpetual unbelief Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot, Who stands firm just because he feels it writhe." ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... whiteness in the empty heavens that she lit up, and now sailing more slowly along, let fall upon the river a great stain that broke up into an infinity of stars; and the silver sheen seemed to writhe through the very depths like a heedless serpent covered with luminous scales; it also resembled some monster candelabra all along which sparkled drops of diamonds running together. The soft night was about them; ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Anstice and Carstairs had overpowered her with their superior might she fought for freedom like a mad woman. But this abnormal strength could not continue. Suddenly, as Anstice had foreseen, the inevitable collapse occurred. Nature could stand no more, and with a last wild writhe the woman slipped through the hands which held her, and uttering a sharp cry fell to the floor in a ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... sombre evenings when the sighing of the wind recalls the moaning of a dying man. A fitful storm was brewing, and between the plashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments, the trees writhe in pain and hide their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. I was suffering from my wound. But a short time before I had a mistress and a friend. The mistress had deceived ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... thou wert so ugly and contemptible in comparison with him. They have flung thee the relic of a life that they would not take away, merely in derision. Wilt thou live even with a victim that despises thee? Half dead and half alive, like a lizard mangled by a passing crow, and left to writhe: a deer, struck by an idle hunter, left wounded in the jungle, unable even to procure its death, to ebb away its life through burning days and black intolerable nights, eyed by the vultures sitting by. And thou wouldst ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... too much for one night! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Love, hatred, passion, triumph, rage, revenge, ambition, all, all gratified! Ha! ha! Soft, gentle Julia—proud, virtuous one that did despise me, thou shalt writhe for it—from thy soul shalt thou bleed for it! Ha! ha! Arvina—liar! fool! perjurer! but this will wring thee worse than Ixion's wheel, or whips of scorpions!—Ha! ha! Cicero! Cicero!—No! no! Chrea. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... lifeblood feel The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ Even when she wakes of hell's most poisonous worm, Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel. Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee; Wait, and see hell yield ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... imitation of a gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his wife—timid, and all too gentle—could only wince under the things he said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the husband. She was one of those women who invariably inspire sweeping and contradictory criticisms on the ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... with a somewhat feeble constitution, but healthy in appearance and of steady habits, greedily swallow some new kind of cordial and then suddenly fall to the ground, foam at the mouth, act deliriously and writhe in convulsions, we at once surmise that this agreeable beverage contained some dangerous substance; but a delicate analysis is necessary to detect and decompose the poison. The philosophy of the eighteenth century contained poison, and of a kind as potent as it was peculiar; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to the darkest corner of the veranda. A four-hour vigil lay before him, and he derived no calm from the still stars that faintly shadowed the quiet waters below. He was assailed by torments reserved for those who, having long made others writhe without caring that they suffered, hear the swish of the lash over their own heads. He had only lately been conscious of his growing irritability. He hated men who yield to irritation; it was a sign of weakness, a failure of self-mastery. He had been carried on by a strong tide, imagining ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... sick, child, sure enough. Ho, ho! sir, you have taken drows; what, another throe! writhe, sir, writhe, the hog died by the drow of gypsies; I saw him stretched at evening. That's yourself, sir. There is no hope, sir, no help, you have taken drow; shall I tell you your fortune, sir, your dukkerin? God bless you, pretty gentleman, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Rodney laughed, tickled by such praises, and drank what they offered, and tried to stifle his conscience and harden himself in sin. Yet often, when he was alone, did he shrink from himself, and writhe under the lashings of conscience; and the remembrance of home, and thoughts of his conduct, rendered ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... taken, to me from whom all is taken?—husband, sons, wealth, land, renown, power,—power which I loved, wretch that I was, as well as husband and as sons? Ah God! the girl is right. Better to rot in the convent, than writhe in the world. Better never to have had, than to have ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... young fellow would step into the middle of the circle, and begin to leap and twist about and stamp his feet, and then come down with a crash on the ground—and there represent the movements of a fish which has been thrown out of the water upon the dry land; and he would writhe about this way and that, and even bring his heels up to his neck; and then, when he sprang to his feet and began to shout, the earth would simply tremble beneath him! Alexyei Sergyeitch was extremely fond ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a quick writhe the Netop broke loose, and bolted headlong, fairly into Captain Church himself, among the baggage and the horses. This was a surprise for the captain, too. He grabbed him but could not keep him, because he was a naked Indian and as slippery ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... struggling in the nightmare's grip, Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip, And lost a great occasion Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe With hate, on platforms oft so blandly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... One of the concomitants of consciousness is that it is private consciousness. And when this isn't true, when someone, even a loved one, can creep into your mind and know what you think, your insides writhe. Caterpillars course around under your skin. And you resent. Sooner or later you will hate. I ran away from home because I couldn't stand Mother in my mind, and couldn't bear the ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... little longer time of sanity. The poor devils that are left—well—they'll be camaradas, peons, laborers, without the intelligence to know what they can do. They'll wait patiently for their masters to come back. And presently their hands will writhe.... And the town will be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... claws, horrible to look at, were thrust out and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. The snakes that served them instead of hair seemed likewise to be asleep, although now and then one would writhe and lift its head and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, and then let itself subside among ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... Atlanta was the back door to Richmond. Let the enemy once enter that and divide the spinal column of the Confederacy, and what hope was there! For a brief space the maimed and dying body might writhe with final strength; the quivering arms strike fierce, spasmodic blows; but no nourishment could come—the end must ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... on!' answered the raving voice from within. 'Slay, till not a Christian is left! Victory! Serapis! See, they drop from our walls!—they writhe bleeding on the earth beneath us! There is no worship but the worship of ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... stings, and actresses have spent many a sleepless night under your malign influence. You have tortured Dukes on the peaks of gracious splendour where they sit enthroned as far above common mortals as they ought to be above the common feeling of envy; and you have caused even Queens to writhe because there happened to be a few ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... a rebel, I wonder if I ought to be good to him," thought Nelly, watching the reptile writhe with pain. "Will said there were sick rebels in his hospital, and one was very kind to him. It says, too, in my little book, 'Love your enemies.' I think snakes are mine, but I guess I'll try and love him because God made him. Some boy will kill ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... cruel, and the time is hard as steel To English slaves, trod down and bruised beneath the Norman heel. Like worms they writhe, but by-and-by the Norman heel may learn There are worms that carry poison, and that are not ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... to forfeiture and attainder; and I call upon every one here present to aid me in arresting you, and you to surrender yourself, to take your trial according to law!" "Weak man, give over!" replied the Colonel. "All your schemes are frustrated, all your base designs are vain. You writhe under my heel, like a crushed adder, but, serpent, I tell you, you bite upon a file. First, for myself, I am not a proclaimed traitor; but, pleading the King's full pardon for everything in which I may have offended, I claim all that is mine own, my rights, my privileges, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... proportions, nor keep the key through 'Yankee Doodle,' I long to insist upon his making a practical trial in such things before daring to make a criticism. Yet it is a fact that artistic people of every grade and type have to writhe under the criticisms of ignoramuses, who could not accomplish the piece of work they scathingly denounce if their lives depended upon it. I pick up a book and fling it aside with the comment, 'It's not worth reading!' or I look over a great vessel like ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... she did not writhe or quiver or breathe. Lane felt surrender in her, and when he lifted his face from hers he was sure. Despite the fact that he had inflexibly clamped his will to one purpose, holding his emotion in abeyance, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... him, and because he had really too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with me. That would make her writhe. ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... a second: two others are farther in flight, they reach the edge of a deep river,—the water is beat into a hollow by the force of their plunge;—close to us is the great struggle, a heap of the mothers entangled in one mortal writhe with each other and the swords, one of the murderers dashed down and crushed beneath them, the sword of another caught by the blade and dragged at by a woman's naked hand; the youngest and fairest of the women, her child just ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... comes about that, in this year of grace 1877, two persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe about in that condition for hours; the other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The first offender says, "I did it because I find fishing very ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... fully warm And wolde have take hire in his Arm, Asmod, which was a fend of helle, And serveth, as the bokes telle, To tempte a man of such a wise, Was redy there, and thilke emprise, Which he hath set upon delit, He vengeth thanne in such a plit, 5340 That he his necke hathe writhe atuo. This yonge wif was sory tho, Which wiste nothing what it mente; And natheles yit thus it wente Noght only of this ferste man, Bot after, riht as he began, Sexe othre of hire housebondes Asmod hath take into hise bondes, So that thei alle abedde deiden, ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... pondered on the arts of war: he wielded in his clasp the ruddy-flashing wood, and victoriously with noble stroke made their fallen captain writhe. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave, holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the cruel anguish Dying on the shameful tree, All abandoned by Thy Father, Thuo didst writhe in agony. Jesus! Jesus! By these three long hours of sorrow Thou didst purchase ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... natural, the Hebertist Python did hiss and writhe amazingly; and threaten 'sacred right of Insurrection;'—and, as we saw, get cast into Prison. Nay, with all the old wit, dexterity, and light graceful poignancy, Camille, translating 'out of Tacitus, from the Reign of Tiberius,' pricks into the Law of the Suspect ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... him to, and Hicks, I after engaging the best rooms in the house for seventy-five cents, scrubbed a little of the dust of travel from his person and went down to the bar and gambling room. The drink of whiskey he got made even his trained throat writhe, and he strolled over to the poker table to join a group of calm and ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... volume in the fire, which he had been fidgeting over for a while. I was just finishing a sum I had brought across to him to help me with. I looked up, and saw the volume in the fire. The heat made it writhe open, and I saw the author's name, and that was Sterne. He had bought it at a book-stall as he came home. He sat awhile, and then got up and took down his Bible, and began reading a chapter in the New Testament, as if for an antidote to the book ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... hell are over a hundred miles thick; and so dazzling is their brightness that it bursts the eyes which look at them anywhere within a distance of four hundred leagues.7 The poor creatures here, wrapped in shrouds of fire, writhe and yell in frenzy of pain. The very revelry and ecstasy of terror and anguish fill the whole region. The skins of some wretches are taken off from head to foot, and then scalding vinegar is poured ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the foul thing bare! One lightning-picture—see—yon bayonet-bristling square Mown down, mown down, mown down, wild swathes of crimson wheat, The white-eyed charge, the blast, the terrible retreat, The blood-greased wheels of cannon thundering into line O'er that red writhe of pain, rent groin and shattered spine, The moaning faceless face that kissed its child last night, The raw pulp of the heart that beat for love's delight, The heap of twisting bodies, clotted and congealed In one red huddle ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... thunder; in a minute, a louder, angrier growl—as if the first were a menace which had not been heeded. Then there was a violent gush of wind—cold; smelling of the forests from which it came; scattering everything before it, dust, dead leaves, the fallen petals of flowers; making the trees writhe and labour, like giants wrestling with invisible giants; making the short grass shudder; corrugating the steel surface of the lake. Then two or three big raindrops fell—and ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... rebellion. I listened to some stinging rebukes delivered by Mlle. Jacquier when she would arise in her wrath in the dining-room and address them collectively. She knew how to get under their skin, for they would blush, hang their heads, and writhe. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that browsed the grass Writhe in the blistering rays, The herbage in his shrinking jaws Was all a fiery blaze; I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, Bob through the bubbling brine; And thoughts of supper crossed my soul; I ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cringe and cower and bring a shrine a forced and faithless faith Is far more futile than to fling your laughter in the face of Death. For writhe or whirl in dervish rout, they are not flattered there on high, Or sham belief to hide a doubt—no gods are mine that love a lie! Nor gods that beg belief on earth with portents that some seer foretells— Is life itself not wonder-worth that we must cry for miracles? ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... rule he maintains complete silence, and merely makes chewing motions with his strong-toothed jaws as he sits wagging his beard from side to side. At such times there is in his eyes a bluish fire like the gleam of charcoal, while his crooked fingers writhe like worms, and his outward appearance becomes sheerly that of ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... of unbelief caused her to writhe inwardly. "Do you think the unsupported statement of a woman suspected of murder will find credence?" Kathleen clenched John Hargraves' letter until her knuckles shone white under the taut skin. "Secondly," he continued in the same quiet tone, "you speak tonight only of this winter. Have you forgotten ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... such a situation. The Brethes knew nothing and thought nothing. The girl, unaware that these were my own people, saw me being used and treated as a chauffeur by four strangers, while she looked on and got the thanks; and the thought made her writhe. Berry and the others found me about to call them "Sir" and "Madam" and to serve them by mending my own car in the capacity of chauffeur to somebody they had never seen. And I wanted to burst out into hysterical ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... eyes staring on a window that looked on the branches of the highest tree about the castle. He had been reading or praying with his master before the physician had come in; he had been doing his duty (I could swear by his stern jaw), and making MacCailein Mor writhe to the flame of a conscience revived. There was a constraint on the company for some minutes, on no one more than Argile, who sat propped up on his bolsters, and, fiddling with long thin fingers with the fringes of his coverlet, looked every way but in the eyes of M'Iver or myself. I can swear ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... placed her, this year she was certainly in the prime of life and energy as concerned the school. Her keen eyes noticed everything, and woe betide the slacker who thought to escape her, and dared bring an unprepared lesson to class. Her sarcasms on such occasions made her victims writhe, though they were apt to be witty enough to amuse the rest of the form. Though, like John Gilpin's wife, she was on pleasure bent to-day, she never for a moment forgot she was in charge, and kept turning to see ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... hope along the hillside, what far bliss Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark, Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed Was bred of liquid marble in the dark Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed With novel ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... explanation of the most complex rule to make it clear as crystal. After twenty years spent in teaching, he still professed to be prostrated with horror at each fresh exhibition of feminine obtuseness, and would groan, and writhe, and push his fingers through his hair, until it stood up round his head like a halo. He was Dreda's special bete noire, for, like many girls who excel in literature and composition, she detested the sight of a sum and had never grown beyond ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... see poor Susan writhe with pain under these harsh words. But she merely heaved a sigh, and let fall a tear on the babe, which she had taken from its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... crock? I suppose what it comes to,' she added, as the Babe did his best to find a definition, 'is this, that you yourself dislike him.' The Babe admitted the impeachment. Mr Dacre had a finished gift of sarcasm which had made him writhe on several occasions, and sarcastic masters are ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... and it grieves you. To-day the Schulze Society will come with wreaths and will sing the memorial song ordered by my son-in-law. I daresay having to stand and listen to it will make you writhe. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... neither been troubled by my own grave shortcomings nor by Chichester's excellence of character. I had always felt myself set far above him by my superior mental faculties and my greater will power over the crowd, though, alas! not always over my own demon. I began to writhe now under the thought of Chichester's crystal purity and of my own besmirched condition of soul. All self-confidence departed from me; but I endeavored, of course, to conceal this from the world, and especially from Chichester. With the world for a time no doubt I succeeded. But with Chichester—did ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... might even be tolerable, but to hear a creature attempt to play one of the "songs without words" on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... tate weird han'dle un clean' an'o dyne swale clam'or be tween' col on nade' swain gram'mar ma rine' ser e nade' storm ham'mer com plete' dom i neer' swarm palm'er de feat' bel ve dere' scythe sa'tyr de ceit' pen'ni less writhe trai'tor co erce' mon'ey less sieve wait'er dis burse' joc'u lar give cra'ter ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... death! His surprise and remorse made him jump to his feet, wave his arms in angry protest, writhe, as if a pair of invisible hands had just laid him ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and Durham was left alone. Bracing his muscles, he strained at the cords which bound him, trying to writhe himself free. The chair creaked. In a moment the man with the ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... whom he does not know, is for the time being a blessing. But in the "Ladies' Room" there is not even a community of interest in a single bad habit, to break the monotone of weary stillness. Who has not felt the very soul writhe within her as she has first crossed the threshold of one of these dismal antechambers of journey? Carpetless, dingy, dusty; two or three low sarcophagi of greenish-gray iron in open spaces, surrounded by blue-lipped women, in different angles and attitudes of awkwardness, ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... wound inflicted by the alien enemy. It was like no wound on Earth—raw, crazy pain which started like a burn at his navel. He began to writhe ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... of her long arms ended, not in a hand, but in a claw like that of a bird of rapine. Her hair resembled the locks of the classic Medusa, and her faces were inexpressibly loathsome. She seemed, with all her dreadful heads and limbs, to writhe in the flames and yet not to be consumed by them. She gathered them in to herself; her claws caught them and drew them down; her triple body appeared to suck the fire into itself, as though a blast ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... seemed to rest, and for a long time no sound or stir broke the silence, till at last Viola began to writhe in her chair ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... but they were aimed high. Otherwise the attacker must have been struck as he flung himself up before the opening. The catlike movement brought him head and shoulders above the sill. He twisted forward to writhe into the doorway. Lennon's finger started to crook against the trigger of his rifle. But he did ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... howled and snapped and growled, until the gods, unwilling to have their peace disturbed, thrust a sword into his mouth, so that the hilt rested upon his lower jaw and the point pierced the roof of his mouth. They next fastened the cord to a rock, and left the wolf to writhe and struggle and shake the earth. So they were freed for a time from their enemy, but at the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and die on the elder woman's face, but she ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... in the little bank where her father had opened an account before she was born, and Lite was made to writhe inwardly with her boasting. Lite, if you please, had long ago started a savings account at that same bank, and had lately cut out poker, and even pool, from among his joys, that his account might fatten the ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... heart dies within her. Their fig-tree has lost all the golden glint of summer; the vines "writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake"—and like the leaves of the tree, and like the vines, her heart "shrivels up and her ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... and the dance is organized. He leans his left cheek lovingly on his instrument, and has just run his bow across the discordant strings, when suddenly a loud crash is heard in the gorges of the mountain. It is the roar of the storm. The maple tops writhe and twist in the sweep of the winds that come up in eddies from the river far beneath. The sky is suddenly darkened. The snow falls thick and fast. These portents are sufficiently significant to startle the whole party. The dance is broken up and every ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... he was dishonourable. That went without saying. He had failed ignominiously from the outset to behave as an upright and honourable man. Self-analysis laid his pride in the dust and made him writhe in self-condemnation. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... my God, they are not at rest! Can they neither live nor die? See, they writhe in their throbbing grave! While the nervous mesh of the quivering flesh Its strange anguish renews as the hot, bloody dews Follow the track of my Beautiful back As they rush into life again, Bringing nought ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... at the enactment, that the charge must be paid by senders. "Proprietors of journals," says the Quebec Chronicle, "find it hard enough at present to collect the simple subscription, without demanding postage in advance. People who writhe at present under the payment of their bare paper account, will find forwarding postage, in advance, an excruciating sacrifice." The 2 cents is no doubt primarily intended for soldiers' letters. The 3 cents pays the new ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... more quiet, his muscles stiffened and relaxed—he was no longer conscious. A few more convulsive quivers, as a serpent might writhe and jerk, then he hung, a limp dead thing, in my hands. My outstretched arms seemed made as a gibbet, feeling no fatigue, so lightly did they sustain him. Cords of brass could be no more tense than mine; his weight was as nothing. Softly I eased him down, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the four who were holding the rope felt it begin to writhe and twist in their grasp!—like a live thing. And its black length took on a scaly look, glittering in that pink glow as if it were covered with small ebon paillettes. It grew cold and clammy. At its thicker end Gwendolyn saw that the Piper was supporting a ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... this gloomy, savage force that has made the contemplative soul of spiritual inquiry writhe under the startling contradictions of history. When this force has been aroused with fear it has snarled and roared defiance; when it has been enraged by opposition or the lash of mastership it has cooled its ferocity in the blood of countless wars, pillages and sacrifices; ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... powers, without pose, without dramatics. Now he was himself, and more dramatic, more compelling than ever before. ... He pleaded, begged, flayed his audience, but it did not respond to his pleadings nor writhe under the whip of his words. It was apathetic, stolid. In its weary heart it knew what it was there to do, and it would do it in spite of Dulac.... He would not admit it. He would not submit to defeat. He talked on and on, not daring to stop, for with the ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... the crumbling base of the auld kirk tower Is the broad-leaved dock and the bright brae flower; And the adders hiss o'er the lime-bound stones, And playfully writhe round mouldering bones: The bat clingeth close to the binewood's root, Where its gnarled boughs up the belfry shoot, As, hiding the handworks of ruthless time, It garlands in grandeur and green sublime ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... delight My dainty appetite, For I, alas! must learn to drink, However I may writhe and shrink, Pure water. ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... his lips twitching with the pain he was trying to defy; "I have not been able to laugh at the futility of pain. Ah!" It was almost a scream that issued from between his stretched lips. He began to writhe.... ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... path might be rough, you trod it bravely. I saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler thing than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burning in the holy place. But now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And—O bitterest cup of all!—the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I totter down to the grave, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ship glided on, casting upward to the star-studded sky a long serpent of black smoke. Behind us the dazzling white water, stirred by the rapid progress of the heavy bark and beaten by the propeller, foamed, seemed to writhe, gave off so much brilliancy that one could have called ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... up the creek from the ocean and the finest ones found their way into the pool, and on Friday the cook and his men supplied the tables with fresh fish. How many times have I seen those fine fish, caught on the prongs of a spear, writhe and wriggle to get off. At first I could not taste them, I felt so sorry to see them killed in that way. I would not go out on Friday until after the fishing was done. The lamper eels crawled up the stream and the men gathered them by the barrels ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his blindness, he walked to town, bought them, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... reclined upon the sofa in their house, that priest began to moan and writhe as if in agony. His wife, in great alarm, inquired what ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the ZX-2 wallow in her death throes, writhe in the fiery doom that had struck her in seconds, that was devouring her with awful rapidity while thousands of men, blanched and trembling, gazed on helplessly. He saw her plunge, a blazing inferno, ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... others with his own insights and convictions. With bitter discouragement and chagrin, he saw that the spiritual man must forever lift the dead weight of all the indolence and indifference and animal sensuality that surround him,—that the curse of Cassandra is upon him, forever to burn and writhe under awful visions of truths which no one around him will regard. In early life the associate only of the cultivated and the refined, Father Francesco could not but experience at times an insupportable ennui in listening to the confessions of people ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... of these things a black shadow stalks over my heart. I hear a voice, "Fool, and do you still think that you are ever to escape from this? Do you not perceive that this sordid shame is your lot? Do you not perceive that you may writhe and twist, struggle and pant, toil and serve, till you foam at the lips? Who will heed you! Who will hear you! Who cares anything about you!—Who wants your Art! Who wants your work! Who ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... the time to seal the fate of our foe," said I to Fritz; and with that we went out with our guns. When we got near, we both took a straight aim, and each put a ball in its head. This made it move with a start, and writhe as ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... sounded the honeyed accents of De Griers as he leant over to whisper in the Grandmother's ear. "That stake will never win. No, no, it is impossible," he added in Russian with a writhe. "No, no!" ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... This consisted simply of defending his own practice by entering on a lecture upon the principles which ought to regulate the matter in question. He was, I fancy, rather fond of lecturing, and would rather have liked the work of a professor of the fine arts. I have seen people writhe under his patient and lengthy expositions, which they were as capable of understanding as so many bullocks, and which they had brought down on themselves by some absolutely absurd remark on the work before them. I have seen such delinquents use every sort ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... faced with another equally unpleasant—that never-annihilated possibility that she had gone off with Holliday somewhere. Perhaps she was with him now, in Monte Carlo, or Nice, Paris even. Therese would not know, of course. Arthur would be careful to keep it from her. The mere idea of it made him writhe, while he felt his skin flush all over as though a fire flared up ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... I turned giddy again and reeled against the door of a cabin, which gave way so far as to let me fall inwards on to a heap of old sails, ropes, and other softish ship lumber stowed away within. As I fell my hand struck something warm, which I fancied gave a writhe out of my grasp. I groped and seized it again, and now there was no mistake. It was somebody's arm, who said in a quick undertone, "Gently, gently, sirs; I'm coming along with ye. I'll gie ye my word ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Son of Mary, before Whom the Scribes and Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery, forgive her, pardon her! If a soul must writhe in those eternal fires they preach of, in justice let it be mine! Thou Who didst pity that woman of old time, standing white and shameful in the midst of the evil, jeering crowd, with the wicked fingers pointing at her, say to this other woman, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... one hand, his face is given over to Beelzebub. Contemplative flies stroll over it, and trifle absently with its most sensitive surfaces. The only way to dislodge them is to shake the head forcibly and to writhe one's features violently. This is not only a lengthy and frequently ineffectual method, but one exceedingly terrifying to foot passengers. And again, sometimes the beginner rides for a space with one eye closed by perspiration, giving him a waggish air foreign to his mood and ill calculated to ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... but it seemed to be the only chance for escaping torture and death, and it suited the reckless daring of the man's character. Waiting to the last moment, in order that the stern of the scow might fairly rub against the platform, he began to writhe again, as if in intolerable suffering, execrating all Indians in general, and the Hurons in particular, and then he suddenly and rapidly rolled over and over, taking the direction of the stern of the scow. Unfortunately, Hurry's shoulders required more space to revolve in than his ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... good many men who profess 'realism,' brutal frankness and a sweeping disbelief of everything not 'scientifically' true, Mr. Lushington was almost morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others. Criticism hurt him; indifference wounded him to the quick; ridicule made him writhe. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... one vengeance fire! Who doubts the glorious issue! To our foes A tenfold strength and spirit we oppose. In them no god protects his mortal sons, Or speaks, in thunder, from their roaring guns. Nor come they children of the radiant sky; 100 But, like the wounded snake, to writhe and die. Then, rush resistless on their prostrate bands, Snatch the red lightning from their feeble hands, And swear to the great spirits, hovering near, Who now this awful invocation hear, That we shall ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... also another reason why he did not breathe a word to her of his suspicions, and that was the slow dread that was laming him—the dread of her contempt. She made no further attempt to drape it; and he had learned to writhe before it, to cringe and go softly. Weeks had passed now, since the night on which he had made his last stand against her weeks of increasing torture. Just at first, incredible as it had seemed, his horrible treatment of her had brought about a slackening ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... whispered, "he suffers horribly when he moves, and I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see him wince and writhe under the effort." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... sweetheart to have her look upon a new one. Rather would he strive to cover up his faithlessness. But he hath been untrue to thee in this—that he shares a thought with the witch when his whole mind should be full of thee. Bide thy time till he emerges from the spell, then make him writhe. Meantime, save thy tears. Never was a man ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... exactions on his fellow's purse; And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his head Threats of impending death in hideous forms; Till the small culprit on his nightly couch Dream'd of strange pains, and felt his body writhe In tortuous pangs around ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... but disliked for his selfishness, cynicism, and overbearing assumption of mastership in the theory and practice of fishing. As he was ever laying down the highest standards of sport much was forgiven him. The men who used phantom, prawn, and worm, however much and often they were made to writhe under his sneers, felt that in maintaining the artificial fly as the only lure with which the noble salmon should be tempted, he was on a lofty plane, and, if not unassailable, had better be left there in his vain glory. They loved him none the more, of course, and spun, prawned, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... already found in a Gaboon factory, the excessive prevalence of petty pilfering. The Moleques or house-boys steal like magpies, even what is utterly useless to them; these young clerks of St. Nicholas will scream and writhe, and confess and beg pardon under the lash, and repeat the offence within the hour: as they are born serviles, we cannot explain the habit ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... emotions of humanity common to, and shared equally by, both sexes? Does man hunger and thirst, suffer cold and heat more than woman? Does he love and hate, hope and fear, joy and sorrow more than woman? Does his heart thrill with a deeper pleasure in doing good? Can his soul writhe in more bitter agony under the consciousness of evil or wrong? Is the sunshine more glorious, the air more quiet, the sounds of harmony more soothing, the perfume of flowers more exquisite, or forms of beauty more soul-satisfying to his senses, than to hers? To all these interrogatories ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... find that there are crooked lanes, muddy crossings, dull market-places, tiresome houses. Odd misshapen figures, fretful and wearied, plod through the streets or look out at windows; here is a ruin, with doleful creatures moping in the shade; we overturn a stone, and blind uncanny things writhe away from the light. We begin to reflect that it is after all much like other places, and that our fine romantic view of it was due to some accident of light and colour, some transfiguring mood of our own mind; and then we set out in search of another ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... linger on the hideous details of such a scene? Sorrowful that man should come, with his evil ambitions and his fierce revenges, to stain and to spoil such wonders of beauty as the hand of the Creator has here moulded. Sorrowful that man, in league with the serpent, should writhe into such scenes as these, and poison them with ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... summoned all his strength and struck him half a dozen blows, that made poor Jack writhe. Then he walked up and down the room awhile, to give the victim time to consider whether he would ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... to tannic bitterness, of heady hypocras charged with cinnamon, with almonds, and with musk, of raging liquors clouded with golden particles—mad drinks which spurred the guests in this womanless castle to frenzies of lechery and made them, at the end of the meal, writhe in monstrous dreams. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... General Markow, Brigadier, Insisting on removal of the Prince Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,— All common fellows, who might writhe and wince, And shriek for water into a deaf ear,— The General Markow, who could thus evince His sympathy for rank, by the same token, To teach him greater, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... hissing to the saw. Their instinct to make use of the downright in retort, restrained as it is by a buttoned coat of civilization, is amusing, inviting. Colney Durance allured them to the quag's edge and plunged them in it, to writhe patriotically; and although it may be said, that they felt their situation less than did he the venom they sprang in his blood, he was cruel; he caused discomfort. But these good friends about him stood for the country, an illogical country; and as he could not well attack his host Victor ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Oriental splendor. There she stood, her hair flowing dark and silky from beneath her twisted turban, her eyes,—black melted loadstones; the broad Egyptian pendants gleaming and glowing from temple to shoulder. The golden serpent seemed to writhe on her bosom, informed from its wearer with a subtile vitality. Through all dominated a grand repose, like the calm of nature, which storms may ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... very nearly offensive, but was at the same time so polished, that it would indicate a want of good breeding to be annoyed at it. It was thus a real treat for Uncle Richard to see the magistrate, with all his aplomb, writhe under Delphin's adroit and sarcastic rejoinders. Aalbom, on the other hand, was not so well bred, and often, therefore, broke through conventionalities, to the great delight of both the attache ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... man left at Key West who did not writhe with envy and anger when he heard of it. When the wire was closed for the night, and they had gathered at Josh Kerry's, Keating was the storm-centre of ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... present we have no means of ascertaining. The letters giving them the miss-in-baulk in no uncertain voice were only despatched yesterday. But it cannot affect us how they writhe beneath the blow. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... which I distinctly beheld each of my faults, appeared to flow towards me from out of the temptations with which he was encircled. During this time my eyes were fixed upon my Heavenly Spouse; with him I wept and prayed, and with him I turned towards the consoling angels. Ah, truly did our dear Lord writhe like a worm beneath the weight ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... their taunts in silence; and all her struggle was not to let them see their power to make her writhe within. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... deaths—women, blasted by disease and drink till their shame brought not tuppence in the open mart; and men, in fantastic rags, wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all semblance of men, their faces in a perpetual writhe of pain, grinning idiotically, shambling like apes, dying with every step they took and each breath they drew. And there were young girls, of eighteen and twenty, with trim bodies and faces yet untouched with twist and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... beyond that one flat statement, around the turn below you comes a Ford, rattling all its joints trying to make the hill on "high." The driver honks wildly at you to give him the road—you, Casey Ryan! Wouldn't you writhe and invent words and apply them viciously to all Fords and the man who invented them? But the driver comes at you ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window and her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid was quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small, that, to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent. Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... ear less charged with insanity; small sounds of movement, of strange shiverings, swarmings, crepitations; sounds of incessant, infinitely subtle urging, of agony and recoil. Sounds they were of the invisible things unborn, driven towards birth; sounds of the worm unborn, of things that creep and writhe towards dissolution. She knew what she heard and saw. She heard the stirring of the corruption that Life was; the young blades of corn were frightful to her, for in them was the push, the passion of the evil which was Life; the trees as they stretched out their arms and threatened her ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... triumphs, that beneath thee sprang, healed not a passion or a pang entailed on human hearts. Go! let Oblivion's curtain fall upon the stage of men! nor with thy rising beams recall life's tragedy again! Its piteous pageants bring not back, nor waken flesh upon the rack of pain anew to writhe, stretched in Disease's shapes abhorred, or mown in battle by the sword, like grass beneath the scythe! Even I am weary in yon skies to watch thy fading fire: test of all sumless agonies, behold not me expire! My lips, that speak thy dirge of death, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... old, it said, and will wither before thy face, and be as the waning moon in the heavens. And my heart cried out in an agony. But my will sought to comfort my heart, and said, Cry not out, for, in spite of old age as in spite of death, I will love her still. Then something began to writhe within me, and to hiss out words that gathered themselves unto this purpose: But she will grow unlovely, and wrinkled, and dark of hue, and the shape of her body will vanish, and her form be unformed, and her eyes will grow small and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... others, knowing how this youth Would shine, if love could make him great, When caught and tortured for the truth Would only writhe and hesitate; While she, arranging for his days What centuries could not fulfill, Transmutes him with her faith and praise, And has him shining ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... howled again; the pain was too much for him and he toppled sidewise to writhe in ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... fire? Did you not shoot down my father in the wood, fearing lest he should prove you traitor, and after rob me of my heritage? Did you not compel your monks to work evil and bring some of them to their deaths? Oh! have done! Worm dressed up as God's priest, how can you writhe there ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... her own bed. Later also she often began to moan and fret until the mother would take her in her arms to ward off the threatened attacks, and thus she could stimulate herself to her heart's content. As she reports, at the height of the orgasm she expelled a secretion, her body began to writhe convulsively, her face became red as fire, her eyes rolled about and she almost lost herself in ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... "is the king's own favourite, and if any harm come to a lock of her hair, I tell you that there is not a living soul within this portcullis who will not die a death of torture. Fools, will you gasp out your lives upon the rack, or writhe in boiling oil, at ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... still locked fast in each other's arms, went further. Then they realized where they were, and there was a simultaneous writhe to get back again. It was too late. The blue jay saw them hang for a moment on the brink and then go crashing into the void. His paralyzed voice came back to him, and, chattering wildly with terror, he flew away from the ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thronging mass of faces crying for help, pressing upon him, urging, yet all without sound or word. He attempts in his diary to use phrases for all this—he speaks of a pit in which is no water, of shadows and forms that writhe and plead, of a light of glass mingled with fire; and yet of an inevitability, of a Justice which there is no questioning and a Force that there is no resisting. And, on the other side, there was this help ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... hour of triumph, then I'll goad you till you writhe again; Then shall you curse the evil hour You made a mockery ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... see them is when they are fed, which is after the real lions. The keeper goes into the enclosure with a basket of fish, and in their excitement the sea-lions writhe and wind and chase each other till the pond seems full of gigantic eels. He throws the fish one by one in all directions, and the great beasts simply dance after them. Even after the last fish has gone, still the happy commotion continues ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Foxy reveled in his power over his rival, and ground his slave in bitter bondage, subjecting him to such humiliation as made the school wonder and Hughie writhe; and if ever Hughie showed any sign of resentment or rebellion, Foxy could tame him to groveling submission by a single word. "Well, I guess I'll go down to-night to see your mother," was all he needed to say to make Hughie ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... gushed out—it was shed to save him; and he raised his eyes, lifted his clasped hands, turned his whole face up towards heaven, saying, "Jack loves, loves, very loves good Jesus Christ!" When another violent pang made him start and writhe a little, he recovered in a moment, nodded his head, and said, "Good pain, make Jack soon ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... much resistance as a log. He could not tell how far he was carried down. Reaching the other side at last, he could scarcely crawl out on the stones. He was too stiff to attempt to draw on his clothes; the best he could do was to roll in his blankets, and writhe to ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... would use a rod, a riding-whip, bind him and chain him, and so on. But it is to be noted that she declares "this could, in general, only give me enjoyment if the man concerned endured such torture with a certain pleasure. He must, indeed, writhe with pain, but at the same time be in a state of sexual ecstasy, followed by satisfaction." His pleasure must not, however, be so great that it overwhelms his pain; if it did, her own pleasure would vanish, and she has found witty her husband that when ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... examination and he began to veto some of the worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent, sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... I am mortified with myself beyond measure, and I am bitterly ashamed that my aunt, her own mother, should have so grossly misjudged her. Sibley, no doubt, IS the occasion of her trouble in part, for she seems fairly to writhe under the false position in which he has placed her by leading every one to associate her name with his; but I now believe that she loathes and detests him more than you or I can. Certainly no woman could speak of a man in ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... worship Mahound and Termagant. I saw a blackamoor last week behind his master, a merchant of Genoa, in Paul's Walk. He looked like the devils in the Miracle Play at Christ Church, with blubber lips and wool for hair. I marvelled that he did not writhe and flee when he came within the Minster, but Ned Burgess said he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... say so? Well, I'll never guess a man's age by his looks Again.—Poor Master Waller! He must writhe To hear I think Sir William is so young. I'll turn his visit yet to more account.—[Aside.] A handsome ring, ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... breakers clash and boom; We saw them plunge and writhe and rise, And toss great flakes of ashen spume High toward ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard |
