vexing glass

plural vexing glasses

1. A glass curiosity that is designed to create complex visual effects, often through the use of intricate surface patterns, and curved lenses or reflective surfaces.

   Müller achieves this presentist vexing-glass effect although he remains textually much closer to Shakespeare's play than Dürrenmatt .

   2019, Taking Stock – Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research, page 527

   2 more examples

   In the German quarter of the city of New York, that is, in that part of the great American metropolis where German life appears as if it were reflected in a vexing glass' ; where the houses are high , the rooms low , and the streets narrow ; where the sunbeams breed miasma from the grocer's cabbage , the saloon - keeper's empty barrels , and the landlord's garbage boxes on the sidewalks—there I found the habitation of the educated German mechanic.

   1900, Henry W. Cherouny, The Burial of the Apprentice, page 11

   Normal notions, correctly appreciated by the intellect, thus become caricature when reflected in the vexing-glass of the emotions, and it cannot be surprising if individuals with such a contrary mind are prone to act in a contrary manner .

   1909, Heinrich Oppenheimer, The Criminal Responsibility of Lunatics, page 197