"Writhe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and temple higher and more holy! The wilful king appointed o'er mankind To plague the lofty heart, and prove the lowly, Is fled!—Avenger, mount the chariot of the wind! Be thine, to guide the rapid scythe, To blind with snow the frozen sun, Against th' invader doomed to writhe, To rouse the Tartar, Russ, and Hun! Bid terror to the battle ride! Indignant honour, burning shame, Revenge, and hate, and patriotic pride! But not the quick unerring aim Of volley'd thunder winged with flame, Nor famine keener ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... All of us together, You flash forth sudden utterance Of buried things That writhe in obscure life Within our minds' last darkness. That which we think and say not You say and think not. In us these thoughts Like worms stir vilely. But from you they depart as sudden butterflies Crimson and ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... tyranny at home, and free from military tyranny from abroad. The work of the peace advocate is not negative. It is not enough for him to cry peace, peace! He must first lay the foundation for peace. To cry peace while the people writhe under injustice is like trying to heal the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... their ritual duties into two classes, the devotions of the free men being addressed to the saint who died in his bed, while the slaves belong to the slave, and must therefore simulate his horrid end. And this is the reason why most of the white caftans simply rock and writhe, while the humble blue ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... boy's production; when Lord Falconet, who had had the news from Percy Popjoy, approved of the genius of young Pen; when the great Lord Steyne himself, to whom the Major referred the article, laughed and sniggered over it, swore it was capital, and that the Muffborough would writhe under it, like a whale under a harpoon, the Major, as in duty bound, began to admire his nephew very much, said, "By gad, the young rascal had some stuff in him, and would do something; he had always ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Woolsey atrociously on the score of his wig; for though the latter went to the best makers, he never could get a peruke to sit naturally upon him and the unhappy epithet of Mr. Wiggins, applied to him on one occasion by the barber, stuck to him ever after in the club, and made him writhe when it was uttered. Each man would have quitted the "Kidneys" in disgust long since, but for the other—for each had an attraction in the place, and dared not leave the field in possession of ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this and no more, and have felt averse to forestall, to seem to forestall even by an hour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from which there is in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker under the pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan and writhe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under the water-torture. That he asked to be tied up, was unwise on his own principle of loving ale. And you sha'n't be 'chained' up, if you were to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... to a "music" hall to hear The Great Recruiting Song, and watched him wince And writhe throughout, as though his end were near; But now I learn that, every evening since, Brown has been there, in England's sacred cause, To greet that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... over a hundred miles thick; and so dazzling is their brightness that it bursts the eyes which look at them anywhere within a distance of four hundred leagues.7 The poor creatures here, wrapped in shrouds of fire, writhe and yell in frenzy of pain. The very revelry and ecstasy of terror and anguish fill the whole region. The skins of some wretches are taken off from head to foot, and then scalding vinegar is poured over them. A glutton is punished thus: experiencing an insatiable ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... to Androvsky, "Now you can pray," she had passed into a region where self had no existence. Her whole soul was intent upon this man to whom she had given all the treasures of her heart and whom she knew to be writhing as souls writhe in Purgatory. He had spoken at last, he had laid bare his misery, his crime, he had laid bare the agony of one who had insulted God, but who repented his insult, who had wandered far away from God, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... with wasps, which are applied to their naked bodies in curious instruments of trellis-work shaped like fantastic quadrupeds or birds. The patient invariably falls down in a swoon and is carried like dead to his hammock, where he is tightly lashed with cords. As they come to themselves, they writhe in agony, so that their hammocks rock violently to and fro, causing the hut to shake as if it were about to collapse. This dreadful ordeal is called by the Indians ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... up. They began to writhe about his limbs, but drew no sound to vie with their crackling. But there was weeping heard in the crowd. And suddenly from the unobservedly overcast heavens came a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder followed by a violent shower of rain. The flames were extinguished. The spring ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... startled, nor shocked, nor mortified, that the unceremonious departure of the master of the house stabbed her heart with pangs that made her firm lips writhe, for she had long been cognizant of the growth of feelings whose discovery had ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... actually witness a murder, he cannot imagine the shock and dreadfulness of seeing one man shot down, writhe, gasp, grow pale and cease struggling. To picture ten men murdered simply stuns the mind. An effort to realize hundreds, thousands, millions of men mangled, wounded, bayoneted, crushed, blown to atoms by shells and mine—all this becomes vague, formless, a dim, dreadful picture that is as unreal ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... a quick writhe the Netop broke loose, and bolted headlong, fairly into Captain Church himself, among the baggage and the horses. This was a surprise for the captain, too. He grabbed him but could not keep him, because he was a naked Indian and ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... dishonourable. That went without saying. He had failed ignominiously from the outset to behave as an upright and honourable man. Self-analysis laid his pride in the dust and made him writhe in self-condemnation. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... but to hear a creature attempt to play one of the "songs without words" on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... had not seen her sunlight blithe As o'er their shells it dances, I've seen those winkles almost writhe Beneath her ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... Chichester's excellence of character. I had always felt myself set far above him by my superior mental faculties and my greater will power over the crowd, though, alas! not always over my own demon. I began to writhe now under the thought of Chichester's crystal purity and of my own besmirched condition of soul. All self-confidence departed from me; but I endeavored, of course, to conceal this from the world, and especially from Chichester. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... which connects the soul to the body, with anguish. A shriek from Christine interrupted the awful gaze of the travellers, and drew their looks in another direction. She was clinging to the neck of Adelheid, her arms appearing to writhe with the effort to incorporate ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... kind man, who hated any injustice, but when his wife awoke he said many unpleasant things to her, opening his mouth with difficulty, and he complained that he was left alone, like a jackal, to groan and writhe for pain. His wife met the undeserved reproaches patiently, for she knew that they came not from an angry heart—and she brought him numerous good remedies: rats' litter to be applied to his cheek, some strong liquid in which a scorpion was preserved, and a real chip of the tablets that Moses had ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... look of pain come on his face, saw him wince, saw him writhe, saw him rise on his toes. Then, with a sudden squatting heave, Banion cast him full length in front of him, upon his back! Before he had time to move he was upon him, pinning him down. A growl ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... set in, came hail and snow, And the air grew sharp and chill, And the warning roar of a terrible blow Was heard on the distant hill; And the norther,—see, on the mountain peak, In his breath, how the old trees writhe and shriek! He shouts along o'er the plain, ho, ho! He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow, And growls with a ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... cups; those glasses and bottles which Vesuvius has preserved for us; that jug, the handle of which is formed of a satyr bending backward to rub his shoulders against the edge of the vase; those vessels of all shapes on which eagles perch or swans and serpents writhe; those cups of baked clay adorned with so many arabesques and inviting descriptions. "Friend," says one of ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... sure enough. Ho, ho! sir, you have taken drows; what, another throe! writhe, sir, writhe; the hog died by the drow of gypsies; I saw him stretched at evening. That's yourself, sir. There is no hope, sir, no help, you have taken drow; shall I tell you your fortune, sir, your dukkerin? God bless you, pretty gentleman, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... folded newspaper clipping, with ragged edges, to Mr. Tescheron. It had the appearance of being hastily torn from a paper. Mr. Tescheron read it slowly, and as he did so Smith watched the victim writhe as the prepared venom paralyzed it for the death-blow. I have seen this clipping. It ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... said Iaran in a voice of lamentation, and her face took on a gnarl and a writhe and a solidity of ugly woe that beat the other two and made even ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... flame of the lamp on the table, I vow I will live as a brave man should—unmoved, silent, uncomplaining. The resolve puffs me up, and for the moment I mistake myself for a very, very brave person indeed. But as soon as the thorns on the road worry my feet, I writhe and begin to feel serious misgivings as to the future. The path of life again seems long, ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... on all sides crashed Caphereus' cliffs: beneath the Sea-king's wrath The surf-tormented beaches shrieked and roared. The broad crag rifted reeled into the sea, The rock whereto his desperate hands had clung; Yet did he writhe up round its jutting spurs, While flayed his hands were, and from 'neath his nails The blood ran. Wrestling with him roared the waves, And the foam whitened all his ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... an easy job. The pig did writhe and twist, while the frantic mother danced up and down in the pen behind, and drove the surgeon nearly crazy with her noise. But he toiled bravely on, and when at last the operation was done, the heart of Romeo Augustus was knit unto that small pig ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... red sparkle like the ray of the setting sun. It was the opal serpent brooch, and Aaron's lips were fastened together with the stout pin. On his mouth and across his agonised face in which the one eye gleamed with terrific meaning the jewelled serpent seemed to writhe. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... "Oh, yes, I am quite certain that the curl of the lip is responsible for my being here; it kept sending me constant telegrams; but what I want to know is, do I come for the pleasure of the thing or for the pain? Do I like your disdain, Alice, or does it make me writhe? Am I here to beg you to do it ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... might wring a mighty ransom from your people would I but return you to them unharmed, but a thousand times rather would I watch that beautiful face writhe in the agony of torture; it shall be long drawn out, that I promise you; ten days of pleasure were all too short to show the love I harbor for your race. The terrors of your death shall haunt the slumbers ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... light-hearted, and friendly. Those who have seen Indians smarting under wrongs, and deprived, by deceit and force, of their lands, hunting-grounds, and the graves of their fathers, may have found them otherwise: and no wonder; the worm that is trodden on will writhe; and man, unrestrained by Divine grace, when treated with injustice and cruelty, will ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... that its rays burst through them almost exclusively in one wide crater, crimsoning, bronzing, and gilding their vaporous and ever-changing walls. Thence they spread earthward, heavenward, leaving remoter masses to writhe darkly on each other and themselves, in and out, in and in, cloaking this hill in blue shadow, bathing that one in green light, while from a watery fastness somewhere hid in the depth of the forested swamp under the hills, some long-lost bend ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... beautiful soul, the light that never was on land or sea, shone out of the still features. A feeling which had never touched his nature before took fierce possession of him, and shook him as a tiger shakes his prey. He had to writhe in silence, to beat his head with his hands, to stifle words of rage and hate and despair. At last exhausted he resigned himself, he took the boy's hand in his, remembering that this innocent heart loved him, and fell into ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... hatred of pleasure. The first fork is disentanglement from the sweetness of the world. The second fork is power over those who still writhe in the nets of illusion. The third fork is the healthy glow of one who steps ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... old story, Preached from pulpits, is not so, For no God could sit in glory And see sinners writhe below. ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... death! His surprise and remorse made him jump to his feet, wave his arms in angry protest, writhe, as if a pair of invisible hands had just laid him bare ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... chuckling, with both hands thrust deep in his pockets. "We'll go to that trial—it's over an affair of his, and he's fair in the wrong. We'll go and watch his discomfiture—and we'll see him writhe. We'll see him carry things his own way—the only way he can ever see—and then we'll watch him—man, we'll watch him—Oh, my boy, my boy! I doubt it's wrong for me to exult over his chagrin, but that's what I'm going for now. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... you old rascal," cried the Prince, with great good-humour. "That's a crumb of the mouldy bread of learning you used to cram down my throat in the old days. It makes Master Wheatman writhe to hear it. The only advantage I ever got out of being a Prince was that old Tom here never dared thrash me for gulping ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... wise, and cruel," and the "amaranthine" Louis Sherwin, who understands better than anybody else how to plunge the rapier into the vulnerable spot and twist it in the wound, making the victim writhe, have been having some fun with the art of acting lately, or to be exact, with the art of actors. Now actor-baiting is no new game; as a winter sport it is as popular as making jokes about mothers-in-law, decrying the art ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... caused the mishap, and who, knowing the effects of the master's fury, fled with precipitation. In one minute the offender was caught, and Mr. Lawley's heavy hand fell recklessly on his ears and back, until he screamed with terror. At last by a tremendous writhe, wrenching himself free, he darted towards the door, and Mr. Lawley, too exhausted to pursue, snatched his large gold watch out of his fob, and hurled it at the boy's retreating figure. The watch flew through the air;—crash! it had missed its aim, and, striking ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... passion or a pang entailed on human hearts. Go! let Oblivion's curtain fall upon the stage of men! nor with thy rising beams recall life's tragedy again! Its piteous pageants bring not back, nor waken flesh upon the rack of pain anew to writhe, stretched in Disease's shapes abhorred, or mown in battle by the sword, like grass beneath the scythe! Even I am weary in yon skies to watch thy fading fire: test of all sumless agonies, behold not me expire! My lips, that speak thy ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... and 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 writhe past us. ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... before, only more reticent, more grim, more unapproachable than he had ever been in the old days. His utter indifference to the cold courtesy accorded him was beyond all scorn. He simply did not see when men avoided him. He was supremely unaware of the coldness that made Tommy writhe in impotent rebellion. He had never mixed very freely with his fellows. Upon Tommy alone had he bestowed his actual friendship, and to Tommy alone did he now display any definite change of front. His demeanour towards the boy was ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... thought but this, and it is abominable; it is the worst of all. The explanation thickens. I struggle gloriously with the French language; one moment it has me by the throat and I am strangled; the next I writhe forth triumphant. Strange gestures are given to me; I plunge into the darkest pits of memory for the words that have escaped me; I find them (or others just as good); it is really quite easy to say that I am coming back ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and die on the elder woman's face, but she ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... convulsively to the planking of the bridge. A business man stamped on them with a curse until the grip was broken. There was a swishing sound; then a sudden crunching jerk and the rope tied to the girder began to writhe and twist like a live thing. This lasted but a short time. The lynchers peered over the railing into the darkness. Then they slowly pulled up the dead body, attached a longer rope and repeated the performance. This did not seem to suit them either, so they again ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... roll and jar, and answer one another across the sky. Then, like a charge of ten thousand lancers, come the wind and the rain, their onset covered by all the artillery of heaven. The lightnings leap, hiss, and blaze; the thunders crack and roar; the rain lashes; the waters writhe; the wind smites and howls. For five, for ten, for twenty minutes,—for an hour, for two hours,—the sky and the flood are never for an instant wholly dark, or the thunder for one moment silent; but while the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... square Mown down, mown down, mown down, wild swathes of crimson wheat, The white-eyed charge, the blast, the terrible retreat, The blood-greased wheels of cannon thundering into line O'er that red writhe of pain, rent groin and shattered spine, The moaning faceless face that kissed its child last night, The raw pulp of the heart that beat for love's delight, The heap of twisting bodies, clotted and congealed In one red huddle of anguish on ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... as we do every evening. At that spot in the inky landscape where a tall and twisted tree seems to writhe as if it had a soul, we begin suddenly to descend, our feet plunging forward. Down below we see the lights of Viviers sparkle. These men, whose day is worn out, stride towards those earthly stars. One hope is like ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... newspaper man left at Key West who did not writhe with envy and anger when he heard of it. When the wire was closed for the night, and they had gathered at Josh Kerry's, Keating was ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... has failed utterly. The hideous chicane of imperial government and imperial religion against mankind has resulted in a Christian veneer, which cracks at the first test and reveals the unchanged human brute beneath. The nations which writhe in deadly embrace to-day have never sought to prove God. They but emphasize the awful fact that the human mind has no grasp upon the Principle which is God, and at a time of crisis reverts almost instantly to the primitive, despite so-called culture and civilization. Yes, religion as a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... belts and wavering layers of heat—heat from the orange sun edged red by the Desert dust of the atmosphere—heat from the wind off some white flamed furnace—heat from the ochre shifting sands panting to the loom and writhe of the blue-flamed air, and over all a veil, was it blue or lilac or lavender? tinted as of rainbow mists. For a little while, neither spoke. Each knew what the dusty dead orange earth, the smoking sand hills, the sifted volcanic ash, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... malady. It began with great mental distress; he used to sleep in the streets. He suffered constantly; he was like "a tree without leaves, streaming with rain." At the end of 1861, the disease was in an acute stage. He had attacks of pain sometimes lasting thirty hours, during which he would writhe in agony in his bed. "I live in the midst of my physical pain, overwhelmed with ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... a hundred paces of them when they all fell to the ground as if struck with a thunderbolt, and began to howl and whimper, and to writhe, as if suffering the most excruciating pain. They stretched out their hands, and cried, "Have mercy! have mercy! we feel you have a toad, and there is no escape for us. Take the odious beast away, and we will do all ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... have not practised at all times that grand self-denial. Who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit,—of temper, or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that way yourself? Do you not writhe with indignation at being wrongly judged by others who condemn you without knowing your actions or the causes of them; and do you never judge ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... stepped on some stone more sharp than usual—and, with a sudden writhe and shriek, sank to the ground. Raphael lifted her up, and she tried to proceed, but sank down again.... What ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... boulevard-jollification, a "Mardi-gras" composed of lean and haggard scapegraces.—In the great nave of the Cathedral, "the dancers, almost naked, with bare necks and breasts, and stockings down at the heel," writhe and stamp, "howling the carmagnole." In the side chapels, which are "shut off by high tapestries, prostitutes with shrill voices" pursue their avocation.[3222]—To descend to this low level so barefacedly, to fraternise with barrier sots, and wenches, to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came the unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. It made one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a final convulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, and then he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It cowered and skulked. His face was ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Sieger; with these I was constantly occupied from this time onwards, together with my great work, the Nibelungen, the unfinished portion of which was still of gigantic dimensions. The more these projects absorbed me, the more did I writhe with impatience at the perpetual interruptions of my work by these loathsome attacks of illness. About this time Liszt proposed to pay me a visit that had been postponed in the summer, but I had to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Twist, writhe, disguise you, as you will, I know you, You were too honest, knight, to be more civil; A girl all feeling, and a she-attendant All complaisance, a father at a distance - You valued her good name, and would not see her. You scorned to try her, lest you should be victor; For ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... thou, false Infidel! shall writhe Beneath avenging Monkir's[107] scythe; And from its torments 'scape alone To wander round lost Eblis'[108] throne; 750 And fire unquenched, unquenchable, Around, within, thy heart shall dwell; Nor ear can hear ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... was it his the champion's blood to flake Thy flesh?—Or thine own blood's anointing, girl?.... ....Now, silence; for the sea's is such a sound As irks not silence; and except the sea, All is now still. Now the dead thing doth cease To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound, Again a woman ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... has awful sins to answer for. What untold horrors of dyspepsia have arisen from its smoky depths, like the ghosts from witches' caldrons! The fizzle of frying meat is as a warning knell on many an ear, saying, "Touch not, taste not, if you would not burn and writhe!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of grief in sculpture that it may writhe but it must not scream. Lord Haldane has not even writhed. When a member of the House of Lords asked him what he proposed doing with the two sacks crammed full of abusive letters addressed to him ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... Trying one day to make her come and be cuddled, she retreated to the hearth, and when I pursued her, meaning to catch and pet her, she took a distracted skip right into a bed of hot coals. One wild howl, and another still more distracted skip brought her out again, to writhe in agony with four burnt paws and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... switchback, as if the hills chased each other but never succeeded in catching up. Then, when we had grown used to such an outlook, the road would twist so suddenly that it seemed to spring up in our faces. It would turn upon itself and writhe like a wounded cobra, before it was ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... motionless under the moonlight. He crouched behind a bush for some time, till he felt that midnight could not be far off, when suddenly there arose in the middle of the moor a brilliant glow, as if a star was shining over one of the hillocks. At the same moment all the hillocks began to writhe and to crawl, and from each one came hundreds of serpents and made straight for the glow, where they knew they should find their king. When they reached the hillock where he dwelt, which was higher and broader than the rest, and had a bright ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... battle-fields. They will read of Cats' Homes, and Anti-Vivisection Societies, and Homes of Rest for Horses, and a hundred such institutions, and they will find contributors to these institutions stirring not one finger when hundreds of thousands of men writhe under hails of shrapnel, and crowds of homeless women and children fly in terror before the unavoidable calamities or the superfluous brutalities of war. They will see a generation shaken and shuddering as the ghastly picture is daily unfolded before it, and they will ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... the lamp blows the shadows of the five heads writhe upon the corrugated tin ceiling. In the distance, like kettle-drums beaten for a dance, a ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... anguish of those chiefly concerned which Motahuana betrayed in this speech made Escombe fairly writhe with disgust and abhorrence, which feelings were increased a hundredfold by the knowledge that this young maiden was to be forced to lay down her life, and her parent's home was to be made desolate, in order that his— Harry Escombe's—accession to the throne of the Incas might be ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... "he suffers horribly when he moves, and I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see him wince and writhe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse! Fear, for their scourge, mean villains have, Thou art the torturer of the brave! Yet fatal strength they boast to steel Their minds to bear the wounds they feel, Even while they writhe beneath the smart Of civil conflict in the heart. For soon Lord Marmion raised his head, And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said - "Is it not strange, that, as ye sung, Seemed in mine ear a death-peal rung, Such as in nunneries they toll For some departing sister's soul; Say, what may this portend?" ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... arms of one has been seized by the limbs, she hurls herself over the edge, and falls head downmost, dragging the child out of the grasp by her weight;—she will be dashed dead in a second:—close to us is the great struggle; a heap of the mothers, entangled in one mortal writhe with each other and the swords; one of the murderers dashed down and crushed beneath them, the sword of another caught by the blade and dragged at by a woman's naked hand; the youngest and fairest of the women, her child just torn away from a death ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... full of great gladness, we look up and thank the good Father for his precious blessings, feeling nerved for the fiercest fight; but when the storm-clouds gather and the golden brightness is withdrawn, we bow before the blinding tempest and writhe under our pain, unless—and the kind voice spoke very softly—the Master has our hearts in his own safe keeping, unless we have learned to love his will. Then we can discern the bright stars of his love shining through the darkness, and find ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... it seemed to writhe and try to change the direction of its leap. But it was on the point and had transfixed itself before its intelligence, however keen, could ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... to the door, avoiding his outstretched arm with an artless art which made me writhe; for once I had been the willing victim of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... of wind comes and tugs at them they are as the stump of a tooth that will not move, and the leaves (such of them as are left), which in summer made a music as pleasant as that of windbells, rattle in their branches like the laughter of a skeleton. The oak and the thorn-bush could scarcely writhe more if they were crippled by rheumatism. Every leaf on the sycamore is spotted as if with some ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... writhe under the tortures of your guilty acts," continued Ella, in the same bitter tone; "for you have much to ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... the soul and life and manhood out of him, as it did at night before burrowing its way ten million miles below the floor of Hell with him, and immuring him in a molten incandescent tomb where he could not even scream or writhe. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... under or through it. Many crippled lay flat for hours, not daring to rise for succour. If any one asked a comrade for a drink of water, he saw the bottle, or the hand passing it, pierced by a Dum-Dum or a one-pounder shell. If he raised his head to writhe in his pain, he felt ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... sombre evenings when the sighing of the wind recalls the moaning of a dying man. A fitful storm was brewing, and between the plashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments, the trees writhe in pain and hide their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. I was suffering from my wound. But a short time before I had a mistress and a friend. The mistress had deceived ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... hope of her. But what hope was there of her? And he was jealous, detestably jealous, so jealous that in that direction he did not dare to let his mind go. He sawed at the bit and brought it back, or he would have had to writhe about the carriage. His thoughts ran furiously all over the place to avoid that pit. And now he found himself flashing at moments into wild and hopeless rebellion against the institution of marriage, of which he had hitherto sought always to be the dignified ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... I think of these things a black shadow stalks over my heart. I hear a voice, "Fool, and do you still think that you are ever to escape from this? Do you not perceive that this sordid shame is your lot? Do you not perceive that you may writhe and twist, struggle and pant, toil and serve, till you foam at the lips? Who will heed you! Who will hear you! Who cares anything about you!—Who wants your Art! Who wants your work! ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... shirt had been torn with a thorn that day. He loosed the aparejos and mantas, containing the kitchen-kit; almost magically a fire was started. Water was heating a moment later and slabs of bacon began to writhe.... Savage as he was from hunger, it was marvellously colorful to the fresh-eyed Cairns—his first view of a pack-train. The mules, relieved of their burdens, were rolling on the dusty turf. Thirty mountain-mules, under packs one-third their own ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... 'tis from Wallabout. 'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks, Strewn and held fast ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... The wire, Argo." He took the length of wire, gleaming white-hot, as the leering, gloating Argo turned the current into it—Tarrano took it, lashed it upon the poor wretch's naked back and legs. Welts arose, and the stench of burning flesh. A measured score of the passionless strokes made him writhe ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... whole hour he worked with her, and at length subdued the convulsions of pain which distorted the beautiful face and made the childlike body writhe. He had a resentment against the crime which had been committed. Marriage had not made her into a woman; it had driven her back into an arrested youth. It was as though she ought to have worn short skirts and her hair in a long braid down her back. Hers was the body of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... our left and high in air a puff of smoke appeared, a pearl-grey, fleecy cloud, and as I, unsuspecting, watched it writhe into fantastic shapes, my ears were smitten with a deafening ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... grow old you will say to your grandchildren: 'Once I lit a cigar with a thousand-dollar check.' The oldest inhabitant will be silenced forever; it may become history. And then, too, if there are spirits, as Scripture says there are, your uncle's will writhe at the performance. I trust that you will forgive me my part in the matter. I have taken a fancy to you, and if you will accept my friendship I shall be happy to accept yours. Your uncle's revenge will not be a marker to the restitution his ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... their voice on the townships of Judah; Like the guards on her fields 17 They are round and upon her, For Me she defied!(211) Thy ways and thy deeds have done 18 These things to thee. This evil of thine how bitter! It strikes to the heart. O my bowels! My bowels, I writhe! 19 O walls of my heart! My heart is in storm upon me, I cannot keep silence.(212) For the sound of the trump thou hast heard, O my soul, The uproar of battle. Ruin upon ruin is summoned, 20 The land is undone! ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... the object of his tyranny act his part. He entreated, he adjured all around him to save him from so dreaded a fate—in vain, of course—for his affected agonies only riveted the determination of his tyrant. It was a new delight to see him writhe in agony, and strive to draw back from those who were urging him to the boat. He was forced in, borne to the island, and left to his task. But this was not enough. He could not escape in the broad light of day, from a spot directly under the eyes of his tormentors, while between him and the ship ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... writhe as he watched the two riders out of sight, and then muttering in an ill-used way, "Pick 'em out with a pin indeed!" he half turned in his seat, lolling in his saddle, and patting and playing with his horse, when lazily turning his eyes ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... inner pavilion an exhibition of anacondas,—four,—which the showman took, one by one, from a large box, under some blankets, and hung round his shoulders. They seemed almost torpid when first taken out, but gradually began to assume life, to stretch, to contract, twine and writhe about his neck and person, thrusting out their tongues and erecting their heads. Their weight was as much as he could bear, and they hung down almost to the ground when not contorted,—as big round as a thigh, almost,—spotted ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... picture that was meant to be all so gay and glad? But ah! and ah! where, in what business of this hard world, is not prosperity built upon the struggle of toiling men, who still endeavor their poor best, and writhe and writhe under the burden of their brothers above, till they lie still under the lighter load of their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... say to himself what he would do to his cousin, for his uncle had worked himself up now to deliver a sounding tirade upon his base, disgraceful conduct, finding plenty of epithets suitable as he considered for the occasion, and making the poor lad writhe as he lay there, hot and panting beneath the undeserved reproaches till he was quite out of breath; while, to make matters worse, Sam put in a word or two in a murmuring tone—"He knew how it would be," and "It was of no ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... struggling in the nightmare's grip, Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip, And lost a great occasion Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe With hate, on platforms oft so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... fluttered, the old hands fell away, the jaw relaxed, serenity came to the lined face, and no little dignity. For the first time the girl gave way, lying prone, sobbing out her grief while the two cowmen looked aside. The bay horse began to groan and writhe. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... where it had pleased God to place him; next he had to show how well he could bear pain. In all his trials he had been cheerful, forcible, natural, and straightforward. In this deep one he preserved the same character. Forced to throw himself down and writhe upon the floor in his paroxysms of pain, he rose up, livid with exhaustion, and with the sweat of anguish on his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the angel of God still guarded the child, it began to writhe as if suffering the torments of hell, and shrank back toward ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... something which men have agreed to call genius. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most perfect works have still one foot of clay. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... handle, and if at any time its owner fancied that I was turning my toes out, he did not say anything, but with a dexterity acquired by practice he delivered a sharp blow with that hammer on my foot which made me writhe with pain. Nothing vexed him more than any appearance of gentleness or tenderness. I loved my pony, Lily, and did not like to beat her when she was doing her best, and she had hard work to keep up with ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... figures. Power and voluptuousness blaze there, unbridled and superb. In the angles nude men, painted caryatides, jut out in such high relief that at the first glance one takes them for statues; a colossal breath swells their chests; their thighs and their shoulders writhe. On the ceiling a Mercury, entirely nude, is almost a figure by Rubens, but of a more gross sensuality. A gigantic Neptune urges before him his sea-horses which plash through the waves; his foot presses the edge of his chariot; his enormous and ruddy body is turned backwards; ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant arms, and a tangle of human faces blanch and writhe! ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... disputed succession! No religious super-serviceable zeal! No poisonous monster! No affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the pressure of their support! We writhe under their perfidious gripe! They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo! these are the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was thick enough to defend me from the bite of this animal, I could not help shuddering with horror. Conseil and the sailor of the Nautilus awoke at this moment. Captain Nemo pointed out the hideous creature, which a blow from the butt end of a gun knocked over; I saw the claws of the monster writhe in horrible convulsions. This incident reminded me that other animals more to be feared might haunt these obscure depths, against whose attacks my ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the marble breast, the gash upon the brow, You raised us on the bloody planks with wild and wrathful vow! High in the air you lifted us, that every writhe of pain Might be an endless curse to him, at whose word we were slain; That he might see us in the gloom, or in the daylight's shine, Whether he turns his Bible's leaf, or quaffs his foaming wine; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... lob-worm; each leech seized the worm, the one took the head, the other the tail. As the worm got gradually swallowed the two leeches came to very close quarters, and at last touched. What was to happen? would they twist and writhe about and break the worm, and so share the "grub" between them? No; the one fellow quickly proceeded to swallow his antagonist. I watched him carefully, and he succeeded in getting down the red lane about an inch of his companion; ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... the effect of Gillray's, Rowlandson's, and George Cruikshank's etching-needles upon their victims—how these latter would writhe under a stab that was often virulent in its brutality, merciless, scurrilous, and cruel. We know how money passed—at least, in their earlier years—to influence the political opinions of the caricaturists, less in the hope of damaging "the other ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... and kiss her brow, the smile on her lips, the shape of her face, can breathe the whiteness of her skin; which enables me almost to feel, to play with the black masses of her curling hair?—Could you see me when I leap with hope—when I writhe under the myriad darts of despair—when I tramp through the mire of Paris to quell my irritation by fatigue? I have fits of collapse comparable to those of a consumptive patient, moods of wild hilarity, terrors as of a murderer ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... Anthony shook the Panamannikin loose, then ran forward across the street until he brought up at the end of the slack and felt the hose behind him writhe and swell as Allan released his hold. The next instant the negro was at his side, and the two found themselves half blistered by the heat that rolled out upon them. But the newly ignited roof was within range, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Laidly Worm Hath made a loathly den, And there hath fed for a weary term On the bodies and souls of men. There doth it writhe, and ramp, and slower, Whilst in its coils close prest Are the things it thrives on—"Landlord Power," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... of this crowd to-night shall tread The dance till daylight gleam again? Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead? Who writhe ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... bursting lungs, fought against the outrage in a purely physical frenzy over which his will power had no control. Nor would insensibility come to his relief—Law watched him too carefully for that. He could not even voice his sufferings by shrieks; he could only writhe and retch and gurgle while the ropes bit into his flesh and his captor knelt upon him like a ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... to moan, and groan, and roll his eyes, and reel and totter about; and when the stranger was close at hand, down he sprawled before him, with a shriek, and began to writhe and wallow in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "company" manners are polished, but who is at heart a cruel boor. He can stab her with a sneer which only she can understand; he can delicately hint to her that she is in subjection, and he can assume an air of cool triumph as he watches her writhe. I have often observed passages of domestic drama which looked very like comedy at first sight, but which were ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... his muscles stiffened and relaxed—he was no longer conscious. A few more convulsive quivers, as a serpent might writhe and jerk, then he hung, a limp dead thing, in my hands. My outstretched arms seemed made as a gibbet, feeling no fatigue, so lightly did they sustain him. Cords of brass could be no more tense than mine; his weight was as nothing. Softly I eased ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... to cringe and cower and bring a shrine a forced and faithless faith Is far more futile than to fling your laughter in the face of Death. For writhe or whirl in dervish rout, they are not flattered there on high, Or sham belief to hide a doubt—no gods are mine that love a lie! Nor gods that beg belief on earth with portents that some seer foretells— Is life itself not wonder-worth that we must cry for miracles? ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... round and take a small piece out of his hinder parts with its teeth, but its nose is tied up to the roof of the stable, and its hind feet are pulled out and tied to a peg behind it, so that it can only writhe and cultivate that amiable temper which characterizes so many horses in this country. And the syce is happy; but his happiness needs constant sustenance. Next morning he is at the door with a request for an anna to buy oil. Horses in this country cannot sleep ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... fight openly and fairly, I will not hate him. If I wanted to touch an adder with my hand I would not catch him by the tail so that it could curl around and sting my hand; I would catch it just behind the head. It might writhe and wriggle, but I should know that it could not bite me. That is how I want to treat the Tresidders. You despise me," I went on; "you see me now a thing that has to hide like a rabbit in burrow. Well, perhaps it is ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... supper, Cousin Frank was on his way from the stables to the house, and saw what he mistook for a carriage whip lying in the walk. The moon was shining and he had no doubt as to what the thing was when he stooped to pick it up. Before he touched it, it made one swift writhe and dart and struck ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... another reason why he did not breathe a word to her of his suspicions, and that was the slow dread that was laming him—the dread of her contempt. She made no further attempt to drape it; and he had learned to writhe before it, to cringe and go softly. Weeks had passed now, since the night on which he had made his last stand against her weeks of increasing torture. Just at first, incredible as it had seemed, his horrible treatment of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... common, but cosmopolitan. But such are the apparent contradictions of life, that this virtue, which so many seem to possess, all hold the highest. There is probably no man, however miserable, who would not writhe at being exposed a coward. Why should the common be precious? ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... might have made a very fairly good imitation of a gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his wife—timid, and all too gentle—could only wince under the things he said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the husband. She was one of those women who invariably inspire sweeping and contradictory criticisms ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... seemed to increase in violence every minute. The rain redoubled its fury. Frightful thunders echoed each other's roars. The flatboat, tossed by the wind and waves, seemed to writhe in agony, while now and then the trunks of uprooted trees, lifted by the waves, smote it as they passed. Without a thought of the people in the hut, I made every effort to keep awake in the face of these menaces ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... by the multitudes of fish of brilliant colors, together with large medusae, which dart or glide through the sunlit waters among the coral-groves, where every coral spray is gemmed with zoophytes, whose rainbow-tinted arms sway with the undulations of the water, and where sea-snakes writhe themselves away into the ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... let me go down to the brook, I'm sorry they gave me the line and the hook, And I wish I had stayed at home with my book. I'm sure 'twas no pleasure to see That poor, little, harmless, suffering thing, Silently writhe at the end of the string; Or to hold the pole, while I felt him swing In torture, and all ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... the nature of a brutal assault. Dominic's brawny arm would be seen describing deliberately an ample horizontal gesture, a dignified sweep, and Cesar would go over suddenly like a ninepin—which was funny to see. But, once down, he would writhe on the deck, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage—which was pretty horrible to behold. And it also happened more than once that he would disappear completely- -which was startling to observe. This is the exact truth. Before some of these majestic cuffs Cesar would go down and vanish. He would ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... long and straight and black; his figure seemed to writhe like that of a snake about to strike; then he turned on his heel, went back to the cabin and opened a bottle of champagne. When eight bells were cried, he slept on the floor beside the captain on the locker; and of the whole starboard watch, only Sally Day appeared upon the summons. The mate proposed ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the old face—then it began to writhe, and from each eye oozed scant tears, seeking a channel amid the seams and wrinkles ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... governess could have been nothing but outward formality. Remorse in the sense of gnawing shame and unavailing regret is only understandable to me when some wrong had been done to a fellow-creature. But why she, that girl who existed on sufferance, so to speak—why she should writhe inwardly with remorse because she had once thought of getting rid of a life which was nothing in every respect but a curse— that I could not understand. I thought it was very likely some obscure influence of common forms of speech, some traditional or inherited feeling—a vague ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... other's mouths in the most luscious manner, all the while the inner folds of her tight fitting sheath kept me prisoner, and treated my Cock to the most delicious contractions and pressures, till I was so inflamed, Cupid's charger plunged on his mad career once more, making my dark beauty writhe and squirm in the excess of her ecstatic emotion; several times we seemed to stop by mutual consent, and lay for a while enjoying those heavenly sensations. After thus delaying the final crisis to the uttermost, the moment came when the life flood could no longer ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... forever. His favorite prophecy was "Jerusalem shall be destroyed till the time of the heathen shall be fulfilled." The agonies endured by the Christians of Palestine he described with such accuracy of language and appropriateness of gesture, that his hearers seemed to see them writhe under the lash and to hear ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! What a fine agony works upon his brow! Ha! gray-haired, and so strong! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! Gods! if I could ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... you who spoiled my appearance for the rest of my days!" cried Barbemouche. "May you writhe in the ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the Hebertist Python did hiss and writhe amazingly; and threaten 'sacred right of Insurrection;'—and, as we saw, get cast into Prison. Nay, with all the old wit, dexterity, and light graceful poignancy, Camille, translating 'out of Tacitus, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... they are not at rest! Can they neither live nor die? See, they writhe in their throbbing grave! While the nervous mesh of the quivering flesh Its strange anguish renews as the hot, bloody dews Follow the track of my Beautiful back As they rush into life again, Bringing nought ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lad's sheer daft with admiration of his pa. He've lifted his pa above God Almighty. When he finds out the truth, he'll fall down and scream in agony, an' he'll die squirmin', too. I can fair hear un now—an' see un writhe ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... made whether all companions expected were present, the red flag began to quiver and writhe most noticeably and finally to unfurl, and there emerged from its depths the dirtiest and most slovenly man I had ever seen, and the frouziest and most repulsive of dogs. This man, if man I may call him, was bony and ill-built, and appeared to consist largely of hands and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... he maintains complete silence, and merely makes chewing motions with his strong-toothed jaws as he sits wagging his beard from side to side. At such times there is in his eyes a bluish fire like the gleam of charcoal, while his crooked fingers writhe like worms, and his outward appearance becomes sheerly that of a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... offensive, but was at the same time so polished, that it would indicate a want of good breeding to be annoyed at it. It was thus a real treat for Uncle Richard to see the magistrate, with all his aplomb, writhe under Delphin's adroit and sarcastic rejoinders. Aalbom, on the other hand, was not so well bred, and often, therefore, broke through conventionalities, to the great delight of both ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... freshness of his life on the ocean. Mosquitoes nipped him until he could scarcely endure the intense irritation. He would have given anything for a little water; but though he heard a sentry pacing up and down outside, he did not venture to call to him, and could only writhe in heat and torture, longing for the dawn, yet fearing it and what it ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... let me go down to the brook; I'm sorry they gave me the line and the hook; And wish I had staid at home with my book! I'm sure 'twas no pleasure to see That poor little harmless, suffering thing Silently writhe at the end of the string, Or to hold the pole, while I felt him swing In torture,—and ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... is to be congratulated." Kamimura Goemon sniffed. He was a long man; with long face, long nose, long thin arms, long thin legs; a malicious man, who longed to give advice to his fellows which they much disliked to hear, and liked to see them writhe under the infliction. In fact this epitome of length rarely spoke in good faith or temper—"The Go Inkyo[u] is to be congratulated? Escaping the troubles of this world, perhaps he has fallen into worse troubles in the next." At this unorthodox reply Mizoguchi Hambei showed surprise. Continued ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of triumph, then I'll goad you till you writhe again; Then shall you curse the evil hour You made ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Glenarvan and his party hurried away to the eastern side of their refuge, which was meantime untouched by the fire. They were all silent, troubled, and terrified, as they watched branch after branch shrivel, and crack, and writhe in the flame like living serpents, and then drop into the swollen torrent, still red and gleaming, as it was borne swiftly along on the rapid current. The flames sometimes rose to a prodigious height, and seemed almost lost in the atmosphere, and sometimes, beaten down by the hurricane, closely ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... an accusing stare at the speaker that made the fat boy writhe, for he knew what was passing in the mind of ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... and political freedom of the cultivators of the soil. These now complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless bondage, under grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of discontent, which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the people who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year, and that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United States, it may at any time be suddenly swollen ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... providential. As to their outpourings of abuse, my philosophy resembles that of the old whipper-in of the Meynell-Ingram Hounds:—"I bain't a cruel chap, I bain't. But when I puts the lash among the hounds I dew like to hear 'em yowl; I dew like to see 'em skip, and writhe, and look mad. For if ye don't make 'em feel, and if ye can't hear 'em yowl, there's railly no ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... loathe your ways, You writhe at these my words of warning, In agony your hands you raise." (And so they ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... he corrected her, trying not to writhe under her hot contempt. "The enemy-to-man hunt, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... He would writhe and scream, babble and plead and sob. Perhaps there have been men who have endured torture with dignity, but Jimmie was not one of these. Jimmie was abject, Jimmie was frantic; he did anything, everything he could think of—save one thing, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... head of the table an opportunity of drinking the health of a red-faced old gentleman near the foot, upon whom he bestowed an amount of flattery perfectly bewildering; and after making the unfortunate red-faced gentleman writhe for half an hour in a fever of modesty, sat down amid thunders of applause. Whether the applause, by the way, was intended for the speaker or the speakee, I do not know; but being quite indifferent, I clapped my hands with the rest. The red-faced ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... curio-shops; in the grotesque figures, the playthings, the idols, cruel, suspicious, mad; it is even found in the buildings: in the friezes of the religious porticoes, in the roofs of the thousand pagodas, of which the angles and cable-ends writhe and twist like the yet dangerous remains ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... twenty-five yards, and it was fire so murderous that, before the cowboys could get out of range, ten were dead or wounded, while two of the sheepmen were killed outright and a third was disabled and rolled out into the sun to writhe in agony until his pal ran from cover and dragged ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... stooping and crawling and slouching behind hillocks, up peat-hags, and through marshy swamps; while the heat produced by all this painful toil was liable to a sudden chill whenever a halt was called to enable Roderick to writhe his prostrate figure up to the top of some slight eminence, where, raising his head inch by inch, he once more informed himself of the whereabouts of the deer. There seemed to be no end to this snake-like squirming along the ground and creeping behind ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... set of gossiping ninnies. They conducted a conversation (if it could be dignified by a name) of which no stranger could possibly partake, and which, by a hideous coincidence, was making his friend writhe, figuratively speaking, for Harkless sat like a fixed shadow. He uttered scarcely a word the whole evening, though Meredith knew that his guests would talk about him enthusiastically, the next day, none the less. The journalist's silence was enforced by the topics; but what expression ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... into tears at any sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, murmurings, creakings, soft shufflings, irritated him. Loud noises, the slamming of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, made him writhe in agony. For Colin the deep silence of the Manor was the ambush for some stupendous, crashing, annihilating sound; sound that was always coming and never came. The droop of the mouth that used to appear suddenly in his moments of childish anguish was fixed now, ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... great anguish had me in its grip. I might writhe and bite as I would, it was to be all in vain. Hideous plans arose to my ingenuity, born of this agony of terror and fear. I could murder Stagers, but what good would that do. As to File, he was safe from my hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various |
