"Twist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up the spirits of the queen, though her frequent potions of pombe had wellnigh done enough, I admired her neck-ring, composed of copper wire, with a running inlaid twist of iron, and asked her why she wore such a wreath of vine-leaves, as I had often seen on some of the Wakungu. On this she produced a number of rings similar to the one she wore, and taking off her own, placed it round my neck. Then, pointing to her ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... your chance!—Listen: I am not a man whose mind you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am talking the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... being thrown into Chancery. Dudley alleges that the other partners "cunningly drew him into a bond," and "did unjustly enter staple actions in Bristol of great value against him, because he was of the king's party;" but it would appear as if there had been some twist or infirmity of temper in Dudley himself, which prevented him from working harmoniously with such persons as he became associated ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and Amherst pheasants during their courtship not only expand and raise their splendid frills, but twist them, as I have myself seen, obliquely towards the female on whichever side she may be standing, obviously in order that a large surface may be displayed before her. (89. Mr. T.W. Wood has given ('The Student,' ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... castle, making a rapid survey. The night was clear and cold, the moon had not yet risen, and the darkness was sufficient to favour them. He selected a window for the attempt. Then, reckless of treasures, he cut down some of the old tapestries which lined the chambers, and slit off enough to twist into a rope. This would bring them to the level of the water, now thinly covered ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... Accordingly, the new strategy was to put the reform process on hold in 1990-92 by recentralizing economic authority and to placate the rank-and-file through sharp increases in consumer goods output. In still another policy twist, the leadership in early 1990 was considering a marked speedup in the marketization process. Because the economy is caught in between two systems, there was in 1989 an even greater mismatch between what was produced and what would serve the best interests of ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... purpose, the big man stiffened as he caught a glimpse of the sea over his shoulder. Straining closer to each other's throbbing bodies, the two men redoubled their efforts to twist the other to the outside. Red-beard's breath began to come in gasps. He opened his mouth and sucked in the air feverishly. His corded muscles were beginning to relax. Gregory's feet shot under the islander's legs and the big man ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... but the sound spoke of irritation rather than of amusement. "I don't think you need be afraid of me, Mrs. Benn, though I did twist my ankle on that loose piece ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... novice. I told him to put up eight "points," and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod. He said he could furnish the "plain" article at 20 cents a foot; "coppered," 25 cents; "zinc-plated spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that would stop a streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound, and "render its errand harmless and its further progress apocryphal." I said apocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source it did, but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words: If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it; And I will break with her; [and with her father, And thou shalt have her:] Was't not to this end, That thou begann'st to twist so fine a story? ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... Meantime, the Germans, having found cover, had opened up a brisk rifle fire against the aeroplane, and bullets began to sing through the framework. One of the observers leaped to the ground, gave the propeller a vigorous twist, and as the motor began to roar clambered aboard as the big plane started over the rough ground, bumping and jolting, but rapidly gaining speed. The Germans broke from their shelter in pursuit, firing wildly as they ran, but although some of their shots came ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... stand in his way. Jack's the same. He thought Wes' kept him from the shoulder-straps, and he got him out of the way. Wasn't he always snooping 'round in the regiment trying to undermine your brother? Wasn't he always trying to be popular? Ah, I know the Spragues. But I'll give them a wrench that'll twist their damned pride out of them. I'll have that cold-blooded young villain shot in a hollow square, and I'll have it done in this very district, that the whole county may know the disgrace of the high ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a meditative twist to his black moustache, 'that missionary fellow. I was going to ask you something ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... drag along; what strange, twisted and jerky movements they have; what sufferings they must endure, and what pain they must have had. All these thoughts come to us as we look at the march of the disabled as they twist and ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... moment Hannes gave his basket such a powerful twist that over it went, and there lay Hannes, the basket, and the pears all in a heap on ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... at with my missus under the trees?" growled a brutal voice over his shoulder, while Tom felt he was helplessly pinioned by a pair of strong arms from behind, that crushed and bruised him like iron. Ere he could twist his hands free to show fight, which he meant to do pretty fiercely, he found himself baffled, blinded, suffocated, by a handkerchief thrust into his face, while a strong, pungent, yet not altogether unpleasant flavour ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... to take a fiendish delight in giving a humorous twist to anything sentimental, and so he ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... deserter. That phrase in which the psychiatrists take refuge, "constitutional inferiority," is more likely to describe the stay-at-home than the wanderer. However, one social worker (non-medical) says "a mental twist more often enters into the problem of the deserter than into that of the ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... cotton, which is the costume of the women of Cariai. The men on the contrary go naked. The women cut their hair, or let it grow behind and shave the forehead; then they gather it up in bands of white stuff and twist it round the head, just as do our girls. The Admiral had them clothed and gave them presents, and a bonnet of red wool stuff for their father; after which he sent them away. Later all these things were found upon the shore, because he had refused their presents. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to her some of the fine points of navigation in the upper currents, and though he did no risky "stunts," he showed the girl what it means to do an ascending spiral, how to cut corners, how to twist around in the figure eight, and do other things. Tom did not try for the great speed of which he knew his craft was capable, for he knew there was some risk with Miss Nestor aboard. But he did nearly everything else, and when he sent the Humming-Bird down he had made another ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... mouth opened, with his nose pointed toward the zenith. Just then Spooner came in. As he passed by the Major, the temptation was irresistible. He seized the venerable nose of the old patriarch between his thumb and finger, and gave it a vigorous twist. The Major was awakened and sprang to his feet, and in a moment realized what had happened. He was, as may be well supposed, intensely indignant. No Major in the militia could submit to such an insult. He seized his chair and hurled it at the head of the offender, but missed, and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... the visitor, and then attempted to rise. He sank back, however, with a groan, for he had given his foot a slight twist. ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... not fifty-two years of age, but thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge got of the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours by the river struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was a relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist and force onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this creature who had left ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... threat, from one whom they had vested with authority for this occasion, had a manifest effect upon his auditors, who were presently highly wrought up, by the sight of two or three little mounds of tobacco twist, which were now laid before them, and appeared to ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... but they are solid, as well, with the everyday life of fourteenth-century England. They have the naivete and garrulity which are marks of mediaeval work, but not the quaintness and grotesquerie which are held to be marks of romantic work. Not archaic speech, but a certain mental twist constitutes quaintness. Herbert and Fuller are quaint; Blake is grotesque; Donne and Charles Lamb are willfully quaint, subtle, and paradoxical. But Chaucer is ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... it's that, As the Public insists upon knowin', Missis MATHEW 'as told me so, pat, Wich likeways 'as good Missis BOWEN. You can't floor their argyments, quite, 'Owsomever you twirl 'em or 'twist 'em; They say, and I fear they are right, There is somethink all wrong with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... herself at all, only of how she could help Allan, but there must have been something about her of the picture-book angel to the pain-racked man, lying tensely at length in the room's darkest corner. Her long, dully gold hair, loosening from its twist, flew out about her, and her face was still flushed with sleep. There was a something about her that was vividly alight and alive, perhaps the light in her ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... bright colours, insignificant in its deeper values. But it is not so. Peter Warren, the spoiled child of fortune, was something more than a child of fortune, since he won his good things of life always at the risk of that life which he enriched; and surely, no obstinately fortuitous twist of circumstances could ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... rather dusty, and the front of his blue Oliver Twist suit bore an unmistakable paw-mark ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... the lips drew back from broken, stained teeth, the curling, cruel lips, and the rotting flesh of the face wrinkled into a grin of lust and hatred. The shaggy mop of its hair seemed to writhe and twist, the long, thin fingers grasped spasmodically as it neared. The torn, broken fingernails ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... reader, a glorious Latitudinarian, that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel on the angle; or rather like the weather-cock that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall grasses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of the plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... He stood, the impersonation of silent obstinacy, digging the end of his stick into the earth, or striking at the blue bells and the brambles within reach, resolved to utter no word which Brian could twist into any sort of promise for the future. He knew that his silence might injure his prospects, by lowering him in Brian's estimation—Brian being now the arbiter of his fate—but for all that he could not bring himself to make ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the proposition must be fair and just to both sides. A debater has no right to strain or twist the meaning of the proposition so as to gain any advantage for himself. In the first place, this practice is dishonest, and an honorable debater does not wish to win by trickery or fraud. Secondly, such an act almost always brings defeat. The ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... the river; and, having set my night-lines for a trout or two higher up, I came down to the salmon pool, spear in hand, and lit my lantern and got on a rock in the mid-channel, where 'twas clear and still, with nought but the oily twist and twirl of the currents running deep ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... attempted, and accuracy is of far greater importance than eccentric curves. Almost all professional pitchers now use the overhand delivery and pitch only a fast, straight ball and a curve. The fast ball, on account of its being thrown overhand and the twist thereby given, "jumps" in the air, that is, it rises slightly, while the curve, pitched with the same motion, goes outward and downward. The curve will necessarily be slower than the straight ball, and this will give all the variation ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... "Beverly of Graustark," or to watch "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" waltz merrily off with "Rip Van Winkle." Every one immediately recognized "The Bow of Orange Ribbon" and "Robinson Crusoe." Meek little Oliver Twist, with his big porridge bowl decorated by a wide white band bearing the legend, "I want some more," was also easy to guess. So were "Evangeline," "Carmen," "The Little Lame Prince," "Ivanhoe," "Janice Meredith," and scores of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... these marvellous eyes and the glamour for men. She had not yet met a man with the poetical twist in the brain to prize her elementally. All admitted the glamour; none of her courtiers were able to name it, even the poetical head giving it a name did not think of the witch in her looks as a witch in her deeds, a modern daughter of the mediaeval. To her giant squire the eyes of the lady ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hadst virtue. I have seen Thy stubborn temper bend with godlike goodness, Not half thus courted. 'Tis thy nation's glory To hug the foe that offers brave alliance. Once more embrace, my friends—we'll all embrace. United thus, we are the mighty engine Must twist this rooted empire from its basis. Totters not ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... be a corruption of "by Our Lady") before or after any part of speech whatever, as an expletive to drive home meaning to reluctant minds. It is an expression unwelcome on the drawing-room table. But, briefly, what Mr. Salter had so sworn to do was to twist his wife's nose off with his finger and thumb. And he did not seem unlikely to carry out his threat, as Livermore's tenantry lacked spirit or will to interpose, and did nothing but shriek in panic when ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... in church," quoth Master George in lordly wise to his little sisters. "I'm papa." Whereupon he will twist himself into an unseemly tangle of legs and arms which is simply a barbarous travesty of the attitude of studied grace with which you drink in the sermon in the corner of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... subterranean retreat. The cunning fox digs a kennel with two holes to go out and come in at, that he may not be either surprised or trapped by the huntsmen. The reptiles are of another make. They curl, wind, shrink, and stretch by the springs of their muscles; they creep, twist about, squeeze, and hold fast the bodies they meet in their way; and easily slide everywhere. Their organs are almost independent one on the other; so that they still live when they are cut into two. The long-legged birds, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... flaggin a bit, how refreshin to feel As you pause an look raand on the throng, At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel, Sing this plain unmistakable song:— Nick a ting, nock a ting; Wages keep pocketing; Workin for little is better nor laikin; Twist an twine, reel an wind; Keep a contented mind; Troubles are oft ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... Perhaps of all the strange things in life, the sudden sympathies and the headstrong passions which spring up in a day or a night between certain men and certain women are the strangest. I look upon you, Doctor, as a very clever fellow with just a little twist in his brain, or let us say a 'fad' about spiritual matters; but in one of your more or less fantastic and extravagant theories I am half disposed to believe, and that is the notion you have of the possibility of some natures, male and female, having met before ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... stroke of five, he was spinning a spiral twist of paper beneath the lamplight to amuse his daughter—he a member of the Institute, she a girl of eighteen. So that is how these ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hastily and took out her purse. The purse was made of cut steel beads and, as Betty often said, "everything stuck to it!" Something clung to it now as she drew it forth, but neither Betty nor the shopgirl saw the dangling twist ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... from him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left; he would want to leave his money to some one or other; an absurd notion, but it is only human nature, and he is not likely to have any more children, as I know. Victorine is gentle and amiable; she will soon twist her father round her fingers, and set his head spinning like a German top by plying him with sentiment! She will be too much touched by your devotion to forget you; you will marry her. I mean to play Providence ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the Yellow Sweet Clover put their leaves to sleep at night in a remarkable manner: the three leaflets of each leaf twist through an angle of 90 degrees, until one edge of each vertical blade is uppermost. The two side leaflets, Darwin found, always tend to face the north with their upper surface, one facing north-northwest and the other north-northeast, while the terminal leaflet escapes the chilling of ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... Edith's eloquent smile and words had pleased her. She got as far, however, as to think scornfully how Helen and Dorothy would welcome and meet a flirtation with this cowboy and then go back home and forget him as utterly as if he had never existed. She wondered, too, with a curious twist of feeling that was almost eagerness, how the cowboy would meet their advances. Obviously the situation was unfair to him; and if by some strange accident he escaped unscathed by Dorothy's beautiful eyes he would never be able to withstand ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... stripped palmetto leaves to use in the place of tow for calking and rigging. Every third day one of the horses was killed, the meat served out to the sick and the working party, the manes and tails saved to twist into rope with palmetto fiber, and the skin of the legs taken off whole and tanned for water bottles. At four different times a selected body of soldiers went out to get corn from the Indians, peaceably if possible, by force if ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Twist. Nicholas Nickleby. Martin Chuzzlewit. The Old Curiosity Shop. Barnaby Rudge. Dombey and Son. Christmas Books. Sketches by Boz. David Copperfield. American Notes and Pictures from Italy. The Letters of Charles Dickens. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... accepted; and the marriage took place at La Rochelle on the 24th of March, 1571. "Madame Jacqueline wore, on this occasion," says a contemporary chronicler, "a skirt in the Spanish fashion, of black gold-tissue, with bands of embroidery in gold and silver twist, and, above, a doublet of white silver-tissue embroidered in gold, with large diamond-buttons." She was, nevertheless, at that moment almost as poor as the German arquebusiers who escorted her litter; for an edict issued by the Duke of Savoy on ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... slightly woollier in the Alps than among us. As transplanted, the dinky little bow at the back is an affectation purely—but in these parts it is logical and serves a practical and a utilitarian purpose, because the mountain byways twist and turn and double, and the local beverages are potent brews; and the weary mountaineer, homeward-bound afoot at the close of a market day, may by the simple expedient of reaching up and fingering his bow tell instantly whether he ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... fears that I shall be in the way, to warn you, perhaps, or to—to—In short, both of us are in his way. He gives you an escape. Once in England, the war which is breaking out will prevent your return. He will twist the laws of divorce to his favour; he will marry again! What then? He spares you what remains of your fortune; he spares your life. Remain here,—cross his schemes, and—No, no; come to England,—safer ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... center line of the forehead and behind reaches to the nape of the neck, but the majority of them, and all the women, allow the back hair to grow long and tie it in a knot at the back of the head. Ordinarily the men dispense with head covering, or at most twist a bit of cloth into a turban, but for special occasions they wear palm leaf hats covered with many parallel bands of rattan and crowned with notched chicken feathers (Plate LI). Rarely is a women seen with any kind of head protection or hair ornament other than a small comb which ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... daughter lose her name, And to Mounchenseys house convey our arms, Quartered within his scutcheon; th' affiance, made Twist him and her, this morning should ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... introduction; now for the speech. From this point forward I shall draw largely upon the book but shall so turn and twist what the doctor says as to make it seem my own. With something of a flourish, I shall tell how in the year 1856 a young chemist, named Perkin, while trying to produce quinine synthetically, hit upon ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... intending to follow a south-east course to make the Mussel Camp on the 23rd of June; but, meeting with another large creek with continuous water, deep, broad, and boggy, also a number of springs and water creeks, so boggy that I could not cross them, had to twist and turn about very frequently, and sometimes to go quite back again, before I could clear them—which brought me often close to the river again. About eleven o'clock, as I was approaching the east end of a low rocky range of hills, where ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... he was walking toward the door that led into the hall, and now he confidently put out his hand and turned the knob. His expression changed. He gave the knob a violent twist, then, setting his shoulder against the jamb, tried to wrench the door open. It did not yield. Doris, watching him wide-eyed, was the first ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... dear, oh dear, she had intended to be so wise and so grown-up, and be her teacher's right hand. The beautiful teacher she loved so! That was the tragedy of poor Elizabeth's life, she was always hurting someone she loved. What a dreary twist of fate it was that when one's intentions were the best one was always most—"reprehensible"! The tears came dripping down upon the blue pinafore. She remembered with dismay that she had no handkerchief. She had forgotten hers in her ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... to do just what had been done to-day—to get her into a dress that would bring out her clear complexion, that would harmonize with the shade of her earnest eyes; to take her hair out of that hard twist at the back of the head, and lay it tiara-like, a bright mass, above the brow; to substitute soft lace for stiff, glazed linen, and a graceful knot of ribbon for that rectangular piece of gold with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... herself away, distressed, protesting, her fair head turned aside, until with a slight twist and narrowing of her hand she succeeded in slipping it from the glove which she left a prisoner in his eager clasp. "There! Yo' can keep the glove, co'nnle," she said, breathing quickly. "Sit down! This is not the place nor the weather for ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... up the blaze-faced horse and pointed to the right stirrup. "Spurs would scratch like that if you jerk your foot, maybe. You're a good rider, Mr Hunter, you can tell. That's a right stirrup, ain't it? Fred Thurman, he's got his left foot twist around, all broke from jerking in his stirrup. Left foot in right stirrup——" He pushed back his hat and rumpled his yellow hair, looking up into Brit's face inquiringly. "Left foot in right stirrup is riding backwards. That's a damn good rider to ride ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... would put herself to rest close circled in Linda's arms. She would twist up her little feet, and lie so quiet there, that Linda would remain motionless that she might not disturb her Katie's sleep; but soon warm tears would be running on her bosom, and she would know that Katie was still thinking ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... together and the unprotected folds of the sheets were exposed to wear. This was remedied by covering the backs with a strip of leather running lengthwise of the sheets. Vellum, however, is particularly liable to warp and twist. This was prevented by putting the sheets between boards. The next step was to fasten the boards to the package of leaves by extending the edges of the leather strip on the back and fastening them to the edges of the boards, which were then fastened at ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... the piece a little to the left, he once more fired, when the snake's head fell with a splash into the sea, the tight knot about the hook relaxed, the tail fell limply, and writhing with a feeble motion, the two ends hanging down together, prevented from falling by one twist ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... of these words was unexpected. Again did Father Dangelis's thin face brighten into a smile, but with a twist of the lips, sharp with ironical contempt. He had become yet paler, and his keen intelligent eyes were flaming. "Ah! it was Monsignor Nani who sent you!" he said. "Well, if you think you need a protector, it is useless for you to apply to any other than himself. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... two, he said; then they will only have half their strength, and we shall have twice as many sacrifices. He spake, and split them as you might split an egg with an hair; and when this was done, he told Apollo to give their faces a twist and re-arrange their persons, taking out the wrinkles and tying the skin in a knot about the navel. The two halves went about looking for one another, and were ready to die of hunger in one another's arms. Then Zeus invented an adjustment of the sexes, which enabled them to marry ...
— Symposium • Plato
... appears a cavern of such depth that one would judge that it extends all the way to the bottom of the mountain. And it is possible to see fire there, if one should dare to peer over the edge, and although the flames as a rule merely twist and turn upon one another, occasioning no trouble to the inhabitants of that region, yet, when the mountain gives forth a rumbling sound which resembles bellowing, it generally sends up not long afterward a great quantity of ashes. And if anyone ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... Neb began to twist his fingers, and I could see tears glistening in his eyes; for his attachment to Marble was of very long standing and of proof. When men have gone through, together, as much as we three had experienced in company, indeed, the most trifling ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... swelling green of the lawn. The flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to look at the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to the people who, presumably, were ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... ephemeral interest. They occurred in close connection with the proceedings of a Scientific Convention, and the memory of them deserves to be cherished as a recollection of the easy way in which Science may be popularized and be rendered so generally acceptable that the people will cry, like Oliver Twist, for more. It is the purpose of this small publication to embody, in a form more durable than that of the daily newspaper, the record of proceedings which have so near a relation to the progress of scientific research. ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... that Miss Godden was inside the New Inn, eating her dinner, probably finishing it, or he would not have brought the trap round. It was just like her, thought Martin, with a tolerant twist to his smile, to go to the most public and crowded place in Romney for her meal, instead of shrinking into the decent quiet of some shop. But Joanna Godden had done more for herself in that interview than she had thought, for though she still repelled she was no longer uninteresting. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Power Lathes, Drill Presses, Scrolls, Circular and Band Saws, Saw Attachments, Chucks, Mandrels, Twist Drills, Dogs, Calipers, etc. Send for catalogue of outfits for amateurs ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... a voice. There followed a scuffle, a creaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist transformed my path into a real country road—a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the water till he was about knee-deep, and then plunged his spear. Nothing resulted from the first plunge, but the effect of the second was more tremendous than had ever before happened to the young sportsman, for the pole of the trident received a twist so violent that it would infallibly have been torn from the boy's grasp had he not held on with the tenacity of a vice, and allowed himself to be dragged bodily into the pool. As we have said, the pool was ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... tackled the business at once, stepped up on to a stone, seated myself on the top of the breastwork, took tight hold of the rope, raised my legs so that I could lie down, turned upon my face, and then softly swung my legs round so that I could twist my feet about the rope and reduce the weight on my arms. The next minute I was hanging at full length, holding the rope with one hand, the edge of the breastwork with the other, and afraid to move; for, to my horror, tramp, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... off. That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinespike thing toward him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the steerin' wheel, the gocart coughed like a horse with the heaves, started up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... physical make up had a marked resemblance to his father's, but his mind was erratic. He had inherited none of the steady, sane genius of the Emperor, though but for a freak of nature which gave him a mental twist, he would have been as near his prototype as may be. He was always full of great schemes, which in the hands of a normally constituted person would have been fashioned into ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... found his poitry, and mother sed, Well you may be rite but I shall give him a dose of caster oil, You no the oil of the caster, just like you had the oil of the codfish only this tests like sam scratch see? Well I had to swaller some and it was feerce and fer too cents I wood twist that teller Teddy's nose and stick my finger in his eye. Gee whiz, and he wares white wings dose he, and jumps up in the air. Some angel beleeve me, say mebbe he is a angel that has fallen from the sky? ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... his best fighting men behind him, and when the Spaniard invited them aboard for a feast, he let Young Pine go with them. He was as straight as a pine, the young Cacique, keen and strong-breasted, and about his neck he wore a twist of pearls of three strands, white as sea foam. Ayllon's eyes glistened as he looked at them, and he gave word that the boy was not to be mishandled. For as soon as he had made the visiting Indians drunk with wine, which they had never tasted before and drank only for ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... the most delightful fellow in the world, and can keep the whole company in convulsions with his quips and cranks. He can imitate the absurdities of costume of every nation, and can present you with an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and a Jew by a mere twist of his hat. The very simplicity of his absurdity makes him the most harmless of men. You cannot imagine him giving offence to any one. He would be incapable of deceiving a girl of sixteen. His whole ambition ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... That's tungsten. Perhaps you don't all know what tungsten is. Well, it's a valuable commodity that is mined from the earth, and which is used expressly in the making of electric lamps. Our good friend Adolph, like his brother, has the same twist of brain. Instead of keeping the tubes, he returns them with the rather thin excuse that they are of the wrong gauge, and fills them with this tungsten, from the famous tungsten mines for which Belgium holds first place in ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... do was to gather her sister up in her arms and kiss her. But the faint ironic smile on Portia's fine lips, the twist of her eyebrows, the poise of her body as she sat up in bed watching the blue-brown smoke rising in a straight thin line from her diminishing cigarette, combined to make such a ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... lance, four and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of iron,—so that the whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches. It was used either to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the enemy's shield the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing to the twist in the iron, still held to the shield. Each soldier carried two of these weapons, and threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their comrades in front, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire, when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and replaced by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the rasa-kindu, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the aforesaid rustic, alluded to in the beginning of this my apology, should he, instead of boisterously rushing in upon the company, endeavor (his sense of the becoming overcoming his bashfulness) to twist his body into the likeness of a bow, thereby only illustrating and confirming the profound wisdom of the maxim, non omnia possumus omnes. Should our awkward attempts be classed together, I shall nevertheless indulge the hope, that better acquaintance with you will increase my facility ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... I had an opportunity of surveying the appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... hesitate a second; she gave the screw a quick twist and the caboulot was instantly as dark ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... covered with wild roses. Over Rosalie's head there was a lark singing in mid-air, and by the side of the path grew the small pink flowers of the wild convolvulus. Rosalie could not help stopping to gather some sprays of this, and to twist them round her hat. It was so many months since she had seen any flowers; and they brought the old days back to her, when Toby used to put her down from the caravan, that she might gather the flowers for ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... answered Jennarone; "I see myself rich and can hardly believe it, and I am longing to twist the cock's neck and give a kick in the face of beggary, for in this world virtue without money goes for nothing, and a man is judged of ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Kate to call and admire this promise of royal offspring, and she was surprised into genuine admiration when she saw the prodigy. Her nose had to lower its scornful turn, her lips to relax their skeptical twist. It was an egg indeed! Ben was nobly justified in his purchase. His step was light that day. Kate heard him singing, over and over again, a verse from an old song which he had brought with him from the land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... say. I'll gie off the orders," remonstrated Mac Tavish; there was grim satisfaction in the twist of his mouth; it seemed as if the ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... conception that at the moment he believed he was being fronted by a crazed man, yet there was in my face an expression quickly teaching him otherwise, and, with a swift twist, he flashed his sword forth into the sunlight, standing ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... assistance. An monny a time he left his meal Untouched, tho' ommost pinin; An trail'd abaat, i' hooaps to find Some breeter fortun shinin. For long he sowt, but sowt in vain, Although his heart wor willin To turn or twist a hundred ways, To get an honest shillin. One day his wife coom back throo th' shop, Her heart seem'd ommost brustin; Shoo sob'd, "Oh, Dick,—what mun we do, Th' shop keeper's stall'd o' trustin. We've nowt to ait, lad, left i'th' haase,— Aw know th' fault isn't ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... and he brought out of one of his pockets a long piece of thick twine. This with much hard breathing accompanying the work, he proceeded to twist and interlace around the paper containing the little yellow cheese in such a way that when it was completed, Phronsie was carrying what looked like a little net basket, for there was a good strong twine handle sticking up, into which she put her ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... have cheered you much. I wager he's told you what he thinks of you, tossing to the winds all the beautiful health and spirits of the summer! When are you to be married? I must tell him to bully you as—as my dear love is bullying me! Has Doctor Ledyard growled at you? I can twist him easily! He is a darling, and just wears that face and voice for fun in order to scare little redheaded nurses. Cilla, dear heart, I'm going to be married in June! Dear, old-fashioned June, with roses and good luck and—oh! the heaven seems ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... English novelist, who so touchingly depicts the sufferings of children made unhappy by the inhumanity of teachers, or neglected as to their need of free air, of liberty, of affection: David Copperfield, Hard Times, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... maw. She pulled what seemed to be a white rubber cap from one of his grinders. Quickly and skilfully, with a fine knitting needle, the countess ripped from this rubber casing what the girl thought looked like a twist of ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... spark speedily darted to the combustible material and stuck there. Jack did not use the rag soaked in chemicals, which was common among the settlers, but caught the fire from the direct source, as it may be called. The tiny twist of flame was fanned and nursed by gently blowing until, in a brief space, a big fire was roaring, and scorching the shaggy bark ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... three questions, and pronounce judgment accordingly." (Oh! what evil times for dear Pomerania land, when the people could thus take the law into their own hands, and pronounce judgment, though no judges were there. Had the bailiff given her a little twist of the rack, just to get at the truth, it would at least have been more in accordance with the usages, although I say not he would have been justified in so doing; but without using the rack at all, to believe what this devil's ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... contraction and relaxation. This is corroborated by those tumultuous irregular motions which continue in animals after decapitation; so also the intestines when still warm in a recently opened animal, move and twist about; the muscles in dead animals also, excited by the perception of cold, contract with a strong tonic movement, and render the body rigid. The hearts of some animals too, when torn out of the body, and even when dissected, continue their endeavours to pulsate. Is there ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... saying, "if you can find that old rooster that got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take him along. There's no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda could n't have got hens from her neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going by now. I reckon she was confused and did n't know where to begin. I've come strange to a new country ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... I shall counter, with disdain, His feeble efforts to explain Or justify such deeds. It will be funny if I fail To twist young Gunner Grogan's tail, That being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... or he derives the generals of his thought therefrom; and it is a universal of the light of heaven that God is one. It is otherwise when man by that capacity has perverted the lower parts of his understanding; such a man indeed is endowed with that capacity, but by the twist given to these lower parts, he turns it contrariwise, and thereby his reason ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... saw edges for sticking flesh and blood as for sawing wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and badly lacerate it internally in the withdrawal; especially if given a twist. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... Billy. "She's getting off too easily. That's only sticking a knife in hen. They ought to twist the ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... one person was he completely mild and gentle, and that person, it is needless to say, was his daughter Nancy. Nancy was his only child. Her mother was dead, and from her earliest days she had been able to twist her father round her little finger. He sent her to a smart boarding school, and no money was spared in order to give her pleasure. It was the dream of Farmer King, and Nancy's dearest ambition also, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... her wicked love influenced her to participation in the murder rests in her own breast, and up to this time she has not differed from mothers at large—to twist her own bow-string rather than build ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... agitato! In and out does the melody twist— Unique proposition Is this composition. (Alas! for the player who hasn't the wrist!) Now in the dominant Theme ringing prominent, Bass still repeating its one monotone, Double notes crying, Up keyboard go flying, The change to the minor comes in like a groan. Without a cessation ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... a quartern of dough, one gill of the best Florence oil, half a pound of currants, half a pound of moist sugar, and a little cinnamon; mix all well together, make it up in the form of a twist, and bake it. ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... gold buttons and twist, with a new hat, and, silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me L3, and the other 40s.—I have worn neither yet, but ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Indigo Bird," laughed Rap. "The Blue Jay is a queer bird, who can twist himself into all sorts of shapes. He sits one way when he sings, another when he is watching out for danger, and when he calls he is too funny for anything—he humps himself up and drops his tail as if he was falling apart, and ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... better,— And write, as I dictate, this moment a letter To Monsieur—you know who!" The lady look'd blue; But replied with much firmness—"Hang me if I do!" De Guise grasped her wrist With his great bony fist, And pinched it, and gave it so painful a twist, That his hard gauntlet the flesh went an inch in,— She did not mind death, but she could not stand pinching; So she sat down and wrote This polite ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... dreams! A rage that time seems only to redouble— The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, For rolling in Pactolian streams, That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. No matter what,—to pasture cows on stubble, To twist sea-sand into a solid rope, To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, Or light with gas the whole celestial cope— Only propose to blow a bubble, And Lord! what ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... it? After eleven! She would go into the garden, where she could look down the road and have the first glimpse of Eddy Minns climbing the hill. With her thoughts in galloping confusion, she put on her flat hat with its twist of white lace about the crown, and went out into the heat. From the bench under the big poplar she looked across at the girdling hills, blue and hot in the still flood of noon; below her was the valley, now a sea of treetops ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... is traduced by thinking to put into the old garment of drugging the new cloth of metaphysics; or by trying to twist the fatal magnetic force of mortal mind, termed hypnotism, into [15] a more fashionable cut and naming that "mind-cure," or—which is still worse in the eyes of Truth—terming it metaphysics! Substituting good words for a good life, fair-seeming ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... at the yards, Sax and Vaughan had come out from the shelter of the tank, wholly absorbed in the wild life they were now witnessing for the first time. With the keen delight which every healthy-minded boy has in adventure, they followed every twist and turn, wishing with all their hearts that they were in the thick of ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... who did not relish the richness of his voice, and the arch crispness which he gave to some words, while others came not trippingly off his tongue, but lingered and jarred with an effect which accounts for so many imitators. His mouth had a peculiar twist, somewhat resembling that of Mathews, which at times almost forbad ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... my son, aren't you?" said Eustace with a supercilious twist of the lips. "But—as it chances—not one of those excellent reasons appeals ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... groaned. "I've skinned 'em, and my back has got a twist in it like the Irishman thought he had when he put on his overalls ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... swarm in most animal or vegetable infusions) similar difficulties encounter us. The little creatures, many of which are round or oval in form, from time to time become constricted in the middle; the constriction becomes deeper and deeper, and at length the two halves twist themselves apart and swim away. In this case, therefore, there was one, and there are now two exactly similar; but are these two individuals? They are not parent and offspring—that is clear, for ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... Casey. Cleverly concealed it was, built to resemble the ledge. Visible from one side only, and that was the side where Casey stood. At the back the sloping boulder, untouched, impregnable; at the north and west, a twist of the ledge that hid the cabin completely in a niche. It was the window on the ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... from you and you're a dead one," said Holmes. "You'll see what I'm doing quickly enough. Twist it into a rope, Jim," he added, addressing me. I did as I was bade with the linen cover, snatching it from the bureau, and a second later we had Cato gagged. "Now tie his hands and feet with those curtain cords," ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... certain dust cloud for half an hour. At first he had thought it only a whirling dervish—one of those restless columns of sand that continually shift over the arid lands. But it was following the course of the trail below him on the desert—rounding each bend and twist of it. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... Uncle Ezra Mudge, as he slowly filled his Missouri meerschaum with Virginia twist,—"I've offen noticed thet nerve is the most vallyble asset in the credit items of human life. The pore man thet's got a plenty of it is an uncrowned king with pears's an' di'monds at his command, but the king thet lacks it will soon be uncrowned too. When a rich man ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... follows: Select a shoot and bend it flat upon the ground; hold it in both hands, having a distance of about 6 in. between them; keep the left hand firm, and with the right give the shoot a sharp twist; now cover it with 4 in. of earth and tie the free ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... high with elephant-grass or little trees like alders. So much for the immediate prospect on our right as we marched. Across the river to our left were huge riven mountains, with great cliffs and canons. As we followed necessarily every twist and turn of the river, sometimes these mountains were directly ahead of us, then magically behind, so that we thought we had passed them by. But the next hour threw them again across our trail. The ideal path would, of course, have cut across all the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... variety of armlets. The most common was a plain bar of a single twist, the ends of which slightly overlapped each other. A more elegant kind was similar to this, except that the bar terminated in animal heads carefully wrought, among which the heads of rams, horses, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pugdog's tail. There it was, however. There was no doing anything with it. Wilkins she was and Wilkins she would remain; and though her husband encouraged her to give it on all occasions as Mrs. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and Stewart were to bowl, with Dicksee as a change when necessary, for he had a peculiar knack and twist in handling a ball, and could puzzle good players by sending in an innocent-looking, slowly-pitched ball, which looked as if it was going wide, and, when it had put the batsman off his guard, and induced him to change his position, so as to send the ball flying out of the field, it would suddenly ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn |
