Nor could I forget the humble distinction of the aged sexton, Mortefee, whose skill in psalmody enabled him to lead that wretched group of singers, whom Hogarth so happily portrayed; whose performance with the pitch-fork excited so much wonder in little boys; and whose gesticulations and contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not outdone even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel!

He rode straight up, and a cheer came from the spectators when they saw that he was not touching leather in the midst of the fiercest contortions of Diablo.

There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity.

Then any body who would have taken the trouble to look, might have seen a gentleman opening the door of a chariot with profuse bows, and smiles, and graceful contortions; and then a lady accepting the proffered hand with solemn courtesy; and then Mr. Roundjacket might have been observed leading the lady elegantly into the office.

Roundjacket laughed in his sleeve at his companion's contortions, and on their way back stopped at the barber and surgeon's.

He seized him suddenly and, pushing him backwards into his easychair, stood over him with such hideous contortions of visage that Mr. Culpepper was horrified.

I have seen them so piled up that the under ones were nearly smothered to death; and the writhing contortions of the long bare necks, as the fierce brutes battled with talons and claws, were like the twisting of monster snakes, or the furious writhing of gorgons and furies over some fated victim.

Those face-contortions, retortions, distortions, have the merriness of antics.

Mr. Wilks laughed scornfully and essayed a sneer, while his friends, regarding his contortions with some anxiety, expressed a fear that he was not quite himself.

In his earnestness he came nearer and nearer, his contortions every moment becoming more extraordinary, his whistling more piercing; and I, by this time convulsed by awful, helpless laughter, could only shrink farther back in my seat and gasp feebly, "Please don't.

I am afraid most of these contortions are the product of the snapshot camera.

Noiselessly enough, and without that redness of nose, those contortions of face, which render them so unbecoming to most women.

They laugh at the contortions of grimace, but of the mysteries of mind or the pains of heart which underlie the contortions they know nothing.

They laugh at the contortions of grimace, but of the mysteries of mind or the pains of heart which underlie the contortions they know nothing.

One of the roughs danced an ungraceful measure to the music of the accordion, mimicking, as he did so, the queer contortions into which the musician twisted his features in perfect harmony with his woful strains.

But the grotesque contortions of one participant had struck him as somewhat overdone, even for the comical type of negro.

With their painted faces, smeared and striped with every vivid colour, their streaming scalp-locks, their waving arms, their open mouths, and their writhings and contortions, no more fiendish crew ever burst into a sleeper's nightmare.

During Stella's performance, which followed, the orchestra played jerkily and then stopped, for Yvonne had never yet succeeded in looking on at the child's contortions without a pang of the heart.

Vile, odious, horrid, detestable, and sweet, charming, delightful, astonishing, compose almost his whole vocabulary, which he utters with various contortions and gesticulations, not easily related or described.

They range themselves in a circle and dance with violent contortions and gesticulations, some of them graceful, others only energetic, the squaws, who stand a little apart and mingle their discordant voices with the music of the instruments, rarely participating in the dance.

"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's in town to-night visitin' Miss AldersJohnny!" to a small boy who had been following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red, and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight in vigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's a gentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse.

The Master, quite unmindful of the quickening bloodstream down his face and neck, looked sharplyas if impersonally interested in some problem of ballisticsat the spinning, gyrating figure that with grotesque contortions plummeted the depths.

For every soul of a woman that it saves it sends two men on the road to hell!" So intense was the old man's displeasure and so ludicrous the twisting contortions of his face that Nathaniel could hardly restrain himself from bursting into a roar of laughter.

The ecstacy of the blacksmith on discovering the 'right missis' at last was very funny, and was expressed with such extraordinary grimaces, contortions, and gesticulations, that I thought I should have died of laughing at this rapturous identification of my most melancholy relation to the poor fellow.

This motto was almost the account that the twisted figure, with queer contortions of face, yet delicate feet and hands, and dainty utterance, might have been expected to give, when Anne asked him, "Was it you, really?" "Ior my double?"