Twisting

“ Now, if our theory is true, a twist ought to attract its image twist, and repel a twist like itself.
And as far as can be observed it is always a fact that a movement of any kind taking place in a medium does attract its image movement, and repel a movement like itself. ”

“ There seemed a tension in the air—as if something was going to snap. Doubtless you have often felt it—a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over. As though you wanted to scream—to cry out—against an uncertain sensation that gripped you. ”

“ For a moment chaos reigned. Some enormous clouds, like huge blots of ink, swept through a host of smaller ones, which were scattered and floated like shreds of rag which the wind tore to pieces and carried off thread by thread. ”

“ The fluid which emanates from that wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead! low—low,—lower still!”
“What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?”
“I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your eye; otherwise you would—you would—Oh, release me! Away! away!” ”

“ Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert; as, to twist a passage cited from an author.
3. To distort, as a solid body, by turning one part relatively to another about an axis passing through both; to subject to torsion; as, to twist a shaft.
4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts. "Longing to twist bays with that ivy." Waller.
There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
T. Burnet.
5. To wind into; to insinuate; — used reflexively; as, avarice twists itself into all human concerns. ”

“ There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling and rumbling from peak to peak up the gorge, then died down, and ceased. The spell broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, saying,
“Something’s blown up!” ”

“ Oh, the footfalls! the footfalls! Each tread marks a good or a wicked thought. A fiend or an angel starts beneath every heel. They write an eternal [255] record as they go. Their voices float forever to witness against or for us. We people space as we cleave it. The ground that is dumb as we spurn it has a memory and a revenge. I am more sensitive than my kind; and my penance to these monitors of my sin is but a realization of the terror which all must feel at the accusation of their footfalls. ”

“ But hark, what sound is it which falls upon his ear, making him quake with fear, and, in spite of his aching ankle, creep farther behind the hay! It is a footstep—a light, tripping step, and it comes that way, nearer, nearer, until a shadow falls between the open chinks and the bright sunshine without. ”

“ How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath? They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. ”

“ It was the whistle—the shrieking, appealing whistle—that caused the revulsion, but the revulsion was instantaneous. The passion for revenge went out, as had that fire of dry turf and stalks, and in its place surged up a sea of terror, self-reproach, agony, and pity. ”

“ When the great angry waves arise,
In long low lines against the skies,
And, with a sullen motion,
Dash themselves against the rocks,
Raising a cloud of foam, which mocks
Their sullenness—then falling, dies. ”

“ It is like the dancing of the Dervishes—faster and faster, furious and more furious, higher and higher, so quick at last that the eye cannot follow the movements,—and then comes the breaking out of the wild demoniac cries, and the convulsive excitement, which is finally satisfied with nothing but the letting of blood. ”

“ One and all, they are eloquent upon the subject of unforeseen vexations, the ever-hindering “happenings” that, like the knots tied in wire-grass across the path by mischievous fairies, are continually tripping them up. ”

“ Each bubble was so crowded with reflections from the zenith, that it must share its bursting sympathy, and marry with every bubble it overtook and touched, until it became so full of fantasies that it must merrily explode and be resolved into a drop and a sunbeam. ”

“ Every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us. ”

“ A terrible blow, as with a whip, an uproar, a shattering blow. The earth trembled and torn-off leaves whirled through the air. Snatching for air, and holding on with both hands to the support of the cross, so as not to be swept away. ”

“ How often did a tremble shake his frame, and cold drops of terror start upon his brow, when a sudden trampling of feet caused him to fear that something too dreadful to think of had even then occurred. ”

“ There is a teasing that is pleasurable, and is only another form of innocent raillery, but that which provokes, and irritates, and makes the eye flash with anger is to be reprehended. It would be less blameworthy to take a bunch of thorns and draw them across your sister's cheek, or to take a knife and draw its sharp edge across your brother's hand till the blood spurts, for that would damage only the body, but teasing is the thorn and the knife, scratching and lacerating the disposition and the soul. ”

“ He felt one thing only: a blow had fallen and life was sundered like a cord, and all of him was being drawn along in the clutches of something chill and unfamiliar. Sometimes it seemed to him that a whirlwind had swooped down upon him, and he had the sensation of its swift whirling round and the irregular beating of its dark wings. ”

“ A lull of a few seconds follows, and then the broad, mighty torrent of the wind bursts upon them in its uninterrupted fury, and for a while it seems as if they must be swept away by its persistent, tremendous force. ”

“ Sometimes, with laughing eyes, she would whirl round like a boolee, or whirlwind. Then suddenly she would change to a stately measure. Then for variety's sake perform a series of swift gyrations, as if, indeed, a whirlwind devil had her in his grip. ”

“ On ordinary occasions, there was a solemnity, a coldness, in this sombre vestibule; but to-night a strange electric activity seemed to have been breathed upon the atmosphere. Women with flushed faces and men with feverishly bright eyes hurried to and fro in an irrepressible, aimless agitation. A blending of dread and hysterical anticipation was stamped upon every face. People stopped one another with nervous, unstrung gesture and odd, disjointed sentences. ”

“ This was nothing more nor less than a faint creaking, such as had followed my own lifting of the board which hid the domino and mask; a noise that was speedily followed by one yet more distinct and of a nature to convince me beyond a doubt that my own action was being repeated by some unknown hand. Whose? Curiosity, love, honor, every impulse of my being impelled me to find out. I moved like a spirit towards the stairs. ”

“ It did touch me to a sort of tenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot—cursing and reviling all the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst the flames licked upward toward her face and catched her thin locks and crackled about her old gray head—cursing them! why an' thou should'st live a thousand years thoud'st never hear so masterful a cursing. ”

“ On the slightest provocation the fingers of his right hand would curve and clutch, and a fierce longing seize him to compass the extinction of life in some animate being—to feel the slackening of the muscles in some victim—an emotion elemental, barbarous, cruel, but keen, masterful and pervading. ”

“ Once break roughly upon the affections, or even the fancied affections of such a soul, and you breed a tornado of maddened action—a whirlwind of fire that hisses and sends out jets of wild, impulsive combustion that make the bystanders—even those most friendly—stand aloof until the storm is past. ”

“ Worse than that alternative dirty drab, your recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous revelations of the filthy foul; for nature will force her way, and if you try to stifle her by drowning she comes up, not the fairest part of her uppermost! ”

“ It is not so much the sighing of the blast as that pause, as Gray expresses it, "when the gust is recollecting itself," that thrills us, and is infinitely grander than the importunate howlings of the storm. ”

“ And as a poor woman heaps dry twigs round a blazing brand—a daughter of toil, whose task is the spinning of wool, that she may kindle a blaze at night beneath her roof, when she has waked very early—and the flame waxing wondrous great from the small brand consumes all the twigs together ”

“ Hitting out right and left, throwing things down on the floor, breaking them, howling, and wild, agitated movement of the arms and whole body—these are the outward vents which the gust of fury is wont to take. ”

“ But when to the sight is added the appalling effect of the various unnatural and fearful noises, the muttering and sighing, the groaning and blowing, the every agonized struggling of the mighty action within—as a whole it is too horrible! ”

“ If the tensions change from moment to moment entirely, we have a broken, a fragmentary effect, as that of zigzag, where all is dropping and picking up again of associated motions; in the straight line, much prolonged, we have a gradual and inexorable rending of these tendencies to associated movements. ”

“ From a state of collapse the laws of his being bring the bird into normal behavior as quickly and completely as the collapsed rubber ball is rounded by the laws of its being. The memory of the fright seems to be an impression exactly like the dent in the rubber ball—as if it had never been. ”

“ Then, with a heavy sigh, he moves to his work, and stands looking at it, with his head down; he does a stitch or two, having the air of a man so lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a coming to life. ”

“ Oh, but you have. I trust you implicitly because you stand under the shadow of the scaffold, and at a word from me the bolt is drawn. You will postpone all thought of revenge until your neck is out of the noose ”

“ What strange twist in his mind leads him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of letters. ”

“ From time to time, a trouble of which the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface. A mysterious wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then re-appears; an air-bubble rises and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown beast. ”

“ The turbulence is manifested by a composite sound, somewhat muffled, the trampling of feet, bellowings and angry shoutings, and a rattle of drums; and the repeated blare of fierce trumpets. Then [2] a girl’s voice is heard screaming in an anguish of fear and protest ”

“ There would be disenchantment indeed, and a graver walk, and a more subdued voice, and a less self-asserting tone, but there would not be that exquisite, that annihilating horror that ensues when the scattering of the vapour discloses a reality the reverse at every point of what we had imagined. ”

“ She holds the torch near to look and its light floods her face, while he smiles, for she reveals her own unconscious beauty in the act of pitying his hands, blunted, stiffened and begrimed by his foul task. ”

“ If you build up a series of mysterious incidents, the solution must be adequate to the suspense. But, I have treated this angle of secret-keeping in "preparation versus result," so I shall now direct your attention to the other side of the problem of dramatic frankness—which may be the cause of the lack of punch:
2. Have You been too Frank at the Beginning?
Go back through the early moments of your playlet and see if you have not given the whole thing away at the very beginning. If you have, you have, as we saw, killed your suspense, which is the road on which punch lies in wait. ”

“ One could only fight it with violence, crudely, in jerks, as one struggles against the numbness of frost. It was like a pall, like descending clouds of smoke, seemed to be actually present in the absurdly lofty room—this belief in what she stood for, in what she said she stood for. ”

“ He stumbles and almost falls, causing a titter among the giddy young folk, at the back, while old ones shake their heads, and make the sign of the Cross, for the omen forebodes nothing good. The tension of suspense, of excitement, is so acute, that the most trivial occurrence calls forth nervous merriment, or flood of tears. ”

“ One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound—strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. ”

“ Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise—perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it—and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end. ”