"Wry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a moment, his head cocked in thought. Then, he picked up the last page and looked at it again. Finally, he laid the sheet aside. He looked at his friend with a wry smile, then picked up his ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... might complete your studies. Now, now, don't thank me! It was purely impersonal. You seemed bright. I have often thought we gentle people of the South ought to do more to encourage our black folk—not—not as social equals—" Here the old gentleman made a wry mouth as ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... only a few hundreds. That in itself would signify nothing—and if I must take help from somebody I would rather take it from Celia Madden than anybody else I know—but this is the point, Mr. Thorpe. I do not eat the bread of dependence gracefully. I pull wry faces over it, and I don't try very much to disguise them. That is my fault. Yes—oh yes, I know it is a fault—but I am as I am. And if Miss Madden doesn't mind—why"—she concluded with a mirthless, uncertain laugh—"why on earth ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the Corporal, with a wry face; "Well, Sir, if I had had the dressing of you—been half way to Yorkshire by this. Man's a worm; and when a doctor gets un on his hook, he is sure to angle for the devil ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for a moment as they glimmer in the sun. Then with sudden laugh seizes the Indian maiden nearest her, and by gesture summons the other Indian maidens. One of the very old squaws with a half-wry, half-kindly smile begins a swift tapping on the drum that has in it the rhythm of dance music. The Indian children withdraw to the doors of the teepees, and Pocahontas and the Indian maidens dance. The old medicine-man adds his flute-notes to ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... his excellence Will serve, but no one ever will consider For what his worst defect might serve; and yet Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder In search of a distorted ash?—I find 100 The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man Arriving at the palace on my errand! No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up— White satin here, to set off my black hair; 105 In ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... in each man's soul not to let his stomach get the better of his head and heart. At first they joked and laughed about their hunger and the scarcity. By-and-by it became too serious, the jest was wry-faced and rang false. They had, in the beginning, each helped himself from common dishes set in the middle of the rough plank table. Later, each found how, without meaning to—hating himself for it—he watched food on its way to others' plates with an evil eye. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... be disobeyed. It is the duty of this Kyu[u]bei to see to its performance." He had O'Naka more in mind than the master of Tamiya. O'Mino might yet be the goose to lay golden eggs. A goose of such plumage! Kyu[u]bei made a wry face in the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... poor Pauline—especially if she's going to sup at the Golden Lion [makes a wry face]. I shall ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... motorbuses, like demons of violence, smashing their way through the traffic. Or he takes us to some South American forest, where the vampire bats suck the blood of horses during the night. Or he introduces us to a Spanish hidalgo, "tall, wry-necked, and awkwardly built, with a nose like a lamprey and feet like coracles." (For there is the same note of violence, of exaggeration, in his treatment of persons as of places.) Even in Scotland, he takes us by preference to ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... sip and made a wry face, but he hardly ever knew what he was eating, and pushing the cup back, forgot all about it. He was more interested in Ruth's account of the meeting, and asked many questions about ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... a wry face. He wanted the Seals. It was a long-cherished desire. A teacher of law under the Empire, he gave, in cafes, lessons that were appreciated. He had the sense of chicanery. Having begun his political fortune ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... relative to Jack Easy's earliest days; he sucked and threw up his milk, while the nurse blessed it for a pretty dear, slept, and sucked again. He crowed in the morning like a cock, screamed when he was washed, stared at the candle, and made wry faces with the wind. Six months passed in these innocent amusements, and then he was put into shorts. But I ought here to have remarked, that Mrs Easy did not find herself equal to nursing her own infant, and it was necessary to look ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's nature without a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... apologize," he said with a wry smile of discomfiture. "I'll make things even up a bit when I get an apology from Gaskell. I shrewdly suspect that that estimable gentleman is going to eat humble pie, of my baking, from his wife's recipe. And his ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... new face of things upon the demolition of that which went before. Smoothly and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half assented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently drumming upon her elbow with the fingers of her ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... replied his companion with a wry smile, as he limped towards the scoring board. "You ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... them?" making a wry face. "Give me another at once. We must make way with them as fast as possible!" and Molly passed him the plate, with a ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... gentleman will honour me with his company," said I. Hereupon the down-at-heels gentleman shook his head, scowled into his tankard, sighed, and, meeting my eye, broke into a wry smile. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... communicate in German to an American girl in a French railway compartment in wartime. But explain why some people want to play with trip- hammers and loaded guns. We know they do. And so, though aware that there were spy-hunting listeners all around, a mad desire to utter the forbidden tongue obsessed me. Wry faces from Marie, emphasized by repeated pinches at each threatened outbreak, brought me back to my senses ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... with a wry grin. "Whew—that was a narrow squeak! I must say their ray is a gentlemenly sort of thing. It either kills you, or doesn't injure you at ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... A wry smile wrinkled the corners of Dyck's mouth. "You mean his wife?" he asked with irony. "Wife—no!" retorted the old man. "Damn it, no! He wasn't the man to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... aroused me from this by rising to his feet. "Now then," he said, briskly, "if you want to go to Laguerre you can come with me. I've got to see him to explain why his guns haven't arrived, and I'll take you with me." He made a wry face and laughed. "A nice welcome he'll give me," he said. I jumped to my feet. "There's my trunk," I said; "it's ready, and so am I. When ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... equivocal position. She was grateful to him, but even his chivalry hurt. She watched him under her thick lashes as he went back to the Sheik and sat down beside him, refusing his host's proffered cigarettes with a wry face of disgust and a laughing reference to a "perverted palate," as he searched for his own. The hatred she had been prepared to give him had died away during dinner—only the jealousy remained, and even that had ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... your Christmas party, do not hesitate to put us off, I beg. I shall understand you, and say nothing to my rather peculiar but most worthy aunt, waiting a more convenient season." The desired invitation was immediately dispatched,—with some wry faces on the part of the head of the house who, however, would not oppose ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... eyes, to ward off the drenching rain. "Nothin' would come amiss to me now, in the way of prog. I could digest a bit of the shark that swallowed Jonah, or pick a rib of the old prophet himself, without making a wry face." ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... upon the younger man with intolerable weight, his heavily-shouldered figure seems to swell and fill the room. Julius is clearly conscious of hating his saviour, and the consciousness is acid on his palate as he asks, with a wry smile: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... together, and live a life of penitence; and when I die, leave it all to charitable uses—I will, by my soul—every doit of it to charity—but this once, lifting up her rolling eyes, and folded hands, (with a wry-mouthed earnestness, in which every muscle and feature of her face bore its part,) this one time—good God of Heaven and earth, but this once! this once! repeating those words five or six times, spare thy poor creature, and every hour of my life shall be passed ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... nothing but what is Natural, we can't expect that ever he will gratifie us with another Tragedy. Durfey and Motteux wou'd write no more Farces; Guildon and Tom. Brown, &c. wou'd be the Saints with wry Mouthes and scrue'd Faces: Mr. Guildon indeed has Philosophy enough to support himself under such a Calamity, and knows a Method to prevent starving; for who can think that he who writ Blunt's Life can be at a ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... raw, Jimmie," Carruthers answered, with a wry grimace. "He knew me, all right, confound him! He favoured me with several sarcastic notes—I'll show 'em to you some day—explaining how I'd fallen down and how I could have got him if I'd done something else." Carruthers' fist came suddenly down on the table. "And I would have got him, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... and spices. It did wonders with the first two or three cases; but he found the success of the remedy so increased the frequency of the complaint, that he was compelled to give up his medical treatment; for as long as he had the Specific, his men were constantly making wry faces ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... himself liberally, started in hungrily. Then he stopped and looked around. They were watching him, interestedly. Mr. Bangs made a wry face and rinsed his mouth out with a ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... was crooked & turnd outward, Her mouth stood foule a-wry; A worse formed lady than shee was, Neuer man saw ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... to my namesake, I am glad to hear so good an account of him. Now, cousin, I really take an interest in the lad, and beg you will not make any wry faces over an honest expression of my opinion. If you want the boy to make a first-rate merchant, and SUCCEED, don't send him to me at present. Of course, I will receive him, if you insist upon it. But, in my opinion, it will only spoil him. I tell you frankly, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... himself up to love and labor with a Celtic intensity that Garry found appalling. He planned endlessly to one purpose: Joan's happiness, Joan's pleasure, Joan's future with him. The memory of the ragged money laid aside for Don he dismissed with a wry smile, gritting his teeth. What mattered in the face of the splendid fact that he was so joyously, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... twinge of wry reminder recalled that she had never been able exactly to count upon him it did not dim his mood. He ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... murmured something intended for Hebrew during the operation, and was beginning to mutter the devout little sentence which precedes the eating of bread when Rachel, who as a female was less driven to the lavatory ceremony, and had thus got ahead of him, paused in her ravenous mastication and made a wry face. Solomon took a huge bite at his crust, then he uttered an inarticulate "pooh," and spat out ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... strike the same hour, yet surely of a different epoch. They travel by steam conveyance, yet with such a baggage of old Asiatic thoughts and superstitions as might check the locomotive in its course. Whatever is thought within the circuit of the Great Wall; what the wry-eyed, spectacled schoolmaster teaches in the hamlets round Pekin; religions so old that our language looks a halfling boy alongside; philosophy so wise that our best philosophers find things therein to wonder at; all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... one of the apple-trees and began to eat an apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants; so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of her bottle, and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power. More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had thoughts of withdrawing altogether from the game. One thing alone, he told Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him. "If I could only," he wrote, "face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I resigned, I would do ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... that I came from the school at Fontainbleau, he made a wry face, and said, 'My lieutenant died yesterday.'—I understood that he meant to say, 'You are to replace him, and you are not able.' A sharp word rose to my lips, but I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... o'er, by its inspiring bounties, Can qualify himself in several counties. What I have promised, thou may'st rest assured Shall faithfully and gladly be procured. Nay, I'm already better than my word, New plates and knives adorn the jovial board: And, lest you at their sight shouldst make wry faces The girl has scour'd the pots, and wash'd the glasses Ta'en care so excellently well to clean 'em, That thou may'st see thine own dear picture in 'em. Moreover, due provision has been made, That conversation may not be betray'd; I have no company but what is proper ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... they succeeded in soothing him and making him sit down to the table. He was a long time making up his mind what to drink, and pulling a wry face drank a wine-glass of some green liqueur; then he drew a bit of pie towards him, and sulkily picked out of the inside an egg with onion on it. At the first mouthful it seemed to him that there was no salt in it. He sprinkled salt on it ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... kulto. worth : ind'o, -eco, valoro. wound : vundi. wrap : faldi, envolvi. wreath : girlando. wreck, (ship-) : sxippereo; periigi. wren : regolo. wrestle : lukti. wretched : mizer(eg)a. wring : tordi. wrinkle : sulketo, sulkigi. wrist : manradiko. wry ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... insisted upon his being in love with my faults. He wouldn't, or couldn't—I said wouldn't, he said couldn't. I had been used to see the men about me lick the dust at my feet, for it was gold dust. Percival made wry faces—Lord Delacour made none. I pointed him out to Percival as an example—it was an example he would not follow. I was provoked, and I married in hopes of provoking the man I loved. The worst of it was, I did not provoke him as much as I expected. Six months afterwards I heard of his marriage ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... a wry face. "No, she isn't grateful. People never are grateful for that sort of thing. And she doesn't even know she's different! I've had to train her without her own knowledge! But she's chameleon-like, in some ways, and she picks up a lot ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... chapel and his two classes the next morning, one at nine and the other at ten o'clock; in fact, it was nearly eleven when he awoke. His head was splitting with pain, his tongue was furry, and his mouth tasted like bilge-water. He made wry faces, passed his thick tongue around his dry mouth—oh, so damnably dry!—and pressed the palms of his hands to his pounding temples. He craved a drink of cold water, but he was afraid to get out of bed. He felt ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Miss Borria. That is to say, I have just given myself away to the Manila navy station, not to speak of the commander of a gunboat, not far from us, off the coast of Mindanao. It seems"—he made a wry face—"Peter Moore is not popular with the authorities for deserting ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... practical jokes upon the commodore, with whom he knew it was dangerous to tamper in any other way. Being without the sphere of his vision, he securely pilfered his tobacco, drank his rumbo, made wry faces, and, to use the vulgar phrase, cocked his eye at him, to the no small entertainment of the spectators, Mr. Pickle himself not excepted, who gave evident tokens of uncommon satisfaction at the dexterity of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... He pulled a wry face at himself in the opposite mirror and shrugged his shoulders. Down the 'phone he said with excessive amiability, "Nothing. I'm top-hole. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... was an upper one, lighted and aired by a brass-framed port- hole. Here, when his meal was at an end, he lay, his pipe in his mouth, his hands behind his head, smoking with slow relish, with his wry old face upturned, and the leathery, muscular forearms showing below the rolled shirt-sleeves. His years had ground him to an edge; he had an effect, as he lay, of fineness, of subtlety, of keen and fastidious temper. Forty ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... have to give up sailing next week," he said, as pleased as Punch but contriving to project a wry face. "I can't go away and leave my first bona-fide patient until she is entirely out ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... a wry face. "Well, it's a compliment if ever there was one—an infernally handsome compliment. Your man, I suppose, can look after himself?" But before he could reply I added, "No; he shall go with me: for if you do happen ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... sorted their heaps of rubbish and ore very dexterously; excepting one unlucky little chap, who, from the beginning, had his head, somehow or other, turned the wrong way upon his shoulders; and I could never manage, all the night, to set it right again: it was in vain I flattered myself that his wry neck would escape observation; for, as he was one of the wheelbarrow boys, he was a conspicuous figure in the piece; and, whenever he appeared, wheeling or emptying his barrow, I to my mortification heard ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... letters, and quickly take them from their envelopes. Anything eatable disappeared into his mouth immediately. Once he abstracted a small bottle of turpentine from the pocket of our medical officer. He drew the cork, held it first to one nostril, then to the other, made a wry face, recorked it, and returned it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a little sour," said Budge, with a wry face. "Perhaps some other bunch is better. I think we'd better try each one, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Taking a bit of cracker from my haversack, I moistened it, and rolled it into a pellet between my finger and thumb; then, gently swaying the bushes, I induced the bantlings to open their mouths, when I dropped the morsel into one of the tiny throats. You ought to have seen the wry face baby made as it gulped down the new kind of food, which had such an odd taste. It was plain that the callow nestling was able to distinguish this morsel from the palatable diet it had been accustomed to. Possibly it suffered from a temporary ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... cursed More than enough, when thou didst fashion me To be a type of ugliness,—a thing By whose comparison all Rimini Holds itself beautiful? Lo! here I stand, A gnarled, blighted trunk! There's not a knave So spindle-shanked, so wry-faced, so infirm, Who looks at me, and smiles not on himself. And I have friends to pity me—great Heaven! One has a favourite leg that he bewails,— Another sees my hip with doleful plaints,— A third is sorry o'er my huge swart arms,— A fourth aspires to mount my very hump, And thence ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... sent along a pair of spaniels to act as chaperons—it would have taken an army to guard Mary alone—and to tell you the truth our old chaperons needed watching more than any of us. It was scandalous. Each of them had a touch of gout, and when they made wry faces it was a standing inquiry among us whether they were leering at each other or felt a twinge—whether it was their feet or ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... down in a chair while the boy hurried off to locate the Medic. The Trader's hand went to the butt of his concealed blaster. It was a job he had to do—one he had volunteered for—and there was no backing out. But his mouth had a wry twist as he drew out the blaster and made ready to point it at the inner door. Or—his mind leaped to another idea—could he get the Medic safely out of the village? A story about another man badly injured—perhaps pinned in the wreckage of an escape boat—He could try it. ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... that to the factory inspectors," said Mr. Clarke, with a wry smile. "Between the poor mothers who are constantly trying to get the children into the factory, and the inspectors who are trying to keep them out, I have ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... After the pot had boiled a while he called the children to come to supper with him. The children let him taste first. He fished a hard stick out of the pot and bit into it. "This is not the monkey's leg. It is just a dry stick," he said, as he made a wry face. Then he fished the empty cocoanut shell out of the pot. "That is not the monkey's head," he said as he tasted it, "That is just an empty cocoanut shell." He couldn't find a single trace of the monkey in that monkey stew. He never wished to make ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... for you to play with. These are medicines." Here Lucy made a wry face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he. They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Polly made a wry face for a moment. Putting her hand into her pocket, she pulled out Spilman's and Madame Clarice's ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... there's where it is. Make a wry path through your fields, and still you'll walk in it! I never ought to ha' got in the habit of lending you that key. What's the good of a key if a man can never keep it in his pocket? When I lived up at Mr. Daniel Mortimer's, the children never ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... may never have it. 'Tis an infernal disease," says my lord, "and its twinges are diabolical. Ah!" and he made a dreadful wry face, as if he just ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a bell, That all the wood about me rong. Alone in longing thus as I lay Underneath a seemly tree, 10 Saw I where a lady gay Came riding over a longe lea. If I should sit to Doomesday With my tongue to wrable and wry[4], Certainly that lady gay 15 Never be she described for me! Her palfrey was a dapple-gray,[5] Swilk[6] one ne saw I never none; As does the sun on summer's day, That fair lady herself she shone. 20 Her saddle it was of roelle-bone[7]; ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... meal and one part flour. The bakers were given the recipe gratis, with instructions to sell it (the bread, not the recipe) cheaply, namely, at three pence per loaf. Theoretically, the new loaf was to prove a palatable change; practically, the wry expression of countenance it evoked in the process of mastication demonstrated the contrary. The bread was light "khaki" in colour, and only in this respect was it fashionable;—not too fashionable, because "Boer meal" was its chief ingredient, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... me any unless both of 'em are mad," said Britt, with a wry face. "And, say, by the way, Saunders is ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... Pen, faithfully to the minute, did make her appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her first glass of vinegar with a wry face; but after it was swallowed she began to feel intensely ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... to emerge into the upper world. Having dusted the snow from his garments, and shaken himself like a Newfoundland dog, he made sundry wry faces, and gazed round him with the look of a man that did not know very well what ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... have a mortgage on your property for fourteen thousand pounds. Now, put in Val or I'll be speaking to my lawyer about it. Put in Val, or you will never warm your posteriors in a seat for this county, so long as I carry the key of it. In doing so, make no wry faces about it—you will only serve yourself and your property, and serve Val into the bargain. Val, to be sure, is as confounded a scoundrel as any of us, but then he is a staunch Protestant; and you ought not to be told at this time of day, that the greater the scoundrel ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Roger, not so bad as that—elderly. This will stagger you; but I assure you that until the other day I jogged along thinking of myself as on the whole still one of the juveniles.' He makes a wry face. 'I crossed the bridge, Roger, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Cai after a pause, pulling a wry face, "to do your master justice, he warned me 'twas a risk. There's naught to do but pay up un' look pleasant, I reckon. 'Twon't ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... man's tongue is—what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug, and repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what a fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry face, "Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean to hit him so hard—not half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old men started off ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... and our existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. We shall hardly be able to do this if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past or over our anxiety for the future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or uneasiness ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... are too sophisticated. Our very speech lacks the tang of outdoor life. Why should we not love Nature—the great mother, who is, I grant you, the necessity of various useful inventions, in her angry moods, but who, in her kindly moments—" He paused, with a wry face. "I beg your pardon," said he, "but I believe I've caught rheumatism ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... He made a wry face, as it occurred to him for the first time that the Reverend Wesley Elliot was ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... were not that the wry faces I make at physic would spoil my beauty, I'm almost in honor bound to send for something to take out of your shop, just by the way of ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces; But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear I have no mind ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... it," resumed Alec, making a wry face. "Aunt Susan is peculiar, and immensely wealthy, so that money needn't stand in the way of her doing anything she fancies. In some way or other it seems she heard about a queer place away up here in the woods. It ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... or sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, if there be pleasant deaths. So may be will finish the merry amours of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Mr. Poddle will do his best to oblige his admirers and the patrons of the house by dissolving the mortal tie about the hour of ten o'clock; but the management cannot guarantee that the exhibition will conclude before midnight.'" Mr. Poddle made a wry face—with yet a glint of humour about it. "'Positively,'" said he, "'the last appearance of this eminent freak. ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... were not a little astonished to see Joseph, the carpenter, who had so long disappeared from their midst, walk up the street with his wife and a handsome boy. It was a good thing that they had baggage with them. But Cousin Nathaniel made a very wry face, in which the smile of welcome struggled with the anxiety this unexpected arrival caused him. Cousin Nathaniel had taken possession of, and settled comfortably in the house, regarding himself as the heir. Now he must pack ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... that during their reign I had one visitor, a scurvy little wry-faced knave who sneaked in through the scullery window; but I think he had no connection with them or he would have entered by some more convenient route and have used a false key instead of a jimmy to open the safe. He was a wretched little creature and his ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!—foreign cabbage and beef!—foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the mistress. So the timid Dowsabel had decreed; and she had directed that the keys of the outer doors should be brought to her; and by day they were laid in her sight upon the chimney ledge, whilst at night they were placed beneath her pillow. Kate made a wry face, but did not otherwise protest. Time was passing quietly by, and there seemed little probability that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... directions to the bath attendant as to the treatment to be followed, which, however, is much the same with almost all patients. The newcomer finds a long table in the dining-hall, covered with bread and milk, between six and seven in the evening; and here he makes his evening meal with some wry faces. At half-past nine p. m. he is conducted to his chamber, a bare little apartment, very plainly furnished. The bed is a narrow little thing, with no curtains of any kind. One sleeps on a mattress, which feels pretty hard at first. The jolly and contented looks ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... protested. "They talk like we're lepers! Like if we ever come back we'll be carriers of some monstrous disease that will wipe out the human race! As a matter of fact, we're no more likely to catch an extra-terrestrial disease than to catch wry-neck from sick chickens!" ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... mankind. If you be not disposed to play, be either a sharper or a dupe, you cannot be admitted a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented to the lady than she offered me cards; and on my excusing myself, because I really could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from me, and said to another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any foreigner could have the impertinence to come to her house for no other purpose than to make an apology for not playing. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Luba's mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... A queer unexpected little smile flitted across his face—a wry smile, perhaps, but still a sign of humour. "You see, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... sunburn, as a result of being too near the disastrous encounter, and her little nose, turned up by nature in the outset, looked as if it were in danger of never again assuming its normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of one strong of stomach, and the four other little Poteets, ranging in ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a wry face. "Not long ago Edward would have me believe that the Dunlops, father and son, were endowed with uncommon mental power. Now it appears that the mother is similarly gifted. My poor child hasn't brains enough to keep her from riding an unsafe colt, but it is to be hoped she ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Barbara made a wry face, "and"—went on Kent, not heeding her, "each of these persons deny any further knowledge of the envelope, except they declare it was lying on the table when we all made a dash ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Reddy made a wry face when he saw that he must put his feet in a deep puddle of water. But he obeyed, ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... when the sun goes down? I think it's fun—at least I like it," she quickly substituted, when Frederick made a wry face at the remark. She spoke in sentences that all began with "I don't like," or "I despise," or "I do detest." In the face of that vast cosmic drama unfolding itself before her senses, she sat wholly unmoved and unsympathetic, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... talk," continued Lefever. "But the barns at Calabasas are burning—telephone wires from there cut, too—they had to pick up the Thief River trunk line to get a message through. Makes it bad, doesn't it?" Lefever pulled a wry face. "Duke, there's somebody yet around Calabasas that needs ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... and, in less time than it takes to tell it, down came Harry, fully twenty feet, on to the grass at his brother's and cousin's feet, where he remained, looking very white, frightened, and confused; when all at once he got up, and making a wry face, said— ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... Tuned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, 'As knops that stud some almug to the pith 'Pricked for gum, wry thence, and crinkled worse 'Than pursed eyelids of a river-horse 'Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... six small teeth between the tusks should be in an even row. The upper jaw cannot be too broad between the tusks. If the upper and lower jaws are level, and the muzzle is not turned upwards the dog is said to be "down-faced," whilst if the underjaw is not undershot he is said to be "froggy." A "wry-faced" dog is one having the lower jaw twisted, and this deformity so detracts from the general appearance of the dog as seriously to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Mr. Tenant made such an observation to his friend. The old merchant had borne his failure like a man, accepting it as a part of the 'fortune of war.' He neither whimpered nor made wry faces. So, when Dr. Chellis heard the words, 'Aleck, I am in trouble,' he knew they meant a great deal. He took his seat, not in his accustomed place, but on the sofa close to his friend, and turning on him an anxious, sympathizing look, he said, in a tone gentler than ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he said, making a wry mouth. "I detest all those artists, and all those writers, and all politicos who are thieves; and I would go even farther and higher, laying a curse on all idle lovers of women. You think perhaps I am a Royalist? No. If there was anybody in heaven or hell to pray to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... to meke, but i{n} mene e holde, For ellis a fole {o}u wyll{e} be tolde. 180 He {a}t to ry[gh]twysnes wylle enclyne, As holy wry[gh]t says vs wele and fyne, His sede schall{e} neu{er} go seche hor brede, Ne suffur of mo{n} no shames ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... her life; especially since the offer was accompanied with no drawbacks, except the one trifle, that Esther must marry. That was an undoubtedly bitter pill to swallow; but the colonel swallowed it, and hardly made a wry face. He would be glad to get away from Major Street himself. So he ate his oysters, as I said, grimly; was certainly courteous, if also cool; and Pitt even succeeded in making the conversation flow passably well, which is hard to do, when it rests upon one ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... smiled a wry smile. "I say," he said suddenly, with excessive haste in a voice that quivered and faltered, "I say, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, let's drop personalities once for all. Of course, you can despise me as much as you like if it amuses you—but we'd better dispense with personalities ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... now, I have enemies who are absolutely unscrupulous, and who would give much for a chance of murdering me if the thing could be done with impunity. Common sense prompts me to take it for granted that you are in some wry connected with the foes to ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... as we receive an order we release them the very same day. We do not keep them; we do not particularly value their presence," said the general, again with a waggish smile, which had the effect only of making his face wry. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... indeed, on this point Sir Anthony Carlisle relates the following anecdote:—"The most Northern races of mankind," says he, "were found to be unacquainted with the taste of sweets, and their infants made wry faces and sputtered out sugar with disgust, but the little urchins grinned with ecstasy at the sight of a bit of whale's blubber." In the same way the Arab is a date-eater and the Kaffir is a milk consumer. These facts being borne in mind, it will be desirable to ascertain ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... but having only put it to his mouth, made a wry face, and returned it, saying "Bad! bad! poor punch indeed!—not a drop of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... making a wry face; "but if he begins any of his 'aw—aw,' on the way down, I'll not answer for ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... such thing," said Murty, slightly confused. "'Tis the way I was most likely goin' afther a sick bullock, or it might be 'possum shootin'." He raised his cup and took a deep draught; then, with a wry face, gazed at its contents. "I dunno is this a new brand of tea you're afther usin', now? Sure, it ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... fugitive-slave law,—we gulped it; they must no longer be insulted with the Missouri Compromise,—we repealed it. Thus far the North had surely been faithful to the terms of the bond. We had paid our pound of flesh whenever it was asked for, and with fewer wry faces, inasmuch as Brother Ham underwent the incision. Not at all. We had only surrendered the principles of the Revolution; we must give up the theory also, if we would be ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... every goblin When they spied her peeping: 330 Came towards her hobbling, Flying, running, leaping, Puffing and blowing, Chuckling, clapping, crowing, Clucking and gobbling, Mopping and mowing, Full of airs and graces, Pulling wry faces, Demure grimaces, Cat-like and rat-like, 340 Ratel- and wombat-like, Snail-paced in a hurry, Parrot-voiced and whistler, Helter skelter, hurry skurry, Chattering like magpies, Fluttering like pigeons, Gliding like fishes,— Hugged her and kissed ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... the correspondent would say, caught nothing more from this paragraph than the words "Civil Guard," "tulisan," "San Diego," and "St. Francis," so, observing the wry face of the alferez and the bellicose gestures of the preacher, they deduced that the latter was reprehending him for not running down the tulisanes. San Diego and St. Francis would be commissioned in this duty and justly ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... staggering up and down the deck from sea-sickness. He will not take enough of the sailor's fare to do him any good, and the wry faces which he makes over a few mouthfuls are pitiful. Before he could get the sails shifted, I am sure the wind would change, and though the crew try to be polite, they can't help laughing to see what an awkward hand he is at doing any thing. There goes the "Heave ho!" ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... is like pulque; one makes wry faces at it at first, and then begins to like it. One thing we soon discovered; which was, that the bulls, if so inclined, could leap upon our platform, as they occasionally sprang over a wall twice as high. There was ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... thought, "Forty-two shillings a week? Yes, that will suit me perfectly. And I'll begin now by paying my first month's rent in advance. Now, four times forty-two shillings is"—he jerked his head back and stared at his new landlady; for the first time he smiled, a queer, wry smile—"why, just eight pounds eight ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... pantry any more," said Phil, with a wry face. "Since Dave and I did the trick some time ago they keep the ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... time neither of the Bruces ventured even to make a wry face at her in school; but their behaviour to her at home was only so much ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... they began mocking me with offered handfuls of gold and jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and performing the most antic homage, as if they thought I expected reverence, and meant to humour me like a maniac. But ever, as soon as one cast his eyes on the shadow behind me, he made a wry face, partly of pity, partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, as if he had been caught doing something inhuman; then, throwing down his handful of gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in peace, and made signs ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... her, and bless her; here goes—ugh!" and his gratitude ended in a wry face; for the beer was muddy, and had a strange, medicinal ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... that," he said with a wry smile. "I have nobody to speak for me but myself. Now, if you go away with me everybody will say: 'Ambrose Doane stole Watusk's wife away from him. Ambrose Doane is a bad man.' And then they will not believe ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... ground, thrust through the heart. The sword fell from his grip. He opened his eyes wide, as if in utter astonishment. Once he raised his head for a moment, while his lips were fixed in a wry smile. Then the head fell back again, his nostrils dilated, there was a slight rattling in his ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... worst beer, bar none, I've ever had. I can taste it now." He made a wry face. Then he cocked his head on one side. "I suppose you're wondering who I ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke |
