"Writhed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... battery before Heideck's eyes, exploded, and with its flying splinters struck down nearly all the men serving the guns. Happy were those who found death at once; for the injuries of those who writhed wounded on the ground were of a frightful nature. The red-hot pieces of iron, which tore the unhappy men's flesh and shattered their bones, at the same time inflicted fearful burns upon them. Indeed, ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... the bowed heads had just been raised from prayer, when into the reverent hush there penetrated from the kitchen a loud, complaining voice: "Oh, Lordy! ain't we havin' a slow time!" An electric current quivered through the room, the two boys in the corner writhed in a spasm of giggles, and the minister said sternly, "Hush!" But the next instant the necessity for constraint was over. A tremendous uproar burst from the front doorway, and into the midst of the wedding guests there dashed an astounding ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... victim writhed in a paroxysm of agony; his veins swollen almost to bursting. Whether real or imaginary, whether a victim to insanity or of some supernatural agent, its influence was not the less terrible in its effects. Starting suddenly from his grovelling posture, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... perceiving him in the heat of the fray. The Marquis amused himself with watching his two children twisted together like snakes, their faces flushed by the exertion of their strength; their complexion was rose and white, their eyes flashed sparks, their limbs writhed like cords in the fire; they fell, sprang up again, and caught each other like athletes in a circus, affording their father one of those moments of happiness which would make amends for the keenest anxieties of a busy life. Two other persons, one on the second and one on the first floor, were also ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... and leaves rained down upon him, and at the same instant a terrific upheaval occurred in the canoe, coil upon coil the vast length of the serpent's body leaped into view, and plunged over the side, there was a violent rustling and crackling of branches for a few seconds as the monster snake writhed its irresistible way through the neighbouring bushes; and then it was gone. And as the last sounds of its hurried retreat died away, Dick Chichester sank helplessly to the ground, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... it was almost impossible to recover from it, for the iron armor which these knights wore was so heavy and so cumbersome, that when once they were unhorsed they could not mount again, and sometimes could not even rise, but writhed and struggled helplessly on the ground until their squires came to ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... or sister, dropped bitter tears on the unconscious face of the household darling, as she walked by the stretcher where he writhed in fevered ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... followed a most irritating semi-serious remonstrance, in questionable taste. Erica writhed under it. A flippant canvassing of her most private and sacred thoughts was hard to bear, but she held her ground, and, being not without a touch of her father's dignity, Mr. Masterman presently beat a retreat, not feeling quite so well satisfied with himself as usual. His ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: Lo you there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points aglow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the serpents, heaped pell-mell For Devil's roll-call and some fete in Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... time. Jack and Mark felt that if the cabin was going to fall, the open air was the safer place. Here, however, it seemed that they could not keep their feet. They reeled about like drunken men, and the forest trees bent and writhed as though an invisible wind tore at them, whereas the fact was that the wind had fallen and it was a ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... writhed and her eyes shot fire. Should she breathe the scorn she felt, and brave the worst? Or should she temporize? Time might bring about a change, when she could safely send the mercenary suitor back to his dusty and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... crimson-dyed: And Rhine and Danube knew her gush of blood Down the plucked roots the deepest in her breast. He tossed her cordials, from his laurels pressed. She drank for dryness thirstily, praised his gifts. The blooded frame a powerful draught uplifts Writhed the devotedness her voice rang wide In cries ecstatic, as of the martyr-Blest, Their spirits issuing forth of bodies racked, And crazy chuckles, with life's tears at feud; While near her heart the sunken sentinel Called Critic marked, and dumb in awe reviewed This ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... office in a dead silence. It speaks well for our sense of honour, and respect for the implied conditions of the treaty, when it is remembered that this abhorred Tom, the living instrument of our tortures, and on whose back we had most of us so often writhed, was permitted to go into the darkest corners of the room unmolested, and even uninsulted. When the tables were cleared, then rung out exultingly the shout of "Bar him ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... by a giant's hands, the tree-tops above us swayed to and fro; then the shrubbery along the paths seemed full of wild terror and writhed in every direction. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... has always made a strong appeal to me, but never one of simple grief or sorrow. Its expression is rather of great dignity, and I remember watching in somewhat of awe one which grew near my childhood's home, as its branches writhed and twisted in a violent rain-storm, seeming then fairly to agonize, so tossed and buffeted were they by the wind. But soon the storm ceased, the sun shone on the rounded head of the willow, turning the raindrops to quickly vanishing diamonds, and the great tree breathed only a gentle ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... even as the Name passed his teeth, the gobbets of foam floated forth from the gate, and the water-weed writhed away with the stream, and the river flowed fair and softly, ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... swept by, the brothers rolled and writhed, with every faculty at terrible tension. Now Ralph was uppermost; now Nick sought to drive the downward blow. Now Ralph strained to twist his knife-arm free from the iron grip that held it; now Nick ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... to pass that the cave wherein she dwelt, and all the woods around it, were full of men and wild beasts who had been petrified by a glance of her,—grim fossils immortalised in stone,—while the snakes writhed and the red eyes ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Davidge writhed at this deduction. He started to say, "I'd be glad to spend the rest of my life in a taxi with you." That sounded a little too flamboyant, especially with a driver listening in. So he said nothing ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... he writhed and cried, telling her that it took all the wits that he had to keep awake enough to keep the devils off him without taking stuff to make him sleep, and that he was sure she'd never come back, and that ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... achievement; it only seemed to him that his was the most flagrant folly that ever left a man in the world, but with no place in it. A sorry object for pride he seemed to himself, but he quivered, and scorched, and writhed in its hot flames. His one object was to take himself out of the sight and sound of Colbury, till he might have counsel within himself, and perfect his scheme of revenge—not upon the woman. Poor Theodosia, with her limitations, could ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sails and rigging blackened ludicrously by the mat of close-curled hair that flourished on the human background. The rising sun of Japan blazed above her trucks, on the wearer's treelike neck; weird serpents and smoke-breathing dragons writhed about his arms from wrist to shoulder, and a red star on the back of one gnarled hand kept watch and watch with a blue star on its opposite member. Barry chuckled audibly as, in a casual flourish, one great arm was half turned, showing the comparative white of the underarm ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... hidden among hecatombs of the slain, as they heard the footsteps of the ambulance corps and their helpers. Really, the task was an endless one, to try to relieve the misery around; for, hardly had one wounded wretch been saved from being buried alive in the mountain of dead under which he writhed, than an appeal for aid was heard in another direction—and yet again another, until the bearers and relief corps themselves became exhausted. Each required forty pairs of ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... it? For Death, the great transfigurer of all below this lunar sphere, had given Pan a characteristic proof of his superior cunning. Where the wand had reposed writhed a ghastly worm, which, as Pan's glance fell upon it, glided towards him, uplifting its head with an aspect of defiance. Pan's immortal nature sickened at the emblem of corruption; he could not for all Olympus have ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the day was dreary, And the lowering clouds o'erhead Wept in a silent sorrow Where the sweet sunshine lay dead; And a wind came out of the eastward Like an endless sigh of pain, And the leaves fell down in the pathway And writhed in ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... festoons, rested a huge black snake; a bird two thirds grown was slowly disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemed unconscious of my presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By slow degrees he compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his head flattened, his neck writhed and swelled, and two or three undulatory movements of his glistening body finished the work. Then he cautiously raised himself up, his tongue flaming from his mouth the while, curved over the nest, and with wavy subtle motions, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... hair escaped from its fastenings and descended, a ruddy torrent, about her as she writhed, silent, horrible, in the death-coil ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... told the things they had seen. He saw the people going into the churches and chapels. He sometimes went into such places himself and he always found there huddled forms kneeling in the pews, even when no service was being held. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women, and often they writhed and sobbed horribly. He did not know why he went in; his going seemed only ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... murmured Truesdale, as he writhed out of his cramped quarters and stood on the carriage-block in the dusk to stretch his legs. "Wonderful how we contrive to stand stock-still in the midst of all this ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... began to stifle him so that his breath came in quick gasps through his nostrils; sweat started at the roots of his hair; his heart leaped, beat madly, stood still, and leaped again; and he threw himself against the strips that held him and twisted and writhed with all his strength. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the stacks became so great that nobody could come close to them any longer. Under the devouring flames the straw writhed with a crackling sound, and the grains of corn lashed one's face as if they were buckshot. Then the stack fell in a huge burning pile to the ground, and a shower of sparks flew out of it, while fiery waves floated above ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... was in another? If they could not accept Mrs. Eddy's wisdom when she said "there shall be no pastors," how could they persuade other people to accept it when she said "there is no matter"? It was clear, even to those who writhed under the restrictions imposed upon them, that they must stand or fall with Mrs. Eddy's Wisdom, and that to disobey it was to compromise their own career. Even in the matter of getting on in the world, it was better to be a doorkeeper in the Mother Church than to dwell in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... in fire-streak'd gloom the car comes on. The mangled steeds grim Terror guides. His forehead writhed to a relentless frown, Aloft the angry Power of Battles rides: Grasp'd in his mighty hand A mace tremendous desolates the land; Thunders the turret down the steep, The mountain shrinks before its wasteful sweep; Chill horror the dissolving ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... of indifference, Laurent's sudden attentions had aroused her senses. As she tossed herself about in insomnia, she had seen the drowned man rise up before her; like Laurent she had writhed in terror, and she had said as he had done, that she would no longer be afraid, that she would no more experience such sufferings, when she had her ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... moon played her ghastly metamorphoses in the little chamber. And the figures on the carpet and the figures on the curtain writhed in horrible contortions of glee, as if they rejoiced over a calamity ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... objector's ear, and twisted it until its owner writhed in anguish. "For a heretic like thee it should be thrice as much. Remember I have power to bind as well as to loose. Insult this place again with heathen haggling, and by the keys of heaven and of hell, I ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... them herself, but, notwithstanding, she never would consent to write a line for publication and avow it as her own, and never did, until that time when her husband was an outlaw, when her child was torn from her, when she herself stood in the shadow of the guillotine, and writhed under the foulest written and spoken calumnies that can torture outraged womanhood into eloquence. She then wrote, in twenty-six days, her immortal Appeal to Posterity, and those stirring letters and papers incident to her defense, from which some extracts have been here presented. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... yawning chasm at her feet, Margaret would have been thankful if that same pink parasol had been a reality at that moment, and in her hand, so that she could have held it as a screen between her crimsoning face and his pitiless old eyes. She writhed inwardly to think that all the idle fancies in which she had been indulging during the afternoon had been poured into her grandfather's angry ears. And it was positive agony to her shy nature to know that her shadowy friend was no longer ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... while the blood beat thickly in her ears, then fled to the cabin, hurling herself into her berth, where she writhed silently, beating the pillow with hands into which her nails had bitten, staring the while into the darkness with dry and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... never to me was dear. 'Twas his gold was my undoing. When he spoke to me, aye, or e'en drew near, My spirit writhed with ruing. [Clasping ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... frantically at the energy reverse control. The force was now fully repelling. Still the billowing whiteness drew nearer. It boiled and bubbled with the ferocity of one of the hot lava cauldrons of Mercury. Changing shape rapidly, it threw out long streamers that writhed and twisted like the arms of an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... rush, and got to close quarters. The two men struggled together, fighting as much with shields as swords, and more with legs and arms than anything else. They were indistinguishable, a twisting and flashing tangle; they locked, writhed, swayed, tottered—then rent asunder. Galors fell heavily. He got on his feet again, however, for another rush. As he came on Prosper stepped aside, knocked out his guard and slashed at the shoulder—a dreadful thirsty blow. Galors ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... saturated with oil, their flickering blaze lighting up a weird scene; the gaunt, bare, white trees, ghosts of a departed forest, the miry ground strewn with eggs of all sizes, shapes and colors, and dead birds of many kinds, in amongst which writhed and twisted dirty-looking, repulsive water moccasins and brilliant yellow and black swamp snakes, while overhead on the whitened limbs, roosted hundreds of birds partly roused from their sleep by the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... reached the front ranks, where tall gates of open ironwork barred all farther progress, but left a full view of the tragedy which was enacting within, where the poor innocent wretch, suspended from a gibbet, writhed and shrieked at every stroke of the hide whips ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... twelve? That the lady's maid who incurred the displeasure of my girlhood now lies at the bottom of the horse-pond? No! no! he is too pure,—too good,—too innocent,—to hear such improper conversation!" and her whole body writhed as she rocked to and fro in a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... never seen nor heard of this kind of torture, but it seemed effectual. The fellow writhed, groaned, squalled and protested. After Corbulo had him brought back before him he confessed that he had been asleep in his cell from some time before Falco's murder until he was aroused by Dromo, just before the arrival of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... into the treacly sea and swam back towards the dragon. It is very difficult to shoot straight when you are swimming, especially in nearly boiling treacle, but His Majesty King Billy managed to do it. He sent his eight bullets straight into the dragon's heads, and the huge monster writhed and wriggled and squirmed and squawked, all over the sea from end to end, till at last it floated lifeless on the surface of the clear, warm treacle, and stretched its wicked paws out, and shut its wicked eyes, all four of them, and died. The ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... thought, something missing; a curious feverishness seemed to have replaced the cool and hardy purity of manner which was natural to him; his eyes had a strange glow, fitful and eager; I saw by the starlight how restless his fingers were, they intertwined, twisted, and writhed in and out. ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... deeper horror grew and grew, gusts of rage swept over him, gusts of despair. What would his Julia think? He shouted, he screamed, he prayed. He saw her, lovelier than ever, all in white, waiting for him, with sweet concern in her peerless face. Half-past ten struck. He struggled, he writhed, he made the very room shake, and lacerated his flesh, but that was all. No answer, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... stretched a dull waste of sand hardly distinguishable in the gloom until his eyes became accustomed to it, and beyond this the white line of the surf, whiter than either sky or sand. This writhed and twisted like a cobra in pain. To the north burned Barnegat Light, only the star of its lamp visible. To the south stretched alternate bands of sand, sky, and surf, their dividing lines lost ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... discovered that she had been deceived, she engaged Gunnar to revenge her wrong. By charms and prayers the two brothers set on Guttorm, their half-brother, to take vengeance, and the hero was pierced through with a sword while he lay in Gudrun's white arms. Though Sigurd turned and writhed in agony, he had strength left to hurl Gram after the treacherous Guttorm as he fled. The keen blade cut him asunder, and his head rolled out of the room. Brynhildr's love returned; and when Sigurd, who expired of his wound, was laid upon the pile, her heart ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... even in the pain of the night that followed, when she lay awake in the bed she shared with Maudie Hollis, stifling her sobs lest she should waken Maudie, clutching the edge of the mattress where she had writhed out of Maudie's reach. For at the first sound of crying the proud beauty had turned to her friend and put her arms about her, and held her in a desolate and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... and roar of the street outside the railing drowned her mad little cries. All she had never done before, she did then. Her hands beat on the damp mould and tore at it—her small feet beat it and dug into it. She cried, she sobbed; the big lump in her throat almost strangled her—she writhed and did not know she was writhing. Her tears pouring forth wet her hair, her face, her dress. She did not cry out, "Donal! Donal!" because he was nowhere—nowhere. If Andrews had seen her she would have said she was "in a tantrum," But she was not. The world had ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... me, madam," he said, with a curious writhed smile. "Did you not know that they thought they were rid of me when I took the disease at seven years old, and lay in the loft over the hen-house with Molly Owens to tend me? and I believe it was thought to be fairy work that I came out of it ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fear, man? I tell you it is a godsend," he said. He had been very queer in his ways for a week or more, and one day had been found upon a cliff overhanging the water, with his arms stiffly out, his chin towards the sky. His eyes had been shut, his mouth open, his nostrils splayed out. He had writhed and twisted about, talking in a strange tongue. They were some time bringing him to his senses, and had no thanks from him for doing it; but they had fetched him home and put him to bed. He had lain there with his head covered up until ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... ground. Attacked on all sides by the enraged curs, the infuriated animal fought with desperate valour; but the squatter advancing in front of the party, and almost in the midst of the dogs, shot him immediately behind and beneath the left shoulder. He writhed for a moment in agony, and in another ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... were wise; they had been everywhere and tried everything. They could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... splash of water wholly obscured. But the thing that brought home the truth to Warwick was the pain that flashed, vivid as lightning, across his dark face; and the horror of death that left its shadow. Something churned and writhed in the mud; and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... sound of that blow, as it descended, was swallowed up in the sudden, blinding, lightning-like flash, in the hiss and roar of the pale-green flame, as the sheet of steel, tortured into sudden incandescence, bridged and writhed and twisted, warping and collapsing like a leaf of writing-paper on the coals of an open fire. A sickening smell of burning paint, mingling with the subtler gaseous odors of the corroding metal, filled ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... and every time he was compelled to press hard upon the proofs against her she shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the deadly blow; writhed under the weight of his minute justice, more than from the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... in martial tread Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel Seized fast, as if 't were by the serpent's head Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel: In vain he kick'd, and swore, and writhed, and bled, And howl'd for help as wolves do for a meal— The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, As do the subtle snakes ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a welcome to her father's guests, had gone as completely as though she lay buried beside the drowned mariners, for whom the silting sand under the waves makes a safe graveyard all along that bleak and rugged coast; but a horror—a crawling, shapeless, loathsome thing—writhed itself along the pathway from cliff to village, and sent the terror-striken peasants shrieking into their huts and battering at the castle gates for sanctuary. The old ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... sunken boulder, and, acting as a key log, held in check the whole drive. Then began a wild scene, which once beheld can never be forgotten. Stopped in their mad career, the logs presented the spectacle of unrestrained passion. The mighty, heaving, twisting mass groaned, pressed and writhed for freedom, but with the awful grip of death the sturdy key log held firm. Steadily the jam increased in size, and whiter threw the foam, as one by one those giant logs swept crashing down, to be wedged amidst their companions as if driven ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... Firedrake—up and up, till they reached his knees, and the great burning beast roared like a hundred bulls with the pain. Then up the Firedrake leaped, and hovering on his fiery wings, he lighted in the midst of the Remora's back, and dashed into it with his horns. But the flat, cruel head writhed backwards, and, slowly bending over on itself, the wounded Remora slid greedily to fasten again on the limbs of ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... forming an effectual clasp for that strong cestus which the fecund, supple, and heated land made possible to all Spanish fortifications. Beyond the tunal the naked hillside fell steeply to a narrow plain, all patched with golden flowers, and from this yellow carpet writhed tall cacti, fantastic as trees seen in a dream. Upon the plain, pearl pink in the sunset light, huddled the town. Palm-trees and tamarinds overhung it; palm-trees, mimosas, and mangroves marked the course of a limpid river. Above the battery at the river's mouth drooped a red cross in a white field. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... proceeded, with the utmost delicacy indeed, but still with the precision of a man of business, to state the obligations under which the baron at present lay, and his inadequate means of fulfilling them, the nobleman writhed in his chair like a victim on the rack. And Anton keenly felt how painful it must needs be to him to have a stranger thus introduced into his most secret affairs—a stranger anxious to spare his feelings, it is true, but at every moment ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... her faith. He ignored Bergman's scowls; he proceeded to monopolize the manager's favorite with an arrogance that secretly delighted her; he displayed the assurance of one reared to selfish exactions, and his rival writhed under it. But Bergman was slow to admit defeat, and when his unspoken threats failed to impress the girl he began to ply Wharton with wine. Bob accepted the challenge blithely, and a ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... from his breast. When I saw this I ran forward and took his poor head on my knee, and tried to stop the blood with my handkerchief. But as I did this the judge groaned once more. He knew me not, though I called him by name. In terrible agony he writhed his head off my breast. His hand clutched at the hole in his breast, closing on my handkerchief. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... Clos-Vougeot!" shrieked she, and fainted. The Baron of Barbazure heard the name as he writhed on the ground with his wound, and by his slighted honor, by his broken ribs, by his roused fury, he swore revenge; and the Lady Fatima, who had come to the tourney as a queen, returned to her ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... intense depression of the spirits was a malady with him—offered an ever-recurring cause of misunderstanding. How irritating it was when he lay shut up in his room, his soul looking down with murderous eyes on the poor worm that writhed out its life in view of the pitiless stars, and longing with a fierce wild longing to shake off the burning garment of consciousness, and plunge into the black happiness of the grave, to hear Mrs Norton on the threshold uttering from time ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... and slowly the perseverance of man told against the devouring element. The fire was, at last, kept within its own bounds; then gradually forced backward, to leave a charred, steaming belt between it and the unharmed town. Within this, the flames still leaped and writhed and wrangled in their devilish glee; but Richmond was now comparatively safe, and her wretched inhabitants might think of food and rest. Little had they recked of either for ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... poems is Ichabod (1850), a bitter arraignment of Daniel Webster, because Whittier thought that the great orator's Seventh of March Speech of that year advised a compromise with slavery. Webster writhed under Whittier's criticism more than under that ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... here?" he repeated, obviously surprised, if not displeased. He waved a hand towards the men laid on mattresses on the deck. Most were quite motionless; others writhed in agony. "She cannot ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... that instinct which is always strong in simple natures, and very imperfectly protected, by the undecided will of inert and feeble natures. She turned her head now to the wall, and now towards the room, in order to avoid the attentions which the farmer tried to press on her, and her body writhed a little under the coverlet, as she was weakened by the fatigue of the struggle, while he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... yer kickin'!" ordered the cop, twisting Tony's thin arm until he writhed. "You'll ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... writhed before the spirit he evoked. He was not so sure of his game but that it might yet be lost. He knew Angelique's passionate impulses, and he thought that no woman could resist such devotion as that of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Magglin, removing the cover and taking out a sandy-coloured snaky-looking animal, with sharp nose and pink eyes, one which writhed about almost ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... interest in the sex, thinking it a way of goading him to action. One evening, the bottles circulating, they mentioned one Dolly, goddess at some bar, as a fit instructress for him. Coarse pleasantries passed, but for a time he writhed in silence, then burst upon them indignantly for their unmanly smirching of a woman's character, and swept out, leaving them a little ashamed. That was ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... boys, poor innocents, my loyal wife, Must be protected, tyrant, from thy rage! When last I drew my bow—with trembling hand— And thou, with fiendishly remorseless glee Forced me to level at my own boy's head, When I, imploring pity, writhed before thee, Then in the anguish of my soul, I vow'd A fearful oath, which met God's ear alone, That when my bow next wing'd an arrow's flight, Its aim should be thy heart. The vow I made, Amid the hellish torments of that moment, I hold ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... in sculpture that it may writhe but it must not scream. Lord Haldane has not even writhed. When a member of the House of Lords asked him what he proposed doing with the two sacks crammed full of abusive letters addressed to him there by correspondents who thus obeyed a vulgar editor's suggestion, Lord Haldane replied ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... and pulled. His smile vanished. He pulled harder. His huge muscles bulged and writhed in great ridges along his arms. The thin cord remained complacently undamaged. Torlos relaxed and ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... under his orders had withdrawn to a little distance and stood about us in a ring. While he probed and Nat's poor body writhed feebly in my arms, I lifted my eyes once with a shudder, and met the Princess Camilla's. She was watching, and without a tremor, her face ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all snapped off ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... him at all. If any hand but her own mother's had dashed her cup of happiness out of her hand, she would have had there a refuge to go to. Most girls have their mothers. If Evan had not been sent to so distant a post—but when her thoughts dared turn to Evan, Diana writhed upon her bed in tearless agony. Evan, writing in all the freshness and strength of his love and his trust in her, those letters;—waiting and looking for her answer;—writing again and again; disappointed ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... exclaimed. And I dare say I writhed on my seat. 'As far as I am concerned the jest is a stale one, sir, and does ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... irritation combined with astonishment. Within the globes, the music rose to a furious whine while one of the things shot forth long tentacles from the holes in its side. Lightning-swift they shot forth, wrapped themselves about the body of the spacehound, constricting. Digger writhed vainly, his claws powerless to tear at the whip-like tentacles. Nat severed the tentacles at ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart
... young man writhed afresh at the thought of his father's obstinacy. True, Rachael had a hobble in her leg, but as he had discovered years later when a humble tutor in her family, she was an amiable creature, and as her father had offered to make him ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... thence, soon after he had come to himself, arose in the young man's mind. Then, then, there returned the remembrance of a female—lovely, it is true, but more elderly—certainly considerably older—and with f——. Oh, horror and remorse! He writhed with anguish, as a certain recollection crossed him. An immense gulf of time gaped between him and the past. How long was it since he had heard that those pearls were artificial,—that those golden locks were only pinchbeck? A long, long time ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the trenches. And finally, over the top! Very little memory of what happened after that. A rush. Trampling over soft heaps that writhed. Some one yelling like an Indian with a voice somehow like his own. The German trench reached. At them with his bayonet! He remembered, automatically, how his manual had taught him to jerk out the steel, after you had driven it home. He did it. Into the very trench itself. A great ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... closed with him and he went down in a corner with Slade. Slade struck him twice in the face, writhed away and gained his feet, back-slashing at Harris's head with his spurs. Harris caught a hand-hold in the long fur of the other's chaps, wrapped both arms round Slade above the knees and dragged him back. His hand found Slade's throat and he squeezed down on it as the man raised both ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... allusion to the name of Hanover was enough to stir an angry feeling in the minds of the larger number of the English people. Even the very men who most loyally supported the House of Brunswick winced and writhed under any allusion to the manner in which the interests of England were made subservient to the interests of Hanover. Pulteney therefore took every pains to chafe those sore places with remorseless ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... voracious cowardly rat on her unsuspecting chirping companion. The shrieks of the beloved captive, while being dragged away by the enemy, excited every maternal feeling in the affectionate bosom of the feathered dame; she flew at the corner whence the alarm arose, seized the lurking enemy by the neck, writhed him about the room, put out one of his eyes in the engagement, and so fatigued her opponent by repeated attacks of spur and bill, that in the space of twelve minutes, during which time the conflict lasted, ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... alluring in her—she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look of hunted horror, her lips and cheeks were pale and drawn. She retreated in a staggering, ungraceful way; she writhed and squirmed, screaming in the strong clutch of the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... picture James Seaton writhed in his bed like some agonized creature under vivisection; but the woman, spurred by jealousy, and also by egotistical passion, had ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... so; the duchess felt for her young cousin an affection quite maternal. But the young duke was so handsome, he seemed so happy at the gracious reception of his young cousin, that Florestan was exasperated by jealousy, or rather by pride; his heart writhed under the cruel stings of envy, inspired by Conrad de Montbrison, who, rich and charming, entered so splendidly this life of pleasures, which he ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Livingstone. His terror had gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... upon a new species of existence-that of an approved man of letters ; for it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries' hall, writhed by darting stitches and burning with fiery fever, that he felt the full force of that sublunary equipoise that seems evermore to hang suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is ripening to burst ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Colonel Ward stood before him and writhed his gaunt form and twisted his blue lips and waggled his bony jaws. But not a sound could he utter. Then he whirled and signalled a trolley-car and climbed on board. With intense satisfaction the Cap'n noted that the car was ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... towards the landing-place, where the handkerchief lay; but, alas! before she reached the handkerchief, she fell, rolling down a whole flight of stairs, and when her fall was at last stopped by the landing-place, she did not cry out; she writhed, as if she was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... one else has so good a right. We were to be married only a few hours hence. Then she whom I've loved from childhood would make my home a heaves on earth. And yet—and yet— " Even in the darkness he buried his face in his hands, shuddered, moaned, writhed, and grated his teeth in the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... snatched from the back of her victim, held high in the air so her feet did not touch the ground, and shaken to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat. She twisted and turned and writhed and squirmed to free herself, thinking this must be the big brother punishing her for the drubbing she had given hapless Joe, and expecting any instant to feel the lash of his heavy herder's whip. But no whip struck her, and with ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... after they were quite done with me, but something of this left me when finally I sat leaning back against the wagon body and looked about me. There were straight, motionless figures lying under the blankets in the shade, and under other blankets were men who writhed and moaned. Belknap passed about the place, graver and apparently years older than at the beginning of this, his first experience in the field. He put out burial parties at once. A few of the Sioux, including the one on whom Andrew Jackson McGovern ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... I writhed. 'Twas a fancy so strange the maid had: but was yet so true and reverent and usefully efficient—so high in leading to her who led us with her into pure paths—that I must smile and adore her for it. 'Twas to no purpose, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... in a toss of mist over the face of the distant upper crags. Then, a grinding tore the earth; something white glistening viscous crumpled—coiled with untellable furious speed, shaggy and formless, out from the upper peaks—coiled and writhed out like a giant python in titanic torture. For an instant, for less than the fraction of an instant, it poised and coiled and looped as a great white snake in and out among the far upper meadows: then ruptured ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... his life and happiness for Ireland, was strong in him still. He felt himself affected profoundly by the influences which surrounded him, but he had not ceased to believe that the idea of self-sacrificing labour was for him a high vocation. He writhed, his limbs twisting involuntarily, when these thoughts beset him, and often he was surprised to discover that he was actually ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... river into a riband of polished steel; or, again, when the cupola of St. Paul's and the Clock Tower at Westminster pierced upwards through a level of fog, as though hung in the mid-air; or when mists, shredded by a south wind, swirled and writhed about the rooftops until the city itself seemed to take fantastic shapes and melt to a substance no more solid than the ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling; but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged, and strained, and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength—for God that day was with me—I had him helpless in two minutes, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of his face, quizzical, astonished, full of piqued interest. She struggled with the mortification of a petted child, suddenly confronted by a stranger who finds its caprices only ridiculous and displeasing. Under the new sting of humiliation she writhed, burning to retaliate and make him see the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... thin, straight stream, that, striking upon the face of the Bee, clung about her head enveloping it as though with a strange blue veil. Then of a sudden she stretched out her hands, and let fall the two locks of hair upon the burning herbs, where they writhed themselves to ashes like things alive. Next she opened her mouth, and began to draw the fumes of the hair and herbs into her lungs in great gulps; while the snake, feeling the influence of the medicine, hissed and, uncoiling itself from about her neck, crept upwards and took refuge among the black ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... end in a great square full of people. In the middle there was a stage erected, from which some one was delivering an oration or address of some sort. He stood beside a long table, upon which lay something which I could not clearly distinguish, except that it seemed alive, and moved, or rather writhed with convulsive twitchings, as if trying to get free of the bonds which confined it. Round the stage in front were a number of seats occupied by listeners, many of whom were women, whose interest ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... belated wayfarers crossed the ford, the reflection of the lights dancing on the shallow waters. The fascination of it, this his first sight of Life, gripped him, not to be denied. He sprang to the ledge of the window, writhed himself through, and dropped to the ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... as he was out of the room she went to a corner and there sat and writhed under an emotion in which hurt pride and vexation mingled with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the corner of the studio gathered arms and legs into a series of acute angles, and writhed; a lady ornamented with cheek-bones well sketched in, covered her eyes with one hand as though locked in jiu-jitsu ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... of the whiplash curled round the legs of the trader, and he writhed. They caught his short sword and twitched it from his hand, to send it flying among the gathering crowd, and then the man lay down and howled for mercy. But the thralls of the crowd were only too pleased with the sport, and as I and Werbode did not interfere, to do so ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... forward, and the storm of shouts and yells arose again. One of the candidates was dressed in pink, with a shiny black belt round her waist, a huge pink bow in her fluffy, light hair, and white stockings very visible. When the Master shouted her name, she cocked her head on one side, giggled, and writhed her shoulders. Cries of "Saucy!" "Mabel!" "Ain't I a nice little girl?" and "There's a little bit of all right!" saluted her, and the approval was beyond question. He pointed to the other, and a rage of execration burst forth, "O Ginger!" "Ain't she got a cheek?" "Lock ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... depths, saying ... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner ... saying, 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... and whistled, the waves dashed furiously against the shore, the trees bent and writhed beneath the blast, and my fear was that some of those surrounding the hut might be uprooted and crush in the roof. I went frequently to the door, in the hopes of discovering a rent in the clouds which might enable me to hold ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... course, the doctor felt nothing of the prickling, nerve-shaking pain that gripped every one of those barefoot men. They leaped and darted here and there, bluish sparks flashing wherever they touched the iron; or they fell after a step or two and writhed on the floor, shrieking and cursing with the exquisite torture of that awful current. Ernol alone kept from shouting; he stood and took it, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... the air, though near blind with the anguish of that iron grip, the little victim writhed upward and bit furiously at his enemy's leg. His jaws got nothing but a bunch of fluffy feathers, which came away and floated down the moonlight air. Then the life sank out of his brain, and he hung limply; and the broad wings bore him inland over the dyke-top—straight ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to whimper; Cuddie writhed himself this way and that way, the very picture of indecision. At length he broke out, "Weel, woman, canna ye tell us what we suld do, without a' this din ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs. Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road that writhed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way about rocky hummocks, and curved in "whip-lashes" up precipitous hillsides. There was not a break in the forest that ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... us and we had entered on that great sea that stretched northward to the Arctic barrens. Misty and wet was the wind, and cold with the kiss of many icebergs. Under a grey sky, glooming to purple, the gelid water writhed nakedly. Spectral islands elbowed each other, to peer at us as we flitted past. Still more wraithlike the mainland, fringed to the sea foam with saturnine pine, faded away into fastnesses of impregnable desolation. There was ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... rags rose slowly and fired a carbine aimlessly. Twenty bullets rolled and tumbled it along the ground, and again the smoke drifted off the mount. This time the air grew clear. Buffalo-robes lay all about, blood spotted everywhere. The dead bodies of thirty-two Cheyennes lay, writhed and twisted, on the packed snow, and among them many women and children, cut and furrowed with lead. In a corner was a pile of wounded squaws, half covered with dirt swept over them by the storm of bullets. One broken creature ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... shoulder and held her at arm's-length. She writhed and struggled and cursed. Her oaths might have been learned in the gutter. She kicked at him and strove to reach him with her nails, clawing the air. She looked like a witch ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... I wept till every atom of my body writhed with agonized emotion. I was aroused by Mrs M'Swat hammering at ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a convulsive start, as if I had thrust a knife into him, writhed himself round on his seat, glared fiercely into my eyes, but answered ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with a triple row of long, fang-like teeth, tilted gullet-ward at a sharp angle, and the breathing holes were elevated to form warty excrudescences near the end of the snoutish upper jaw. Long colorless tentacles fringed the horrible mouth: barbels that writhed incessantly, as though they sought food for the rapacious jaws they guarded. From a point slightly above and to the rear of the tiny, ruby eyes, two slim and graceful antennae, iridescent and incongruously beautiful, rose twice the height of a man. Like the antennae of a butterfly, they were surmounted ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... sharp eye on Jefferson, but for the sake of the country he supported him when he could do so consistently with his principles. More than once the President found in him an invaluable ally; and as often, perhaps, he writhed as on a hot gridiron. Hamilton came forth in the pamphlet upon extreme occasions only, but he was still the first political philosopher and writer of his time, and the Federalists would have demanded his pen upon these ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... like a receding wave. A loud scream caused the prince to look round suddenly, and when he did he saw no sign of king or queen, or princess, or lords or ladies, but only big green serpents, with red eyes and tongues, that hissed out fire and poison as they writhed in a hundred ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... a heavy blow from his fist. At the third blow the blood poured out of the mouth of the carpenter, who writhed under the pressure of his adversary's knee like a buffalo stifled by a boa-constrictor; he succeeded at last in freeing one hand, which he thrust ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... had wound around him from head to tail. The droll tableau and the supreme pride on Felipa's countenance overcame me, and I laughed aloud. A sudden cloud of rage and disappointment came over the poor child's face: she threw her cap on the floor and stamped on it; she tore off her necklace and writhed herself out of her big flowered gown, and running to Drollo, nearly strangled him in her fierce efforts to drag off his shell chains. Then, a half-dressed, wild little phantom, she seized me by the skirts and dragged me toward the looking-glass. "You are not pretty either," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... seemed to feel Medusa's dream, and to be made more restless by it. They twined themselves into tumultuous knots, writhed fiercely, and uplifted a hundred hissing heads, without ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Thaddeus writhed, being not a little wearied by the long conversation in which he could not take part. But when they began to glorify the forests of foreign lands, and to enumerate in turn every variety of their trees—oranges, cypresses, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... through the desert thus it was, 25 As I came through the desert: Lo you, there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell 30 For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No hope could have ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... older members winced and writhed. Peyton Randolph cursed him under his breath. This audacious youth in buckskin shirt and leather breeches was assuming the leadership of the House. His audacity was unprecedented! Here are Numbers Five, Six and Seven of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... combustion. The shrieks of the poor disabled wretches, stretched on the sails, to which the fire had communicated, and who were now lying in a molten sea of flame like that described in Pandemonium by Milton—the yells of the Irish inside of the hut, vainly attempting to regain the door, as they writhed in their flaming apparel, which, like the shirt of Nessus, ate into their flesh—the burning thatch which had been precipitated in the air, and now descended in fiery flakes upon the parties outside, who stood aghast at the dreadful and unexpected catastrophe,—the volumes ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Popova writhed in spirit when he was called "Christian," but he covered his wrath and remained in the nobleman's service and waited for his revenge. And now he was sacrificing the innocent Kalora in order to punish the father. He said to himself: "If she ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... neat buildings, each resting at the top of its own hundred-yard deep elevator shaft. A pulsing, throbbing city, dedicated to the long slow struggle to get into space and stay there. The service crew eyed them with studied indifference, as they writhed out of the small hatch and stepped to the ground. They drew a helijet at operations, and headed immediately ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... choked scream Julio dropped, writhed, doubled up. Then he lay still. Jose, his face ghastly, stared around him. His mouth stretched ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... the same manner as the gallant fellow himself had done. He struck his bayonet into his head; the tiger rose at him—he fired; and this time the ball took effect, and in the head. The animal staggered backward, and we all poured in our fire. He still kicked and writhed; when the gentlemen with the hog-spears advanced, and fixed him, while the natives finished him, by beating him on the head with hedge-stakes. The brave artillery-man was, after all, but slightly hurt: he claimed the skin, which ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... instant, the haughty lip of the woman writhed like a serpent in its venom, struggling to keep back the bitter words that burned upon them. Then her face settled into comparative calm again, and she said, in a tone of gentle reproach, "But you ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... noticeably wasted, there were muscles of his face that twitched continuously; his hands, it seemed to her, writhed like worms. He said nothing, but stared at her with a fixed glittering vision; all his one time worship—it had been so much—was devoured in the hatred born in the Ammidon library. Frozen with apprehension she sat without movement; her face, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... on the mat before thy door, by day, by night, on constant guard." The merchant, having thus his doubts and fears removed, resumed his meal with freshened appetite, but gave nought to the poor nomad, and, having finished, closed his wallet. The Bedouin, seeing his stinginess, writhed with the pangs of hunger. Presently a gazelle passed rapidly by them, at which he sighed heavily, and the merchant inquiring the cause of his sorrow, he said: "The cause is this—had not thy dog died ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... for twelve long years had writhed under the biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the "whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... she spoke, her features writhed into a sort of sneering laugh, which made them seem even more hideous than their habitual frown. She locked the door behind her, and Rebecca might hear her curse every step for its steepness, as slowly and with ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... on his heart and flouted his honor; and while he writhed with grief he writhed also with rage. He could not understand it; so different from what she had seemed; so unworthy of what he had believed her to be! Well, her head had been turned by riches; it was just like a ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... there came a picture of a burning pit of fire in which great flames leaped about the heads of the people who writhed in the pit. "Art Sherman would be there," thought Sam, materialising the picture he saw; "nothing can save him; he keeps ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... had befallen the night? And what ailed the chestnut-tree? It writhed and groaned, while the wind roared in the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... He writhed himself forward in a passion of expectant desire, hearing his muscles crack in the effort. Once more he relaxed himself; and the swift play of wordless acts began which he knew to be the very heart ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... was open, and they passed into its dim- lit interior, with high carved pews, and rich, old, stained glass. Huge black oak beams curved over their heads, and dim inscriptions of mediaeval Latin curled and writhed upon the walls. A single step seemed to have taken them from the atmosphere of the nineteenth to that ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Jim writhed and twisted in his weakening bonds. There was a soft snapping as several now thoroughly dried sections of the brown substance cracked loose. The termite team whirled around; the ruler stared, as though in sudden realization ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... and worked in a hell such as this! The watch off duty, naked to the skin, groaned and writhed in their bunks. It was no longer possible to think of sleep. And when one of the men fell into a dull stupor, then he would be aroused by the sweat which ran incessantly over his forehead and into his eyes, and ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... malicious jealousy of the New York clubman deepened to a steady hatred. A fellow of ill-controlled temper, his thin-skinned vanity writhed at the condition which confronted him. He was engaged to a girl who preferred another and a better man, one against whom he had an unalterable grudge. He recognized in the Westerner an eager energy, a clean-cut resilience, and an abounding vitality he would have given a great deal to possess. His ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... the drops as they fell, and never leaving her post except when her vessel was full, and she was obliged to empty it. Only during her short absences could the drops of venom fall upon Loki's face, and then they caused such intense pain that he writhed with anguish, his efforts to get free shaking the earth and producing the earthquakes which so ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Sir William winced and writhed helplessly under Rendel's words. The intolerable discomfort and misery that he felt as the moment of discovery drew near had given place gradually to a furious resentment at what he was being made to endure at the hands of one who ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... hopeless. The drowsy opiate of surrender began to spread its peace through his soul. His torment was the remorse of proving a traitor to his dead uncle's glory. The feather-dustery that had been a monument was about to topple into the weeds. Eddie writhed at that and at his feeling of disloyalty to the employees, who would be turned out wageless in a small town that was staggering under the burden of ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... into town before lunch, and later Anne sat alone on the stone bench in her grove of birches. They were serene and still in the gold of the afternoon. Yet last night they had writhed in the storm. She, too, had been swept by a storm.... She missed her playmate—but she had a sense of relief in the absence ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... had wanted all at the same time to crawl up out of the pool but had got entangled in one another and been held fast. Or it was like a mass of blackened skeletons of drowned giants which the pool wanted to throw up on the land. Arms and legs writhed about one another, the long fingers dug deep into the very cliff to get a hold, the mighty ribs formed arches, which held up primeval trees. It had happened, however, that the iron arms, the steel-like fingers with which ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... every side of us and empty of all life. Then in one spot it bubbled and became like the pot of ointment that the Bible speaks of. From that wide-ringed trouble the Thing came up—a gray and red Thing with a neck—a Thing that bellowed and writhed in pain. Frithiof drew in his breath and held it till the red letters of the ship's name, woven across his jersey, straggled and opened out as though they had been type badly set. Then he said with a little cluck in his throat, 'Ah me! It is blind. Hur illa! That thing is blind,' and a murmur ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... making a public show of him, displaying him to every man present as a crawling, contemptible thing that not one of them would have owned as friend. It was a ghastly chastisement, made deadly by the hatred that backed it. Kieff writhed this way and that, but he never escaped the swinging blows. They followed him mercilessly,—all the more mercilessly for his struggles. His coat tore out at the seams and was ripped to rags. And still Burke thrashed him, ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell |
