cobwebbing

“. . . the jaundiced skin, crinkled and waxy . . . stretched so thin that every vein and frayed capillary manifested itself like a gruesome road map, revealing large hematomas, red and pulsing underneath; the cavernous indentions above his eyebrows, making his eyes appear sunken; and most horrifying of all, the bridge of a nose stopping almost before it started, leaving no cartilage to cover the two large, black holes from which he breathed. A missing upper lip opened to a row of teeth, so perfect and straight, that like the strong and flawless chin below, they mocked the jigsaw-puzzle face above.”
― A.G. Howard, RoseBlood

“I hope you'll never become so good at building walls that you can't see when they need to be pulled down.”
― Susan Kay, Das Phantom: Die bisher ungeschriebene Lebensgeschichte des "Phantoms der Oper"

“My friend is not "mistrustful" of me, no, because she don't fear I shall make mainprize of the stray cloaks & umbrellas down-stairs, or turn an article for "Colburn's" on her sayings & doings up-stairs--but, spite of that, she does mistrust . . . so mistrust my common sense; nay, uncommon and dramatic-poet's sense, if I am put on asserting it!--all which pieces of mistrust I could detect, and catch struggling, and pin to death in a moment, and put a label on, with name, genus & species, just like a horrible entomologist; only I wo'n't, because the first visit of the North wind will carry the whole tribe into the Red Sea--and those horns and tails and scalewings are best forgotten altogether.”
― Robert Browning, The Love Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning: Romantic Correspondence between two great poets of the Victorian era

“Forgive me. I am shy by nature:--& by position & experience, . . . by having had my nerves shaken to excess, & by leading a life of such seclusion, . . . by these things together & by others besides, I have appeared shy & ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people do not write as I write, . . . surely!”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Love Letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning