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More "Twang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your roof?" asked the first, speaking with a nasal twang I couldn't quite place. "Will it take this bit of a ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... not exactly the genuine twang, but I hope no one will observe that but himself. I have more incidents in it than usual in works of the class—an elopement, a divorce, a duel, a ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... with its opulent colour, luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... continued eating in the dark, his hand, from habit, going to his mouth. His attention being thus called to the force of habit, the strong- armed son of Pandu set his heart upon practising with his bow in the night. And, O Bharata, Drona, hearing the twang of his bowstring in the night, came to him, and clasping him, said, 'Truly do I tell thee that I shall do that unto thee by which there shall not be an archer equal to thee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... and hence it is that habitual snuff-takers are often unable to speak with proper distinctness; and the sense of taste for the same reason is very much obtunded. A snuffer may always be distinguished by a certain nasal twang—an asthmatic wheezing—and a sort of disagreeable noise in respiration, which is nearly allied to incipient snoring. Snuff also frequently occasions fleshy excrescences in the nose, which, in some instances, end in polypi. Individuals have oftentimes a predisposition ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... I see an archer in the very act of discharging his arrow, a dancer with one foot in the air, or a gladiator extending his fist to all eternity, I grow tired, and ask, When will they perform what they are about? When will the bow twang? the foot come to the ground? or the fist meet its adversary? Such wearisome attitudes I can view with admiration, but never with pleasure. The wrestlers, for example, in the same apartment, filled me with disgust: I cried ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... was eight, the day Sunday, the time the first clear week in June. They sat together on the porch of the Kennedy, listening to the sound of the Upper House singing rising clearly above the twang of banjos across the campus ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... say this place of Thayor's was?" The voice was harsh and peremptory—with a nasal twang in it and a faint trace of Jewish accent, despite the fact that he spoke the dialect of ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... you's out o' sorts. Haan' I got nof'n berrer to do dan be tellin' tales ob old women dat's a-waitin' for de Lord's salvation?" said Flor, with a twang of great gravity,—and proceeded thereat to make her exit in a series of lively somersaults through the room and over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... family were prisoners. One thing that surprised and shocked us was to hear the little kids swearing; they would use the most frightful oaths, and the funny part of it was that they gave them the pure cockney twang; I suppose they had heard and were imitating the Imperial troops. Well, after travelling all day we finally arrived in C—— and we were marched off to our first billets. I belonged to "C" Company and we were quartered in a barn connected with a farmhouse. It was late when we arrived, and ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly, and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you tremble;—at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile, and are satisfied that the son is saved!—It is difficult to paint in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several times ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... The twang of a banjo trailed in above the voices, with a sound of scuffling. Loud laughter broke the thread of the song leaving "Mary Ann!" to soar out alone. Then the chorus ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... fire, for Ti-hi, without waiting for orders, drew an arrow to its head, the bow-string gave a loud twang, and the next instant we saw a savage bound from the ledge where he had hidden and run across the intervening space, club in one hand, bow in the other, ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... spared the humiliation of owning it by the entrance of some half-dozen dusky musicians swathed in white and carrying various strangely fashioned instruments, with which they squatted down in a semi-circle by the opposite wall, and began to twang, and drub, and squall with the complacent cacophony of an Eastern orchestra. Clearly Fakrash was determined that nothing should be wanting to make the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... quarrelsome and vigilant, darting out as the stranger approaches the nest, looking like angry coals of brilliant fire, returning several times to the attack with the utmost velocity, at the same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat, somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, and curiously like the real bleat of some small quadruped. At other times the males may be seen darting high up in the air, and whirling about each other in great anger and with ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... itself—was a hatter by trade, who had come to Georgia in search of a precarious livelihood. He obtained permission to build him a little log hut by the side of a running stream; and, for a year or two, people going along the road could hear the snap and twang of his bowstring as he whipped wool or rabbit fur into shape. Some said he was from North Carolina; others said he was from Connecticut; but whether from one State or the other, what should a hatter do away off in the woods in Putnam ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Bob's line hanging limply from his straight bamboo, for there was a furious rush, a dull twang, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... as to have a good sound article of pleasant flavor. With most of the tea found in England, and especially so with that generally used in America, the sugar and cream are no doubt necessary to drown the "twang." A Chinaman would put this practice on a par with putting sugar in Chateau Lafitte. Tea is the wine of the Celestial. A mandarin will "talk" it to you as a gourmet talks wine with us; dilate upon its quality ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... orders a 'pot' of some local brewer's manufacture—a man who knows exactly what he likes, and arranges to meet the hardy digestion of the mower and the reaper. He prefers a rather dark beer with a certain twang faintly suggestive of liquorice and tobacco, with a sense of 'body,' a thickness in it, and which is no sooner swallowed than a clammy palate demands a second gulp to wash away the relics of the first. Ugh! The second requires a third swig, and still a fourth, and appetite increasing with that it ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the good grape brandy which Victorians produce, and which drinkers of some imported stuff (described as one part cognac and three parts silent spirit) fail to recognise as real brandy. If coffee is not muddy and thick and does not possess a mawkish twang of liquorice, it is suspected. The delicate aromatic flavour, the fragrant odour, the genial and stimulant effects are now almost unknown, except in limited circles. North Queensland is capable of growing far more than sufficient ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... still red, and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew. "Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me, bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... serious to a master salesman. If your vocal equipment is physically normal, your voice can be made pleasing. In order to make your tones agreeable, learn to vibrate them naturally through your nose. A mouth tone is displeasing. The so-called "nasal twang" that sounds so unpleasant is a mouth tone prevented from free vibration through the nose. Humming, as you know, both indicates pleasure and is a pleasant sound. It is produced with the mouth ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Tsyn-deh at the head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the twang of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast—also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... modern and sentimental Christianity is very defective in this respect. You cannot love Jesus Christ too much, but you can love Him with too little reverence. And if you take up some of our luscious modern hymns that people are so fond of singing, I think you will find in them a twang of unwholesomeness, just because the love is not reverent enough, and the approaching confidence has not enough of devout awe in it. This generation looks at the half of Christ. When people are suffering from indigestion, they can only see half of the thing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... a good fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man, with large features and spectacles, and a deep internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in it; and he goggled over his plate like a horse. I often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth upwards at the sides. Wordsworth, who notices ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... highly gifted as to intelligence than many young men of his age and class. Like many of them he spoke English admirably, French tolerably, and Italian with a somewhat Roman twang. He had learned a little German and was rapidly forgetting it again; Latin and Greek had been exhibited to him as dead languages, and he felt no more inclination to assist in their resurrection than is felt by most boys in our day. He had been taught geography in the practical, continental ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... diversions of the day are done. The firing squad leave the guns. The twang of guitar and screech ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the new school is a sad backslider. He would think it undignified to beat a boy; he wears a black frock coat, keeps novels in his cabin, wears a finger-ring, and tries to look like a ship-broker. He mixes his north-country accent with a twang learned in the West-end theatres, and he never goes ashore without a tall hat and an umbrella. His walk is a grievous trouble to his mind. The ideal ship-broker has a straight and seemly gait; but no captain who ever tried to imitate the ship-broker ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Boniface Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man. He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... camp, but Fox-eye would not turn back. He drew his arrows from the quiver, and prepared to fight. But, even as he placed an arrow, a Snake had crawled up by his side, unseen. In the still air, the Piegan heard the sharp twang of a bow string, but, before he could turn his head, the long, fine-pointed arrow pierced him through and through. The bow and arrows dropped from his hands, he swayed, and then fell forward on the grass, dead. But ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... bottle contains 160 grammes of a very inelegantly made emulsion, smelling of very common rose-water, with an unpleasant twang about it, and giving a strongly alkaline reaction. It consists of soap, glycerin, and cotton seed oil, made into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... sit i' Parliament Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang; If t' coontry goes to t' dogs, it's 'cause they've sent Ower mony city folk ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... be, he could make any tune sound pretty when he sang it. He had the native gift of ease, pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm—and a delightful sympathetic twang in his voice. His mother must have sung something like that; and all Paris went mad about her. No technical teaching in the world can ever match a genuine ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... labors, and only the Watkinsons can find any delight in dwelling on the failings he possessed in common with meaner mortals. To say that Goethe should be "an object of horror to the whole self-respecting world" is simply to indulge in the twang of the tabernacle. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... cowman, understood the situation; but Camp was restless and uneasy as if he expected to find the cattle in the corrals at the ranch. Camp was years the older of the two, a pudgy man with a florid complexion and nasal twang, and kept the junior member busy answering his questions. Uncle Lance enjoyed the situation, jollying his sister about the elder contractor and quietly inquiring of the red-haired foreman how and where Dupree ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighbouring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Hodgkinson, "excellent! You can't do Mungo half so well. It is I, sir, I that can do Mungo to the very life. Now I say, boys, with what feeling could I pour out from my heart and soul, "Oh cussa heart of my old massa—him damn impudence and his cuss assurance." This he followed with a spirited twang of "Dear heart" on the violin, accompanying it with the words. Again a noise was heard. "What can it be?" said one. "What can it be?" said another. There was a push at the door. "Oh!" cried Hodgkinson, "it's only one of the hogs that roam about the alley, who, having more taste than the old ones, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... I had seen my master into one of the best carriages, and was just about to step into mine, an officer, a full-blooded Yankee of the lower order, saw me. He came quickly up, and, tapping me on the shoulder, said in his unmistakable native twang, together with no little display of his authority, "Where are you going, boy?" "To Philadelphia, sir," I humbly replied. "Well, what are you going there for?" "I am travelling with my master, who is in the next carriage, sir." "Well, I calculate ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... gutters, and fishermen. It was a veritable babel—the mournful intonation of the East Coast, the broad guttural of the Broomielaw, mingled with the shrill Gaelic scream of the Highlands, and the occasional twang of the cockney tourist. Having retrieved Sholto, who was inspecting some fish which had been laid out to dry in the middle of the village street, and packed him safely in the bows, we set out to sea, Myra at the engine, while I took the ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... off their masks even with their accomplices, "yes, madame, we have excellent news from our house at St. Herem. M. Hardy, the infidel, the freethinker, has at length entered the pale of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." Rodin pronounced these last word with a nasal twang, and the devout lady ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of darkness on to the main supports, and threading the starlight as they came. Night slowly brought her beauty and her mystery upon the world. The filmy pattern opened. There was a tautness in the lines that made one feel they would twang with delicate music if the wind swept its hand more rapidly across them. And now and again all vibrated, each line making an ellipse between its fastened ends, then gradually settling back to its thin, almost invisible bed. Cables ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... voice, clear and youthful, with a choir-boyish sound in it, and remarkably free from nasal twang, but it was not a lady's voice. It sounded like the frontispiece of a summer ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Secure from battering, to ladies flattering, Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet's ring— Oh better far than all that anvil clang It was to hear thee touch the famous string Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang, Rousing him up, all verdant, with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... since Dicky Steele has set up for a saint, and assumed the methodistical twang, some hopes of conversion may be left even for such reprobates as myself. Where, may I ask, will ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... clapped his upon my own, and burst out a-laughing again; upon which we all fell a-laughing for half an hour. One of the Honest Fellows got behind me in the interim, and hit me a sound slap on the back; upon which he got the laugh out of my hands, and it was such a twang on my shoulders, that I confess he was much merrier than I. I was half angry; but resolved to keep up the good humour of the company; and after holloing as loud as I could possibly, I drank off a bumper of claret, that made me stare again. "Nay," says one of the Honest Fellows, "Mr. ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... his broken wall, And the wolf shall chase his shadow and his mate the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the shouts of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, women ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... his bow, and fitted an arrow. There was a sharp twang, and the deer rolled over, struck to the heart. There was no movement in the tree, but Ned placed another arrow in place. Tom ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... sharp, clean action of cedar. The latter will send the arrow much farther, and so swiftly does it leave the string that it baffles the eye. But the cedar bow must be cared for like a delicate machine; overstring it, and it breaks; twang it without an arrow, and it sunders the cords; scratch it, and it may splinter; wet it, and it is dead; let it lie on the ground, even, and it is weakened. But guard it and it will serve you as a matchless servant, and as can no other timber ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... There were both labour and enjoyment in them. Every week showed him a new town or city: classic Edinburgh, dirty Glasgow—cleaner nowadays—roaring Liverpool, rainy Manchester, smoke-clouded Birmingham and Sheffield, granite-built Aberdeen, jolly Dublin, with an unaccustomed twang in the whisky, after the Scottish progress; Belfast, Cork, Waterford. Everywhere character studies in shoals; dialect studies every day and all day long. Paul could train his tongue, before the twelve months' ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... war in Europe, the trumpeter of a French cavalry corps had a fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every body else; for once, on being removed to another part of the forces, ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... mobile from his somewhat scornful mouth to his deep-set, observant eyes, and clearly denoted the absence of the stolid Saxon strain in his blood. His accent too, though not that of an educated man, was quite free from the hateful Cockney twang. His dress was spare as his figure, but though well worn there was something spruce and trim about his whole demeanour which indicated that he was not totally indifferent to the impression he created on others. He looked round ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... eulogium sufficient for his merits. But, as I have since learned, he was not quite so Spanish as I had imagined. Three years among the bodegas of Xeres had taught him, no doubt, to appreciate the exact twang of a good, dry sherry; but not, as I now conceive, the exactest flavour of the true Spanish character. I was very lucky, however, in meeting such a friend, and now reckon him as one of the stanchest allies of the house of Pomfret, Daguilar, ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... malachite, With bronze and purple pied, I march before him like the night In all its starry pride; LULLI may twang and MOLIERE write His pastime to provide, But seldom laughs the KING So ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... a sodaine twang of Instruments, and the Rose fals from the Tree (which vanishes under ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... me the Play; and very well; thoroughly understanding the text: with clear articulation, and the moderate emphasis proper to room-reading; with the advantage also of never having known the Theatre in his youth, so that he has not picked up the twang of any Actor of the Day. Then he read me King John, which he has some thoughts of editing next after Richard III. And I was reminded of you at Ipswich twenty-eight years ago; and of your Father—his look up at Angiers' Walls as he went out in Act ii. I wonder that Mrs. Siddons ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain provincial twang in her voice. She had a vehement desire for self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience. She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress of ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the sense of smell, in its ordinary state, much connexion with our present subject. Mr. Aubrey tells us, indeed, of an apparition which disappeared with a curious perfume as well as a most melodious twang; and popular belief ascribes to the presence of infernal spirits a strong relish of the sulphureous element of which they are inhabitants. Such accompaniments, therefore, are usually united with other materials ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... giving a little foreign twang to the words. Immediately the bear began to twist like a caterpillar upon the limb, he extended his hind-legs towards the trunk, he seized it with his fore-paws. He began slowly to ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... step, as the struggling feet were thrust forward, to see the infernal machine, on which I was to be elevated, glaring more and more hideously in the blaze of a noonday sun—and the hangman's rapscallions watching for their prey —and the horrible psalm-singing—the cursed twang still rings in my ears—and the screeching hungry ravens, a whole flight of them, who were hovering over the half-rotten carcass of my predecessor. To see all this—ay, more, to have a foretaste of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... appealed much to Myra, and endeavoured to draw out her mind and feelings. He lent her books, and books that favoured, indirectly at least, his own peculiar views—volumes of divine poesy that had none of the twang of psalmody, tales of tender and sometimes wild and brilliant fancy, but ever ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... fine buck went by. He had not spied us while we lay still, but the moment my comrade moved, he threw up his head and bounded off. Yet not before a quick twang from Sir Ludar's bowstring had sent an arrow into his quarter. "Are you mad?" cried I, in terror, "it is the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... wave, far ahead the boys could see the lights of the Brutus. Only for a second, however, for the next minute she would vanish in the trough of a huge comber, and then they could hear the strained towing cable "twang" like an ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... on the repetition, "Truly I knew him, Merchant Gian as we used to call him; but you twang off his name as they speak it in his own ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who survive, the voice has a peculiar nasal twang, as in phonation the air is expelled through the nose instead of through the mouth, and the articulation, especially of certain consonants, is very indistinct. Taste and smell are deficient. The constant exposure of the nasal and pharyngeal mucous membrane renders it liable ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... and take a walk, the two of you. God knows I'm a good Catholic, but there's some things—get out, the two of you! Let your nerves ease up a bit. Sure we all pound and twang like a wet tent ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... reply Cornwallis made him was to ask, "When you first came amongst us, major, you spoke with the barbaric provincialism and nasal twang of your countrymen, but in your years with us you have lost them. Could you ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... assembled a group of seamen, among whom were Tyrker the Turk, one of Thorward's men named Swend, who was very stout and heavy, and one of Karlsefin's men called Krake, who was a wild jocular man with a peculiar twang in his speech, the result of having been long a prisoner in Ireland. We mention these men particularly, because it was they who took the chief part in conversations and in story-telling. The two Scots ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... enough to get tired of orientalism. He described the quaint, the picturesque, the amusing side of life in the East. He was full of enthusiasm for the land of soft voices and smiling faces, where countless little shops spread their wares under the light of the evening lanterns, where the twang of the samisen and the geisha's song are heard coming from the lighted tea-house, and the shadow of her helmet-like coiffure is seen appearing and disappearing in silhouette against ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... help with cases. There she had to attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their sort: just their very ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her eyes the right roll, her haunches the right swing. She seemed altogether just the ticket. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end of the avenue, where we waited—only a few minutes—until the whirring wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us as certain as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down come the steps. Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I smart the cruel smart again: and, boy or man, have never been able to bear the sight of people ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mate the third; and was led to infer better things, as the young gentleman commenced expatiating on the "purple sky," and "dark blue sea." This hope did not last long; for this lover of nature turned round to Sir Henry, and asked him in a nasal twang, if he preferred Cooper's or Mr. Scott's novels? Delme was not naturally a rude man, but as he turned away, he ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... jammo, jammo ja," sang the loud, hoarse voices; then a tremendous scrape and twang, and the yelled-out burden, "Funiculi, funicula; funiculi, funicula; jammo, jammo, jammo, jammo, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the other half indecent. The extreme Puritan was at once known from other men by his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and above all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed, on every occasion, the imagery and style of Scripture. Hebraisms violently introduced into the English language, and metaphors borrowed from the boldest lyric poetry of a remote age and country, and applied to the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sparkling so— As if a star's live restless fragment winked Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair! What hope along the hillside, what far bliss Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark, Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed Was bred of liquid marble in the dark Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed With ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his sword on herself, and caused her female attendants—of whom there were "several tens"—to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their duty, killed or ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... remark: 'I declare, when I felt that 'ar sand agrittin' between my teeth, I don't know but it was wicked, but I e'en a'most wished that there wouldn't never be another wreck!'" Lowell told the story with all the humour possible, rendering the deacon's remark with a twang and an emphatic dwelling on the double negative (a thing which Lowell believed we had suffered to drop out of polite speech unfortunately) with inimitable effect and most evident enjoyment. The substratum of the man was Yankee but ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... rubbing it in. Lanpher plucked at the loose strings of his courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll show you whether I got guts—" ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... call golden Verses. Commend me also to those who have not Brains enough for any of these Exercises, and yet do not give up their Pretensions to Mirth. These can slap you on the Back unawares, laugh loud, ask you how you do with a Twang on your Shoulders, say you are dull to-day, and laugh a Voluntary to put you in Humour; the laborious Way among the minor Poets, of making things come into such and such a Shape, as that of an Egg, an Hand, an Ax, or any ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... quivering like a wild mare, while the green, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest—island and mainland—amid a singing of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute to gulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their destestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... succession of harmonics in thirds and in sixths. His long fingers were of invaluable service to him in unusual stretches, and his fondness for pizzicato passages may be traced to his familiarity with the twang of his father's mandolin. He shone chiefly in his own compositions, which were written in keys best suited to the violin. Students will find all that he knew of his instrument and everything he did in his Le Stregghe ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... His background was that of Boston and its remote suburbs. And when he preaches the necessity of the cooperative commonwealth, he does it with a Yankee twang. In fact, he is as essentially native American as Norman Thomas, the present leader of the Socialist ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned chariots, and ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... hurry the cook—bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy o' ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... violin, the lively twang of a guitar, the "boom! boom" of a drum marking time, the stentorian voice of the master of ceremonies, reached her plainly as she lay staring at the stars through the single window of her room. She liked the sounds; ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... twang of a bow-string, Mackenzie swept low to the ground, and a bonebarbed arrow passed over him into the breast of the Bear, whose momentum carried him over his crouching foe. The next instant Mackenzie was ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... of the joke is—she does not know it! My "Co." has also been much amused by a brightly-written Novel, in one volume, called A Bride from the Bush. Mr. E. W. HORNUNG evidently knows his subject well, and has caught the exact tone, or rather nasal twang of our Australian cousins. My "Co." says that "the Bride" is a particularly pleasant young person, thanks to her youth, good heart, and beauty. However, it is questionable—taking her as a sample—whether her "people" would "pan out" quite so satisfactorily. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple's vault, which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued from the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We heard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor." Hearing these cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on—the Gauls are panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is injured, nothing made less valuable than it was before, yet, of all prose parodies in the language, it is perhaps the most perfect. Every character is maintained, every incident has a taste of Scott. It has the twang of Ivanhoe from beginning to end, and yet there is not a word in it by which the author of Ivanhoe could have been offended. But then there is the purpose beyond that of the mere parody. Prudish ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... provisions, a tremendous sea struck the wreck, heeling her over until her starboard waterway was buried. The breaking sea swept the deck like a cataract, lifting the boat clean off it, just as I sprang back into the cockpit; there was a little jerk and a twang as the rope parted, and in an instant we were afloat and driving rapidly away to leeward across ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... was English — good English, too. Was there not also an American twang about the tone and accent? Stanley could have pinched himself, had he thought of it. But so surprised was he that he seemed actually paralyzed, when an unmistakably girlish figure emerged more into ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... the land. Let no one be alarmed at the mention of the word Puritan. There are some people who have no other notion of a Puritan than that of a close-cropped, saturnine personage, having a nasal twang, who is forevermore indulging an insane propensity to sing psalms, quote Scripture, or burn witches. These are the people who can never see into the profound deep of a great truth, but are quite ready to laugh at its travesty or caricature. And what high or holy truth ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from time to time. I heard one fine bird singing in the stereotyped form. As he sang a flicker flicked in the distance. Whereupon the pine warbler sang again, the same trill but with a tittering twang about it that just jocosely imitated the flicker. I saw no other warbler or other bird near enough to be the beneficiary of this joke. He did it just for himself, and his motions as he flew over to the next tree seemed a visible chuckle that ended in a saucy flirt of the two white tall ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... plain instructions; commence it with a slight cough, continue with a gurgling in the throat, and finish with the first convulsive movement of a sneeze, imparting to the whole operation a delicate nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, and not to apostrophize the lady; and accordingly, when the waltz struck up, I hastened ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... addition, to disguise the fact that the delinquent I speak of (I had almost written renegade) is an Irishman. No wonder that he should attempt the disguise, for he must deeply feel his delinquency. In all cases such as this, the Cockney twang and occasional curtailment is assumed to overcome the brogue, but in vain. For the first half dozen words of each paragraph in a conversation it gets on well enough, but the conclusion is sometimes ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... a movement in her heart, like the twang and quiver of an elastic band, suddenly relaxed. She bent to stroke the head of the old dog, who was smelling her shoes. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... The colour all through is a mellow brown; the reed is of medium width, well developed, and nearly equal all over, and it is singularly bowed from bottom to top, meeting, when joined (for it is in two parts), just as will a string of a violin when you hold it in both hands, and twang it ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... replies, "I have not touched an instrument of music half a dozen times since I was married—one, you know, has so much to do." Thus music as a science lags in the rear, while musical instruments in myriads twang away in the van: and thus the window cobweb having caught its flies for the season is swept away by ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... sarved, he got the most inferior article I had, and I jist doubled the price on him. It's a pity he should be a-tellin' of lies of the Yankees all the time; this will help him now to a little grain of truth." Then mimicking his voice and manner, he repeated Allen's words with a strong nasal twang, "'Most time for you to give over the clock trade, I guess, for by all accounts they ain't worth havin', and most infarnel dear too; folks begin to get their eyes open.' Better for you, if you'd a had your'n open, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... pedantic buffoonery for which the general hatred, far more than its humour, secured a hearing. Archbishop Sheldon listened to the mock sermon of a Cavalier who held up the Puritan phrase and the Puritan twang to ridicule in his hall at Lambeth. Duelling and raking became the marks of a fine gentleman; and grave divines winked at the follies of "honest fellows" who fought, gambled, swore, drank, and ended a day of debauchery by a night in the gutter. Life among men of fashion vibrated between frivolity ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... forms of her dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen held a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... starlight, when it was dark enough for the blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in a moment they recognised the twang of Malcolm's banjo and Miss Allison's guitar. "It's a serenade," called Eugenia. "What a ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... A certain hogshead was given to each of them to taste, and their opinion asked as to the condition, quality, goodness, or badness, of the wine. One tried it with the tip of his tongue; the other only put it to his nose. The first said the wine savored of iron; the second said it had rather a twang of goat's leather. The owner protested that the vessel was clean, and the wine neat, so that it could not taste either of iron or leather. Notwithstanding this, the two famous tasters stood positively to what ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will only wonder ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... singular nor to be ashamed of. You can tell an Irishman from a Londoner by his accent; so you can a Scotchman; or a Yorkshireman for that matter: why should you not be able to tell an American? The error of your countrymen consists in attributing to all our people the nasal twang, which is almost peculiar to one section of the country. If I were asked the peculiar characteristic of a New-Yorker's speech, I should say monotone. Notice any one of our young men—you will find his conversational voice pitched in the same key. Sumner goes on at the same uniform ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in A, Heedless of what your next neighbour may say! Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay, Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay; Sing, play—if your neighbours inveigh Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh? Bang, twang, clatter and clang, Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum; Neigh, bray, simply obey All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay! Rattle the "bones," hit a tinbottom'd tray Hard with the fireshovel, hammer away! Is not your neighbour your natural prey? ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... the captive would dive behind a rock and force the line out a yard or two; now the captor would coax it on from one hiding-place to the next, and by a cunning flank movement cut off its retreat. Then, yielding little by little, the fish would feign surrender, till just as it seemed within reach, twang would go the line and the rod bend almost double beneath the sudden plunge. Then the patient work would begin again. The man's temper was more than a match for that of the victim, and, exhausted and ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... their artillery, and Oliver hastily put another stone in his sling. A look and exclamation of disappointment were given by each as the bird vanished, but just at that moment a large rabbit darted across their path. Whiz! twang! burr! went bolt and bow and stone, and that rabbit, pierced in head and heart, and smitten on flank, fell to rise ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Tennyson for ever. From the affectation of cosmopolitan indifference not AEschylus, not Pindar, not Dante's very self was more alien or more free than Shakespeare; but there was nothing of the dry Tyrtaean twang, the dull mechanic resonance as of wooden echoes from a platform, in the great historic chord of his lyre. "He is very English, too English, even," says the Master on whom his enemies alone—assuredly not his most loving, most reverent, and most thankful disciples—might ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... following succinct and business-like memorandum of a ghost-seer. "Anno 1670. Not far from Cirencester was an apparition. Being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad, returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang. M.W. Lilly believes it ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... the strong wrist to the elbow (oh, wonderful make-up box!)—on the edge of the marble bar, and called loudly for a drink. His very voice was raw and husky with a tang of the sea in it. Dollops's nasal twang took up the story, while the barmaid—a red-headed, fat woman with a coarse, hard face, who was continually smiling—looked them up and down, and having taken stock of them set two pewter tankards of frothing ale before them, took the money from Cleek, bit it, and then with a nod dropped ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... selling my knife," and reaching out and taking it in my hand, after making a few preliminary remarks, I began with the twang of the almost extinct down east Yankee, and in a high-pitched voice and at lightning ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... he also wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination. His "English accent" was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the eyeglass had been but a part of ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... age and class. He could have entered into this circle of strangers—strangers for the most part, in all probability, to one another—and in ten minutes' time been one of them. Their screams, their twang, their slang, their gossip, their jolly banter, and their gay ineptitude would have been to him like a welcome home. But he was Norrie Ford, known by name and misfortune to every one of them. The boys and girls on the pier, the elderly women in the ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... daybreak. The great wall of pines and hemlocks that keep off the west wind from Stillwater stretches black and indeterminate against the sky. At intervals a dull, metallic sound, like the guttural twang of a violin string, rises form the frog-invested swamp skirting the highway. Suddenly the birds stir in their nests over there in the woodland, and break into that wild jargoning chorus with which they herald the advent of a new day. In the apple-orchards and among the plum-trees ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... one whom he called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where, after sermon, a bonfire of idols was ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... I used to know him too well in my drinking days. He'll never disguise that look of that wicked eye of his from them as knows him well; and though he's got summat in his mouth to make him talk different, I could tell the twang of his ugly ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... tell Cousin Eunice that it seemed really as if she had taken the journey with them. She put on Jane's faded gingham sunbonnet and gave her voice a queer nasal twang, and talked as some of the women did up there in the wilderness, who thought a city "must be an awfully crowdy place an' she jes' didn't see how people managed to live in it. An' as fer the sea, give her dry land ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to his right Colt. A blaze of flame leaped from the region of his hip. Along with the crashing roar of the explosion came a sharp, metallic twang. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... to tell old Surefoot about his daughter's love," the letter goes on, "you should fall into a positive imitation of his manner: crest, motionless, and hands in front, and deliver your preambles with a nasal twang. But at the second invitation to speak out, you should cast this to the winds, and go into the other extreme of bluntness and rapidity. [Quite right!] When you meet him after the exposure, you should speak as you are coming to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... to be shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity. And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed resentfully at the veteran's contemptuous ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... accomplishment, of which we have never before had occasion to speak: he was a first-class mimic; and he took no little pride in showing off his powers. He could imitate the brogue of an Irishman the broken English of a Dutchman, or the nasal twang of a Yankee, to perfection; and one day, while he was in the barn saddling his horse, he carried on a lengthy conversation with Bob Kelly (who was on the outside of the building), about some runaway cattle, and the old trapper thought all the while that ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... and Murray as he popped into sight to seize the side of his swift little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang— ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Hercules might challenge priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of eighteen to ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... gone wide of the mark, and he was not the man to bother about stray arrows. Upon my word, he was too unsuspecting; he was not fair game. I was glad that my missile had been thrown away,—that he had not even heard the twang ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... that well-bred and educated people speak and behave after much the same fashion all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New England twang, or Connecticut drawl, and some ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... where news was sure to be met with. As he came towards it, however, he heard the loud sound of a man's voice going steadily on as if with some discourse. "Some preachment," said he to himself: "they've got a thorough-going Roundhead, I can hear his twang through his nose! Shall I ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these Hillsborough manufacturers, with their provincial twang, are hardly presentable in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... and find out," said Tudie, with a twang that resounded as the music came to a stop. "Oh, Em—Miss Terriberry, this is Mr. Carver; he's ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... who has made a fortune in Railroad Committees, and whose dinners are so good—bellowing out with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross, Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel! Ply battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours—id Deus vult." After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Suddenly the sharp twang of a citerne was heard in the street below her window,—nothing new in these piping times of love and minstrelsy; but so sensitive was the ear now become to exterior impressions, that she started, as though expecting a salutation from the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... downy wing Was fluttering now, as quickly to depart; When twang'd an arrow from Love's mystic string, 30 With pathless wound it pierc'd him to the heart. Was there some magic in the Elfin's dart? Or did he strike my couch with wizard lance? For straight so fair ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows, and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied that he was an ancient elf from the ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... thee? Know thyself and thy real and thy apparent place, and know him and his real and his apparent place, and act in some noble conformity with all that. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shall eclipse itself, and illuminate magic-lanterns to amuse grown children? He, the god-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, and blow through scrannel-pipes, to soothe thy sated soul with visions of new, still wider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands of Cockaigne? Brother, this is not he; this is a counterfeit, this twangling, jangling, vain, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... take, on account of the name—for of course, if he hated children he hated the ladies also—and as I was saying, he felt very cross, and inclined to find fault with any thing anybody else proposed; so making as low a bow as his stiff back would permit, he began, with an abominable nasal twang: "May it please your Majesty, who is this child you deign to ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... himself of this pious burst, he proceeds to a castigation of the English for their observations on the nasal twang of his countrymen, and also for their criticism upon the sense in which sundry adjectives are used; and, to show the superior purity of the American language, he informs the reader that in England "the most elegant and refined talk constantly of "fried 'am" ... they seem very reluctant ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... was safe. The war party might at any moment find itself ambushed by the very ones it hoped to surprise. The snap of a twig; the dropping of a fruit from some tall tree; each sudden sound was interpreted as the twang of a hostile bow. Overwrought nerves peopled the jungle with spectral enemies; they found relief in combat ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... my best to attract the notice of, while I was serving her in the shop—that is, when I've seen her get out of a carriage! There has been luck to many a chap like me, in the same line of speculation: look at Tom Tarnish—how did he get Miss Twang, the rich pianoforte-maker's daughter?—and now he's cut the shop, and lives at Hackney, like a regular gentleman! Ah! that was a stroke! But somehow it hasn't answered with me yet; the gals don't take! How I have set ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... entrance of the camp. Quietly rising from my bed, I found Richarn reloading at his post. "What is it, Richarn?" I asked. "They are shooting arrows into the camp, aiming at the fire, in hopes of hitting you who are sleeping there," said Richarn. "I watched one fellow," he continued, "as I heard the twang of his bow four times. At each shot I heard an arrow strike the ground between me and you, therefore I fired at him, and I think he is down. Do you see that black object lying on the ground?" I saw something a little blacker than the surrounding darkness, but it could not be distinguished. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Hannay, killed. Circulated description of John Porter through the county. Tall and lean; when fifteen years old shot a man in a brawl, and went north. Has been absent thirteen years. Assumed the appearance of a northern man and speaks with Yankee twang. Father was absent at the time of attack. Captured three hours after. Declares he knows nothing about doings of the gang. Haverley and Corben were friends of his sons. Came and went when they liked. Will be ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... I sang and shouted, Keeping measure as I sped, To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe As it sprang beneath ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... where Okaw and Mississippi met; shaggy lowered heads and flying tails and a thousand hoofs swept past him; and after them fleet naked men, who made themselves one with the horses they rode. The buffalo herds were flying before their hunters. He heard bowstrings twang, and saw great creatures stagger and fall headlong, and lie panting in the ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to each other from hill tops half a mile asunder, announced that "our lady" was approaching. Whereupon a great hubbub arose; dogs barked, and feminine voices responded eagerly. Two or three muskets were presently discharged, and the twang of the balls as they passed near gave my nerves rather an unpleasant shock. I did not then know that the Black Mountaineers always receive their friends thus; in this instance female hands had loaded ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... service, a conviction that had been her tacit comfort during much distasteful loyalty seemed to shrivel and fade. No doubt the writer was a thwarted blackmailer; even her accustomed mind could distinguish a twang of some such vicious quality in his sentences; but that did not alter the realities he exhibited and exaggerated. There was a description of how Sir Isaac pounced on his managers that was manifestly derived from a manager he had dismissed. It was dreadfully ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shoot three shots, and to him who shot best the prize of a yoke of fat steers should belong. A dozen keen-eyed bowmen were there, and among them some of the best fellows in the Forester's and Sheriff's companies. Down at the end of the line towered the tall beggar-man, who must needs twang a bow-string with the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... eyes roll. His step quickens. He cuts the wildest figures in a frenzy of abandoned joy. With a leap through the door he is gone. The guitar stops with a sudden twang and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... passages in it which show a profound knowledge of life, and others of which no one can dispute the high poetic flight," replied Cleopatra. "Much of it has no doubt a thoroughly barbarian twang, and it is particularly in the Psalms—which we have now been reading, and which might be ranked with the finest hymns—that I miss the number and rhythm of the syllables, the observance of a fixed metre—in short, severity of form. David, the royal ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... having come to-night," he said, in a voice free from any twang of dialect—the voice he fell into naturally after a day alone with the Parson: "I'm very glad you could come. I hope I'll often see you and that we'll all be very happy together...." He paused, could think of nothing more to say, so retreated ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... (she honeyed a Cockney twang) speedily came back to report that Miss. French had left about half-an-hour ago, and was not likely ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... part, but the Devil has since so over-done his, that what with the Vizor of Sanctity, which is the gadly Sneer, the drawing of the Face to a prodigious length, the formal Language, with a certain Twang through the Nose, and the pious Gogle, they are fitter to scare Children than ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... all the traits to be found in boys who have been born and raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, was inclined to be touchy whenever he thought anyone doubted his honor, talked with a quaint little twang that was really delightfully musical, and taken in all had grown to be a prime favorite ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... of the tide; and when the tide was near its height, he commanded the artillery to open, and clear the fort opposite of the English. Then with crash and twang, the balistas and catapults went off, and great stones and heavy lances hurtled ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or "Bass," Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the grass, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are! Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart Banjo-twang makes 'em jar. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... loaded with brick for new houses came floating down the stream behind a busy little tug. On the soft morning breezes the young Southerner's keen car caught the twang of a banjo and the joyous music of negro brickmen singing an old-fashioned melody of his native state; while over all, like an eternal chorus, came the dim muffled roar of the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... — N. taste, flavor, gust, gusto, savor; gout, relish; sapor^, sapidity^; twang, smack, smatch^; aftertaste, tang. tasting; degustation, gustation. palate, tongue, tooth, stomach. V. taste, savor, smatch^, smack, flavor, twang; tickle the palate &c (savory) 394; smack the lips. Adj. sapid, saporific^; gustable^, gustatory; gustful^; strong, gamy; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and not "put on," that secretly pleases the soul more than the wrought and re-wrought polish of the most perfect verse?) Mark the native spice and untranslatable twang in the very names of his songs-"O for ane and twenty, Tam," "John Barleycorn," "Last May a braw Wooer," "Rattlin roarin Willie," "O wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast," "Gude e'en to you, Kimmer," "Merry hae I been teething a Heckle," "O lay ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... mountain stood the Scarlet Hunter with drawn bow. From it an arrow flew over their heads with a sorrowful twang, and fell where the smoke rose among the pines; then the mystic ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lookout, I did not expect to be taken by surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did almost immediately, I had no suspicion of what they were. The voice had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yankee twang, as some people would call it, which I had always associated with the nuthatch family. On the contrary, it was decidedly finchlike,—so much so that some of the notes, taken by themselves, would have been ascribed without hesitation ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... break not, if we come to any tough play. Nay, mistress, I had a sword, ay, the flower of Smithfield for a sword, a right fox,[298] i'faith; with that, and a man had come over with a smooth and a sharp stroke, it would have cried twang, and then, when I had doubled my point, trac'd my ground, and had carried my buckler before me like a garden-butt, and then come in with a cross blow, and over the pick[299] of his buckler two ells long, it would have cried twang, twang, metal, metal: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Only long ages and many changing epochs; only home-loving prelates, ample monies, and architects of genius, could have created so beautiful and unique a fabric. It was the admiration of transatlantic tourists with a twang; the desire of millionaires. Aladdin's industrious genii would have failed to build such a masterpiece, unless their masters had arranged to inhabit it five centuries or so after construction. Time had created it, as Time would destroy it, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... crude, but the little quiver in his voice got hold of those who heard him, and once more the big building rang with cheering. As the sound of hearty acclamation died away there was a great clatter of thrust-back benches through which the tuning of a fiddle broke. Then out of the tentative twang of strings rose, clear and silvery, the lament of Flora Macdonald, thrilling with melancholy, and there were men and women there whose hearts went back to the other wild and misty land of rock and pine ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... felt like Lord BYRON, I tell yer; I stretched myself, orty-like, hout, And wished it could go on all night, wich my pardner did ditto, no doubt. Modern Venice in minichure, CHARLIE, ain't really so dusty, you bet; I wos quite a Bassanio in breeks, and I ain't lost the twang of it yet. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... striking of a match, and the pleasant twang of cigar-smoke greeted her nostrils. The two men seemed splendidly masculine, important, self-sufficient. The triviality of feminine atoms like herself, Rose, and Millicent, occurred to her almost as a new fact, and she ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... trust embarrassed Minuit, but he had never denied the request of any man. His time, as his sign affirmed, was everybody's. Yet a thrill, a twang, a twinge of delicious fear passed through him now. He loved this girl dearly, but he feared to love at all. He had now both the parental and the womanly recognition, and his days were lonely even with his garrulous ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us himself, that this was a mistake, that "the pulpit was for preaching; the garden, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... walk, the two of you. God knows I'm a good Catholic, but there's some things—get out, the two of you! Let your nerves ease up a bit. Sure we all pound and twang like a wet tent in ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... seems torn to pieces in the whirlwind of voices which assail him from the disputing parties, in each of whose languages he tries to explain; but, poor patient Jew! you never could speak any of them intelligibly, and your nasal twang, and drawling accent, so disguises what you do say, that nothing but a miracle could make you understood. The screams, the grimaces, the gestures which these people exhibit, during their unavailing efforts to render themselves ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the answer, with the true cockney twang. "Trade ain't very brisk. There's too bloomin' ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... contains 160 grammes of a very inelegantly made emulsion, smelling of very common rose-water, with an unpleasant twang about it, and giving a strongly alkaline reaction. It consists of soap, glycerin, and cotton seed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... a dark, low-ceilinged, and not too obtrusively sanitary place to take his ease. At McSorley's is everything that the innocent fugitive from the world requires. The great amiable cats that purr in the back room. The old pictures and playbills on the walls. The ancient clocks that hoarsely twang the hours. We cannot imagine a happier place to sit down with a pad of paper and a well-sharpened pencil than at that table in the corner by the window. Or the table just under that really lovely little portrait of Robert Burns—would there be any more propitious ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... this influence. What fine manners, to be sure! The waiters in the diningroom, in white ties and dress-coats, move on springs, starting even to walk with a complicated use of all the muscles of the body, as if in response to the twang of a banjo; they do nothing without excessive motion and flourish. The gestures and good-humored vitality expended in changing plates would become the leader of an orchestra. Many of them, besides, have the expression of class-leaders—of a worldly sort. There were ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... masks even with their accomplices, "yes, madame, we have excellent news from our house at St. Herem. M. Hardy, the infidel, the freethinker, has at length entered the pale of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." Rodin pronounced these last word with a nasal twang, and the devout ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... with a strong nasal twang, 'but they ain't very fresh. I shud be 'fraid to resk b'ilin' 'em. I could fry some, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... inflections of his voice struck upon Sara's keyed-up consciousness as an indifferent finger may twang the stretched strings of a violin, producing a shuddering ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... thy well-known rivulet, And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry That rends the utter silence! 'tis the whoop Of battle, and a throng of savage men With naked arms and faces stained like blood, Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream; Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short, As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors And conquered vanish, and the dead remain Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods Are still again, the frighted ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... supports, and threading the starlight as they came. Night slowly brought her beauty and her mystery upon the world. The filmy pattern opened. There was a tautness in the lines that made one feel they would twang with delicate music if the wind swept its hand more rapidly across them. And now and again all vibrated, each line making an ellipse between its fastened ends, then gradually settling back to its thin, almost invisible bed. Cables of thick, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... into the kitchen was opened; and all stood up in both rooms, while the minister, tall, large, one hand resting on the spread table, the other lifted up, said, in the deep voice that would have been loud had it not been so full and rich, but without the peculiar accent or twang that I believe is considered devout by some people, 'Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all to the glory ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... he listed all the world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at bridal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the rowers. Twang! sung their war-bows the song of the cord, and the air was full of hissing whispers of Death as their shafts hurtled past. Round and round the two galleys circled in a strange dance, each steersman striving to bring his craft bows on, so as to ram and crush the other, while they lurched ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... clothed in black, were invisible in the darkness; but his big white eyes shone out, and there came from them a light like a ray of dawn through the chinks of a door. He spoke in a husky, monotonous tone, with a slight nasal twang that gave it the soft melody of music heard at night in the streets. Sometimes the breathing of an ass, or the soft lowing of an ox, accompanied, like a chorus of invisible spirits, the voice of the ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... softly-breathing God! his downy wing Was fluttering now, as quickly to depart; When twang'd an arrow from Love's mystic string, 30 With pathless wound it pierc'd him to the heart. Was there some magic in the Elfin's dart? Or did he strike my couch with wizard lance? For straight so fair ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... confessor, not without some misgivings in his ghostly bosom; but he was more allured by the sweet savour of the good things of this world at Arlingford Castle, than deterred by his awe of the lady Matilda, which nevertheless was so excessive, from his recollection of the twang of the bow-string, that he never ventured to find her in the wrong, much less to enjoin any thing in the shape of penance, as was the occasional practice of holy confessors, with or without cause, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... quick aim at a distant tree and pressed the trigger. There was a twang as the arrow was ejected. He jerked the sliding pistol grip forward and back to reload, pressing the trigger an instant later. Another arrow went ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... her speculatively. "Well," he said at length, speaking with something of a twang, "I guess your father knows what he's about, but it beats me to understand why he has me here to study. I ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... singer of no common stamp, and of whom any nation might be proud, and I have often met men in society sing together most delightfully, either duets, trios, or quartettos, and totally devoid of the nasal twang, or, as the reader will observe, delightful it ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... and hot biscuits and honey on her cousin, in lieu of gossip, for entertainment. The stories were old to her, except as she found a new listener to them, and they had never had any vital interest for her. They had simply made her imagination twang pleasantly, and now they could hardly stir ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the twang of a bow-string. Hardy was like that—short, lithe, sunburned, vivid. Into the lives of Jarrick, Hill, and myself, old classmates of his, he came and went in the fashion of one of those queer winds ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sought her; 110 They vowed her gold they wanted not, Their faith would never falter, They longed to tie this single Knott In the Hymeneal halter; So daily at the door they rang, Cards for the belle delivering, Or in the choir at her they sang, Achieving such a rapturous twang As ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... talking of his plans to seize Tell, and without a dream of danger, for the pass was silent and seemed deserted. But suddenly to his ears came the twang of the bow he had heard before that day; through the air once more winged its way a steel-barbed shaft, the heart of a tyrant, not an apple on a child's head, now its mark. In an instant more Gessler fell from his horse, pierced by Tell's fatal shaft, and breathed his last before the eyes of his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Andalusia. My mind is suddenly ablaze with its sunshine, with its opulent colour, luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... hieroglyphic bark Told when the warlike bow should twang, The torch of light with glowing spark, Is held aloft ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... down, cap'n," said a voice startlingly like Harris's. It was Meeker, or Thirkle, as his men called him, imitating the high-pitched nasal twang of the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... trying to find was tall," said Merritt quickly, "and has a slight cast in his left eye. He talks with something of a twang, as though he might be ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... a head appeared through the opening above, followed by a body. It was that of one of the native guides. Voices were heard coming through the passage: one voice had a twang to it that surely Mrs. Peterkin had heard before. Another head appeared now, bound with a blue veil, while the eyes were hidden by green goggles. Yet Mrs. Peterkin could not be mistaken,—it was—yes, it was the ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... brief weeks of my boyhood. I dared not picture her as growing up, for I had no faith in the influence of Rufus Blight, whom I had always associated with packages of tea and prizes. Penelope grown, I feared, might have become fat and florid, might speak with a twang and wear gaudy hats and gowns. My life in New York, even though I was but a quiet observer, had made me critical of women, and when I could brood unhappily over Gladys Todd's stray wisps of hair I could have little sympathy with the type of the imaginary ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the mandoline began to twang again, and the soft Italian voice went on with "La Donna ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... all surprising when he suddenly stepped on a stick that broke with a sharp twang. And, before he could dodge behind a tree, the fellow beyond had ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... again that I was very well; and he looked at me thoughtfully, put one end of a bit of matting between his teeth, and drew it out tightly with his left hand. Then he began to twang it thoughtfully, and made it give out a dull ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... than Thomas Johnson. Words cannot produce a eulogium sufficient for his merits. But, as I have since learned, he was not quite so Spanish as I had imagined. Three years among the bodegas of Xeres had taught him, no doubt, to appreciate the exact twang of a good, dry sherry; but not, as I now conceive, the exactest flavour of the true Spanish character. I was very lucky, however, in meeting such a friend, and now reckon him as one of the stanchest allies of the house of Pomfret, Daguilar, ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... lonely pool, covered with pond-lilies, peopled with bullfrogs and water snakes, and haunted by two white cranes. Oh! the terrors of that pond! How our little hearts would beat as we approached it; what fearful glances we would throw around! And if by chance a plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a bullfrog, struck our ears, as we stole quietly by—away we sped, nor paused until completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached home, what a world of adventures and imaginary terrors would I have to relate to my ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... he thought, "could make this possible," when, looking up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of enjoyment, ordering "spargetty" and half a bottle of "grayves," with a cockney twang, and an unutterable ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... tune. Masha was all a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and twang the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would break out into song like a mad thing, drawing herself up and holding ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... round his leg and went off at full gallop. My little black horse knew perfectly well what had happened, though his head was exactly in the opposite direction; and he tugged with all his might, and leant over more than ever. The two lazos tightened with a twang, as though they had been guitar-strings; and in a moment the unfortunate bull was rolling with all his legs in the air, in the midst of a whirlwind of dust. Having thus humiliated him we let him go, and off he went at full speed. All this time the proprietor ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Circuit, who has made a fortune in Railroad Committees, and whose dinners are so good—bellowing out with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross, Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel! Ply battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours—id Deus vult." After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the entire country of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... berth in a whaler. He married at New Bedford and sailed with Captain Tucker—this was his second whaling trip, he said, and he wanted no more. I told him I was glad to learn that he was a countryman of mine, but not surprised. His speech was well-larded with americanisms, "but," said I, "the true twang is wanting, and," added I, laughing, "I should know you for Hampshire for all your reckons and guesses if I had to eat you should I ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... been an Indian of North or South America, instead of an Indian of the "East Indies," he would have pierced those fishes with an arrow at every twang of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... I nodded; and as the executioner clapped his heels together, straightened himself, and drew the arrow to his ear, we heard a low twang! And saw the black hand of the Seneca pinned to his own bow ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... camp and sold my pears like lightning, for there is no want of money there, nor of the will to spend it. What a hubbub, Maria! It seemed like the gayest kind of a fair; nothing was to be heard but the twang of guitars, singing, and hurrahs for the queen. I need only tell you that the commander-in-chief has had to forbid so much singing and guitar playing at night, because it served as a guide to the accursed Moors. I was just inquiring for the King's regiment, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... yet resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of itself to draw and hold each listener; while a certain extravagance of gesticulation—a fantastic movement of both form and feature—seemed very near akin to fascination. And so flowed on ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... exactly when or Why he came to call it tenor, But the fact remains he sang With a subtle nasal twang Just because he liked to do so (He was Carr, but not CARUSO), And with such a force of lung That, whatever tune he sung, It was like a projectile With ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... he took hold of the yard rigged out on one side to keep the lugger upright, the others did the same on the other side, and as the cable was tightened once more with a jerk, which gave forth a musical deep bass twang, Smith shouted, "All together!" and with his companions, he began to give the hull a gentle rocking movement from ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... Twang! The arrow sped through the air, but it was too dark for them to follow its flight with their eyes. With their hearts in their mouths, ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... in. Lanpher plucked at the loose strings of his courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll show you whether I got ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... in Europe, the trumpeter of a French cavalry corps had a fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... me here, keep me here for years, if they will; but they cannot make me associate with these people." And she recalled with a shudder the gnarled, horny hand which she had touched in jumping from the cart,—she had never felt anything like it; the homely speech, and the nasal twang with which it was delivered; the uncouth garb (good stout butternut homespun!) and unkempt hair and beard of the "odious old savage," as ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... they know my mind. I hate that same twang, twang, twang, fum, fum, fum, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle, then scrue go the Pins, till a man's Teeth are on an edge; then snap, says a small Gut, and there we are at a loss again. I long to be in bed with a—hey tredodle, tredodle, tredodle,—with a hay tredool, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... master, the swabber, the boatswain and I, The gunner and his mate, Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian and Margary, But none of us cared for Kate. For she had a tongue with a twang, Would cry to a sailor, go hang! She loved not the savor of tar or of pitch,— Then to sea, boys, and let ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... trembled at the sight and sound, and his old horse, quivering in every limb, moaned piteously, as if in pain. On came the steeds, until they almost touched the shore, then rearing, they seemed about to spring on to it. The frightened dwarf turned his head to fly, and as he did so he heard the twang of a golden harp, and right before him who should he see but the little man of the hills, holding a harp in one hand and striking the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... teacher had to deal with, Polly Vaughn was the greatest. She was nearly perfect in all her studies, but a little mischievous and very dear to him. "Pretty;" that is one thing all said of her there in Faraway, and they said also with a bitter twang that she loved to lie abed and read novels. To Sidney Trove the word "pretty" was inadequate. As to lying abed and reading novels, he was free to say that he ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... about as by some great conspiracy. We walked curiously up the little street until we reached the last house in the village, and came out beyond the screen of its wall. At the same instant something sang past my ear like the twang of a Jew's harp, my foot caught in a coil of wire, and I fell headlong. My companion, lagging behind and not yet clear of the friendly wall, stopped dead and cried to me not to stand up. I crawled back among the rubbish to the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... a recognition of danger in the very charm of her attitude, or a twang of digestion, that caused a sudden dumbness to fall on James. He did not remember ever having been quite alone with Irene before. And, as he looked at her, an odd feeling crept over him, as though he had come across ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... acquaintance appeared to be a man of sixty or thereabouts. A crowbar and shovel which he carried over his shoulder seemed a part of his rough laborer's costume. He had a shrewd, good sort of face, and a Yankee twang to his speech. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... yoke of fat steers should belong. A dozen keen-eyed bowmen were there, and among them some of the best fellows in the Forester's and Sheriff's companies. Down at the end of the line towered the tall beggar-man, who must needs twang a bow-string with ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... (with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end of the avenue, where we waited—only a few minutes—until the whirring wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us as certain as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down come the steps. Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I smart the cruel smart again: and, boy or man, have never been able to bear the sight of people parting from ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mouth, incredibly wide, with shrewd, mobile lips, which habitually smiled. A tuft of yellow beard on the end of his sharp chin, gave his face a comical expression resembling that which caricature bestows on Uncle Sam. His voice was pitched in a high key, and was modified by that nasal twang supposed to indicate Yankee origin; but a habit of giving his declarative sentences an interrogative finish, might denote that he came from the mountain regions of Pennsylvania or Virginia. A pair ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... which it received the visitor. People of the highest rank called on him; ambassadors left cards; the leading musical societies vied with each other in their zeal to do him honour. Even the poetasters began to twang their lyres in his praise. Thus Burney, who had been for some time in correspondence with him, saluted him with an effusion, of which it will suffice ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... hopped-up layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... attempted to force his way round to the front of the sofa. He had, at any rate, learnt that his strange guests were brother and sister. The man, he presumed, must be Signor Vicinironi—or count, or prince, as it might be. It was wonderful what good English he spoke. There was just a twang of foreign accent, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... head and made Falcon swerve, and heard therewith the twang of the bowstring and straightway the shaft flew past his ears. Falcon galloped on, and the carle cried out: "There is the highway toward the Burg! Do thy best, do thy best! ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where, after sermon, a bonfire of idols was made, to which the women ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... wore He swaggered neither less nor more. He talked the stuff he talked before, And bragged as he had bragged of yore, With his Yankee chaff and his Yankee slang, And his Yankee bounce and his Yankee twang. And, to tell the truth, we all held clear Of the impudent little adventurer; And any man with an eye might see That, though he bore it merrily, He recognised the tacit scorn Which dwelt about ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... whole party of Americans filed into his studio, and ranged themselves round his father's statue, and, after much silent examination, the spokesman of the party inquired, "Well, sir, what is this intended to represent?" William Story, in telling these little anecdotes, gave the Yankee twang to perfection. . ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming furnace. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... think that well-bred and educated people speak and behave after much the same fashion all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New England twang, or Connecticut drawl, and some ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... must know that, as we are now in an Age of great Philosophers and Men of Reason, so of great quickness and fancy! and that Greek and Latin, which heretofore (though never so impertinently fetched in) was counted admirable, because it had a learned twang; yet, now, such stuff, being out of fashion, is esteemed but very ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... the bowstrings twang, While high in air the arrows sang. The iron shower drives to flight The foeman from the bloody fight. The warder of great Odin's shrine, The fair-haired son of Odin's line, Raises the voice which gives the cheer, First in the track of wolf ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... knee, bracing himself as firmly as he could against the rock, and, with his shield above his head and his sword in his hand, awaited the attack of the enraged animal. He heard the twang of the bow behind him; then he felt a mighty blow, which beat down his shield and descended with terrible force upon his helmet, throwing him forward on to his face. Then there was a heavy blow on his back; and it was well for him that he had on backpiece as well as breastplate, or ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... had ended with a last resounding twang, And within the harp's dumb chambers murmurous echoes faintly rang, Up then sprang the guest, and straightway downward rolled his garment dun— There stood Harold, the ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... the day are done. The firing squad leave the guns. The twang of guitar and screech of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... to whip the Government-team to a right-about-face were annoying, preposterous. Dacier had admitted to Diana that Tonans merited the thanks of the country during 'the discreditable Railway mania, when his articles had a fine exhortative and prophetic twang, and had done marked good. Otherwise, as regarded the Ministry, the veering gusts of Tonans were objectionable: he 'raised the breeze' wantonly as well as disagreeably. Any one can whip up the populace if he has the instruments; and Tonans frequently intruded on the Ministry's prerogative to govern. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... people may think me foolish, especially after coming from London, where many nice maids looked at me (on account of my bulk and stature), and I might have been fitted up with a sweetheart, in spite of my west-country twang, and the smallness of my purse; if only I had said the word. But nay; I have contempt for a man whose heart is like a shirt-stud (such as I saw in London cards), fitted into one to-day, sitting bravely on the breast; plucked out on the morrow morn, and the place ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... set teeth, and he aimed with all his heart and soul in it. There came the twang of the bowstring, and the next moment the gooseshaft was flying towards ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... a half saunter, half swagger, along the street, I knew him again at once by his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in a soft, melodious voice with a colonial "twang" which was far from being disagreeable, and which, indeed, to my ear gave a certain additional interest to his remarks, he saluted me ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... of Parliament, aldermen, and other names of the illustrious, one of which sounded strangely familiar to my ears), ending in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here present, the Lord Mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"—giving a sort, of sentimental twang to the two words,—"and sends it round among you!" And forthwith the loving-cup—several of them, indeed, on each side of the tables—came slowly down with all the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ensconced in Young R.'s favourite armchair, nodded ponderously and beat time to the twang of Mr. Jenkins's banjo, whereto Mr. Stevens sang in a high-pitched and rather shaky tenor the latest musical success yclept "Sammy." Thus, Mr. Jenkins strummed, Mr. Stevens trilled, and Mr. Brimberly alternately beat the tempo with a plump white finger and sipped ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... hot towns paddling in the surf of Spanish waters, And prowl beneath dim balconies and twang discreet guitars, And sigh our adoration to Don Juan's lovely daughters Till they lifted their mantillas and their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... over the deserted town. The night was dark and windless: the street lit glimmeringly from end to end, lamps, house windows, and the reflections in the rain-pools all contributing. From a public-house on the other side of the way, I heard a harp twang and a doleful voice upraised in the "Larboard Watch," "The Anchor's Weighed," and other naval ditties. Where had my Shyster wandered? In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no choice of diversion; in comparison with ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was a sudden step forward, and a sharp, determined twang of their bow-strings. Then the air was white with the cloud of their arrows, and next moment the foremost ranks of the Genoese were seen ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... percentage of the profits for his trouble. Mr. Rattray was also of assistance to them when, as soon as the expense could be managed, these two middle-aged Americans, whose grief was not less impressive because of its twang, arrived in London to arrange that their daughter's final resting-place should be changed to her native land. Mr. Bell told him in confidence that while he hoped he was entirely devoid of what you may call race prejudice against the English people, it didn't, seem as if he could let ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... modify that view, for Bidan (Prosper) prospered more rapidly even than himself. That grey look was out of the boy's face within three weeks. It was wonderful to watch him come back to life, till at last he could say, with his dreadful Provencal twang, that he felt "tres biang." A most amiable youth, he had been a cook, and his chief ambition was to travel till he had attained the summit of mortal hopes, and was cooking at the Ritz in London. When he came to us his limbs seemed almost to have lost their joints, they wambled ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... longest speech, she delivered in quiet, Neutral American, the speech that covers the great prairie states and is as near accentless and pure as American English ever is. It branded her Ozark twang as a lie, and a great many other things about her. But it added something very solid to ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Loud twang'd thy bow, mighty youth, in the foray, Dread gleam'd thy brand in the proud field of glory; And when heroes sat round in the Psalter of Tara, His counsel was sage ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Merchant of Venice. He read me the Play; and very well; thoroughly understanding the text: with clear articulation, and the moderate emphasis proper to room-reading; with the advantage also of never having known the Theatre in his youth, so that he has not picked up the twang of any Actor of the Day. Then he read me King John, which he has some thoughts of editing next after Richard III. And I was reminded of you at Ipswich twenty-eight years ago; and of your Father—his look up at Angiers' Walls as he went out ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... a woman's voice that spoke, soft and wheedling, yet with a certain unpleasant twang in it. She spoke to Melody, who sat still, with folded hands, and head bowed as if in ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... implement he may be said to have, in this country and among its white inhabitants, reinvented. Seated in our easy-chair, we follow him gayly and untiringly into the depths of the woods, drink in the rich, cool, damp air, and revel in the primeval silence that is only broken by the twang of the bowstring or the call of its destined victim. We enjoy his marvellous shots with some little infusion of envy, and his exemplary patience under ill-success and repeated failure with perhaps more. We end, like his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... each to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home at ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... commonly reputed to speak through their nose. A more intimate acquaintance with their manner belies this reputation. It is rather a drawl that afflicts the ear than a nasal twang. You notice in every sentence a curious shifting of emphasis. America, with the true instinct of democracy, is determined to give all parts of speech an equal chance. The modest pronoun is not to be outdone by the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... do Mungo half so well. It is I, sir, I that can do Mungo to the very life. Now I say, boys, with what feeling could I pour out from my heart and soul, "Oh cussa heart of my old massa—him damn impudence and his cuss assurance." This he followed with a spirited twang of "Dear heart" on the violin, accompanying it with the words. Again a noise was heard. "What can it be?" said one. "What can it be?" said another. There was a push at the door. "Oh!" cried Hodgkinson, "it's only one of the hogs that roam about the alley, who, having more taste than the old ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... excess, which, to religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those of the Old Testament, as the language of common intercourse, which issued them from a gloomy countenance, with a nasal twang, and often with a ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... moment a fine buck went by. He had not spied us while we lay still, but the moment my comrade moved, he threw up his head and bounded off. Yet not before a quick twang from Sir Ludar's bowstring had sent an arrow into his quarter. "Are you mad?" cried I, in terror, "it is the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... such gorgeous millinery as would have shocked the grave people of thirty years ago. The deep bass note which once pealed from the belfry with a solemn and solitary dignity of sound has now lost it all amid the jangle of a half-dozen bells of lighter and airier twang. Even the parson himself will not be that grave man of stately bearing, who met the rarest fun only benignantly, and to whom all the villagers bowed,—but some new creature full of the logic of the schools ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... over the pose and vivid gestures of the geisha, who is the one to interpret these dramatic recitations. To her falls the "kotoba." The descriptive lines are recited by a chorus to the harsh and effective twang of the samisen. The samisen may not afford music, but it can give expression to the emotional in feeling. The gidayu recitation is a favourite art with the Go Inkyo[u] Sama. Symposia are held, before which the old gentleman recites, often enough without ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... rope kept on vibrating and the anchor jarred as Scoodrach descended; while, as Max pressed the stock down, and it rose and fell like a spring beneath his foot, he kept his eyes fixed upon the edge of the cliff, where the rope seemed to end, when there was a dull twang, as if the string of some gigantic instrument had snapped, and, to his horror, the rope rose from the top of the cliff as if alive, and struck and coiled round him with a ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... tired; and I'm tough, though I'm small," she retorted, with her pretty twang. "By the way, speaking of to-morrow night. I wonder whether this Mr. Falconer ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held their breath in silence as they watched. He passed high above the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... past the row of buildings until they came to a general store, where they occupied themselves in making out an order for supplies and arranging for their delivery on the following day. The trader was a loquacious individual with the unmistakable "Yankee" twang and nasal whine of the man from that important speck of the United States called ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... men say that here she walked A thousand moons ago; They never raise the war whoop here, And never twang ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... dull, as a rule, but a few cracked viciously as though fired close at hand. These last followed the vacuum of low-flying bullets and had a spat and twang of ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... with him,' said Miss Geraghty, who had still about her a twang of the County Clare, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... smoke and the roar of the elevated trains. To make the air more salubrious an oxygen apparatus had been placed in the room, which liberated just enough gas to make the air fresh and to give it an autumn twang. ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... sing, 'Home Sweet Home'; and the writer of this memory of those old Pacific days sat in a chair in the doorway and wondered where we should all be the next year. For, as we sang and danced, and the twang, twang of Sera's guitar sounded through the silent night without, Tom Devine, the American, held up his hand to ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... speaks my mind,' said Elnathan, with a half-sanctimonious, half-waggish look, and slight nasal twang. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... order being lost, the combat was hand to hand one party fighting fiercely for victory, and the other knowing that they stood at the awful peril of their lives. After the first discharge of the musket and the twang of the bow, the struggle was maintained with knife and axe; the thrust of the former, or the descent of the keen and glittering tomahawk, being answered by sweeping and crushing blows of the musket's but, or by throttling grasps of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... was deserted by his troops. His wife saved the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his sword on herself, and caused her female attendants—of whom there were "several tens"—to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their duty, killed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... do not talk so much too fast, as too loud. Tens of thousands twang and slur and shout and burr! Many of us drawl and many others of us race tongues and breath at full speed, but, as already said, the speed of our speech does not matter so much. Pitch of voice matters very much and so does ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the boom of the fairy bassoon, And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; And the fiddles sail in To the musical din, While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, Rattles on the gay measure ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... said Duncan, with no small touch of spitefulness in his tone, "—twang twanging at teir fine colden herps! She'll not be thinking much of ta herp for a music maker! And peoples tells her she'll not pe hafing her pipes tere! Och hone! Och hone!—She'll chust pe lying still and not pe ketting up, and when ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... elapsed before anything of note occurred. Then, an elderly man whom I did not know, a farmer, by his dress, drew a copy of the "Kiota Tribune" from his pocket, and, stretching it towards Johnson, asked with a very marked Yankee twang: ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... and his secretary had been called and had filled the court with the echoing twang of New York (the controlled fury of the aged Witt was highly effective), Mrs. Henry Leek was invited to the witness-box. She was supported thither by her two curates, who, however, could not prevent her from weeping at the stern voice of the usher. She ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... This wine is liquid gold. I quaff to your good health and ease of mind. This is good wine. It warms my chilly blood With all the dreamy heat of Spain. I hear The clack of th' castinet and th' droning twang Of stringed instruments; while there before Mine eyes brown, yielding beauties dance in time To the pulsing music of a saraband! And yet there is a flavor of the sea, [Sipping wine. The long-drawn heaving of the ocean wave, The gentle cradling of a tropic tide; Its native golden ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... just like one of Tadema's pictures on the move—barring the brougham! The players led the way in white, with the dark wood chanters mounted with silver bells and mouthpieces, and made music with a little of the twang of our pipe chanter, but without the continuity and lift or crisp grace-notes. Young girls, with their faces tinted yellow with saffron, followed in dull red dresses. Behind the procession were classical-looking houses, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... fifty-man-power bow, constituted the heavy, and the individual article the light, artillery of twenty centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element of tremendous noise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... I that I should take exception to the guffaw? Ten years ago I too guffawed, though I hope with not quite the Kensingtonian twang. The first Cezannes I ever saw seemed to me to be very funny. They did not disturb my dreams, because I was not in the business. But my notion about Cezanne was that he was a fond old man who distracted himself by daubing. I could not say how my conversion to Cezanne began. When one is ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... no answer, but I do not know what train of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a low voice, without any expression, but his accents were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... her speaking eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one could hear it faintly twang: ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... sacred like a second region of Brahma. And the sounds of the Yajus, the Riks, the Samas, and other words uttered by the Brahmanas, were exceedingly delightful to hear. And the Vedic recitations of the Brahmanas mingling with the twang of bows of the sons of Pritha, produced a union of the Brahmana and Kshatriya customs that was highly beautiful. And one evening the Rishi Vaka of the Dalvya family addressed Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti seated in the midst of the Rishis, saying, 'Behold, O chief ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... recommend our readers to try the Chinese plan, always provided they are so fortunate as to have a good sound article of pleasant flavor. With most of the tea found in England, and especially so with that generally used in America, the sugar and cream are no doubt necessary to drown the "twang." A Chinaman would put this practice on a par with putting sugar in Chateau Lafitte. Tea is the wine of the Celestial. A mandarin will "talk" it to you as a gourmet talks wine with us; dilate upon its quality and flavor, for the grades are innumerable, and taste and sip and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... saliva, and hence it is that habitual snuff-takers are often unable to speak with proper distinctness; and the sense of taste for the same reason is very much obtunded. A snuffer may always be distinguished by a certain nasal twang—an asthmatic wheezing—and a sort of disagreeable noise in respiration, which is nearly allied to incipient snoring. Snuff also frequently occasions fleshy excrescences in the nose, which, in some instances, end in polypi. Individuals have oftentimes a predisposition to cancer ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... his sovereign, many of his family, and the greater part of the civilized world, were members." And his lordship added a postscript, of which Esmond knew the inspiring genius very well, for it had the genuine twang of the seminary, and was quite unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of writing and thinking; in which he reminded Colonel Esmond that he too was, by birth, of that Church; and that his mother and sister should have his lordship's prayers to the saints (an inestimable benefit, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mechanical piano which had stopped during the speech-making suddenly started up with a loud twang of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Two Indian boys laughed and started on a run for the merry-go-round ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... it broke with a twang; I entered leisurely. It was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages! There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters! Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... of the violin, the lively twang of a guitar, the "boom! boom" of a drum marking time, the stentorian voice of the master of ceremonies, reached her plainly as she lay staring at the stars through the single window of her room. She ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... thinking, then, for you to imagine how I gesticulated and spouted to Parload that night. You figure us as little black figures, unprepossessing in the outline, set in the midst of that desolating night of flaming industrialism, and my little voice with a rhetorical twang protesting, denouncing. . ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... recommended to me, and after partaking of coffee—the best I ever remember to have drunk—I sought my room, Tom insisting upon sleeping on the floor in the same chamber, and my last waking recollections were of the pungent fumes of tobacco, and the tinkle, tinkle, twang of a guitar ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... iron will: The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind, Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings, For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold In the butt's heart ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sang and shouted, Keeping measure as I sped, To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe As it ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... to young Robin when he saw Little John or one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... expect to be taken by surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did almost immediately, I had no suspicion of what they were. The voice had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yankee twang, as some people would call it, which I had always associated with the nuthatch family. On the contrary, it was decidedly finchlike,—so much so that some of the notes, taken by themselves, would have been ascribed without hesitation to the goldfinch or the pine finch, had I heard ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... sir Andrew: scout mee for him at the corner of the Orchard like a bum-Baylie: so soone as euer thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw'st, sweare horrible: for it comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang'd off, giues manhoode more approbation, then euer proofe it selfe would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... come to tell old Surefoot about his daughter's love," the letter goes on, "you should fall into a positive imitation of his manner: crest, motionless, and hands in front, and deliver your preambles with a nasal twang. But at the second invitation to speak out, you should cast this to the winds, and go into the other extreme of bluntness and rapidity. [Quite right!] When you meet him after the exposure, you should speak as you are coming to him and stop him in mid-career, and then attack him. You ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... played—and then, in the middle of a favorite two-step, a mandolin string snapped with a sharp twang, and Bud came as close to swearing as a well-behaved young man may come in the ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... at length reaches his ear. The "quien viva?" is upon his lips; but he lives not to utter the words. Half-a-dozen bowstrings twang simultaneously, and as many arrows bury themselves in his flesh. His heart is pierced, and he falls, almost without uttering ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... tattooed serpent winding its way round the strong wrist to the elbow (oh, wonderful make-up box!)—on the edge of the marble bar, and called loudly for a drink. His very voice was raw and husky with a tang of the sea in it. Dollops's nasal twang took up the story, while the barmaid—a red-headed, fat woman with a coarse, hard face, who was continually smiling—looked them up and down, and having taken stock of them set two pewter tankards of frothing ale before them, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... vernacular. (Is there not often something in the very neglect, unfinish, careless nudity, slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and not "put on," that secretly pleases the soul more than the wrought and re-wrought polish of the most perfect verse?) Mark the native spice and untranslatable twang in the very names of his songs-"O for ane and twenty, Tam," "John Barleycorn," "Last May a braw Wooer," "Rattlin roarin Willie," "O wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast," "Gude e'en to you, Kimmer," "Merry hae I been teething a Heckle," ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... up, his mouth turned down; His accent caught a nasal twang; He oiled his hair; there might be heard The grace of God in every word Which Peter said ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... then almost opposite, and now, as I listened to hear the traitorous signal of murder—"Pax vobiscum"—and the twang of bow-strings, on the night there rang a voice, a woman's voice, soft but wondrous clear, such as never I knew from any lips but hers who then spoke; that voice I heard in its last word, "Jesus!" and still it is sounding ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... divine stillness of the universe came the unspeakable twang of a banjo; and a fat ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... stranger approaches the nest, looking like angry coals of brilliant fire, returning several times to the attack with the utmost velocity, at the same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat, somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, and curiously like the real bleat of some small quadruped. At other times the males may be seen darting high up in the air, and whirling about each other in great anger and with ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... attracted every one. A San Francisco lady, much "got up" in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... and who soon taught him how to gain much greater sums than in this way of life, by methods which he until then never heard of, and will I am confident, to this day carry the charms of novelty to most of my readers. Of these the first she put upon him was going on what they call the "twang," which is thus managed: the man who is the confederate goes out with some noted woman of the town, and if she fall into any broil, he is to be at a proper distance, ready to come into her assistance, and by making a sham quarrel, give her an opportunity of ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... toward them. Directly over the shaft, with head slightly inclined, like that of a hunter sighting over his gun, were the gleaming eyes and face of the young Shawanoe. It looked as if he had turned his head to one side that he might catch the music made by the twang of the string when it should dart forward with the speed of the rattlesnake striking ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... one knows exactly when or Why he came to call it tenor, But the fact remains he sang With a subtle nasal twang Just because he liked to do so (He was Carr, but not CARUSO), And with such a force of lung That, whatever tune he sung, It was like a projectile With a range ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... smell, in its ordinary state, much connexion with our present subject. Mr. Aubrey tells us, indeed, of an apparition which disappeared with a curious perfume as well as a most melodious twang; and popular belief ascribes to the presence of infernal spirits a strong relish of the sulphureous element of which they are inhabitants. Such accompaniments, therefore, are usually united with other materials for imposture. If, as a general opinion assures us, which is not positively discountenanced ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... Harp so well, That he tickled Eurydice out of Hell, With a Twing come Twang, and a Twing come Twang; but, Some say Euridice was a Scold Therefore the Devil of her took hold, With a Twing ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... Militona's window continued closed and dark; and at last the man, compelled to content himself with an invisible auditory,—in spite of the Spanish proverb, which says, no woman sleeps so soundly that the twang of a guitar will not bring her to the window,—began to sing in a strong Andalusian accent. The serenade consisted of a dozen verses, in which the singer celebrated the charms of a cruel mistress, vowed inextinguishable love, and denounced fearful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... head, and clapped his upon my own, and burst out a-laughing again; upon which we all fell a-laughing for half an hour. One of the Honest Fellows got behind me in the interim, and hit me a sound slap on the back; upon which he got the laugh out of my hands, and it was such a twang on my shoulders, that I confess he was much merrier than I. I was half angry; but resolved to keep up the good humour of the company; and after holloing as loud as I could possibly, I drank off a bumper of claret, that made me stare again. "Nay," says one ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... ugly and Philistine. Well, I dont live in it. I find modern houses ugly. I dont live in them: I have a palace on the grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I dont wear them, except, of course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney twang: I keep out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian. I find Beethoven's music coarse and restless, and Wagner's senseless and detestable. I do not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to Pergolesi, to Gluck and ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... reviews and title-pages constitute a good part of modern literary acquirements. But upon my honour, sir, one hears young ladies now talk of nothing but architecture and divinity. Botany is quite gone out; and music, unless there's a twang of Papistry about it, is generally voted a bore. In my younger days—(really, sir, you needn't laugh, for I haven't had a love affair these two years)—in my younger days, when one talked about similarity of tastes and so forth, it meant that both parties loved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... shrill intensity of youth. A stranger passing might have thought them about to come to blows. But they were simply noisy with earnestness. Their argument was as unlike one of the debates in Vergil's Eclogues as possible. It was an antistrophe of twang ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his plans to seize Tell, and without a dream of danger, for the pass was silent and seemed deserted. But suddenly to his ears came the twang of the bow he had heard before that day; through the air once more winged its way a steel-barbed shaft, the heart of a tyrant, not an apple on a child's head, now its mark. In an instant more Gessler fell from his horse, pierced by Tell's fatal ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered himself of these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone, thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely becomes hereditary after three or four generations raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately, as if weighing his words well, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... eyes, proclaiming the advent of the god: "'Tis he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple's vault, which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued from the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We heard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor." Hearing these cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on—the Gauls are panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are spread; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of the night were shouting riotously. The wind came suffing through the swaying arms of the bearded waving hemlocks—Druid priests officiating at some age-old sacrament. Then a night-hawk swerved past with a hum of wings like the twang of a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... cavalry corps had a fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every body else; for once, on being removed to another part of ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... gentlemen performers whose names and faces I know not, and such was the never ceasing rattling and noise in the card-room, where I was kept almost all the evening, that a general humming of musical sounds, and now and then a twang, was all ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us himself, that this was a mistake, that "the pulpit ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... to know him too well in my drinking days. He'll never disguise that look of that wicked eye of his from them as knows him well; and though he's got summat in his mouth to make him talk different, I could tell the twang of his ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... ambitious. Grandsir Kendrick—a fatal title in itself—was a hatter by trade, who had come to Georgia in search of a precarious livelihood. He obtained permission to build him a little log hut by the side of a running stream; and, for a year or two, people going along the road could hear the snap and twang of his bowstring as he whipped wool or rabbit fur into shape. Some said he was from North Carolina; others said he was from Connecticut; but whether from one State or the other, what should a hatter do away off in the woods in Putnam County? ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... "over-dare" in speaking to your nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of eighteen to ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where, after sermon, a bonfire of idols was made, to which the women ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... and peaceful—yet it was busy with sound and with movement. Rooks, those sanctimonious humbugs, circled overhead, cawing thieves' warnings, that had the twang of sermons, to other rooks, out of sight in neighbouring seed-fields. Lapwings, humbugs too, but humbugs in a prettier cause, started from the shrubberies where their eggs were hidden, and fluttered lamely ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the cook—bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy o' ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... imitate than Captain Wilding's affectation. For indeed there seem to be as many ways of pronouncing English as there are people that speak it, and even in Norfolk itself I have met with people who were not free from something like the Suffolk twang. Seeing, I suppose, that I was disappointed by this answer, he leant over and ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... have they been slain that had escaped from even Karna, that warrior who had barbed arrows and Nalikas for his teeth, the sword for his tongue, the bow for his gaping mouth, and the twang of the bowstring and the sound of palms for his roars—that angry Karna who never retreated from battle, and who was a very lion among men! Alas, those princes that succeeded in crossing, by boats constituted by their own excellent weapons, the great Drona-ocean having cars for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... I thought that it was better to secure the substance than endeavour to catch the shadow—so I bought the book, and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him. Oh, I wish you could have seen the wretch! But here is the document, written in the same style in which it was spoken. Read ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... at the little house in the Hampstead Road, the house which Kit enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past had not been unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the piano from ear, and sing the songs of the street with a charming cockney twang. But there was nothing of the stage about her now. She was born for domesticity and, as the wife of Malim, she wished to forget all that had gone before. She even hesitated to give us her wonderful imitations of the customers at the fried ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... any friend of Mr. Saulsbury's," he drawled with a mournful twang. "We've got plenty o' bread and milk for strangers. Somebody's spread the idea we run a hotel here and we're pestered a good deal with folks that want to stop for a meal. We take care o' 'em mostly. The ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to make up the pudding of our modern civilization? And pertinent to this question another—Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? Is ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... neighborly, noisy, demonstrative spirit characteristic of his age and class. He could have entered into this circle of strangers—strangers for the most part, in all probability, to one another—and in ten minutes' time been one of them. Their screams, their twang, their slang, their gossip, their jolly banter, and their gay ineptitude would have been to him like a welcome home. But he was Norrie Ford, known by name and misfortune to every one of them. The boys and girls on the pier, the elderly women in the rocking-chairs, even the waitresses who, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... "is the third night, and these fires must blaze yet eleven nights and days more, during which time the axe is not seen in the hand of the forester, nor doth the bow twang in the woods of Tarapajan; neither may he which seeth these rites depart till ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will only wonder ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... learnt that his strange guests were brother and sister. The man, he presumed, must be Signor Vicinironi—or count, or prince, as it might be. It was wonderful what good English he spoke. There was just a twang of foreign accent, and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... went out. But Arjuna, endued with energy, continued eating in the dark, his hand, from habit, going to his mouth. His attention being thus called to the force of habit, the strong- armed son of Pandu set his heart upon practising with his bow in the night. And, O Bharata, Drona, hearing the twang of his bowstring in the night, came to him, and clasping him, said, 'Truly do I tell thee that I shall do that unto thee by which there shall not be an archer equal to thee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... find us to be very mild, and humble and nice, and good, and clever, and kind, and charitable, and beautiful,—in short, the finest people that have as yet been created on the broad face of God's smiling earth." These last words she pronounced with a nasal twang, and in a tone of voice which almost seemed to him to be a direct mimicry of the American Minister. The upshot of the conversation, however, was that the disgust against Americans which, to a certain degree, had been excited in Mr. Glascock's mind ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... a look at that knave," the bowman remarked, drawing a fresh arrow from his sheaf. "By the twang of string! I'll swear I drilled him clean ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... of a flare, but both curses and Koran ceased as the procession passed under the arch. In the market-place a Soosi juggler was performing before a throng of laughing people, and a story-teller was shrieking to the twang of his ginbri; but the audience of the juggler broke up as the procession appeared, and the ginbri of the storyteller was no more heard. The hammering in the shops of the gunsmiths was stopped, and the tinkling of the bells of the water-carriers was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... shot best the prize of a yoke of fat steers should belong. A dozen keen-eyed bowmen were there, and among them some of the best fellows in the Forester's and Sheriff's companies. Down at the end of the line towered the tall beggar-man, who must needs twang a bow-string with the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... little black horse knew perfectly well what had happened, though his head was exactly in the opposite direction; and he tugged with all his might, and leant over more than ever. The two lazos tightened with a twang, as though they had been guitar-strings; and in a moment the unfortunate bull was rolling with all his legs in the air, in the midst of a whirlwind of dust. Having thus humiliated him we let him go, and off he went ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... "could make this possible," when, looking up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of enjoyment, ordering "spargetty" and half a bottle of "grayves," with a cockney twang, and an unutterable ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... but I do not know what train of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a low voice, without any expression, but his accents were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some time had wounded ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... an authorish twang with it, which will wear out my name for poetry. Give him a smile from me till I see him. If you do not drop down before, some day in the week after next I will come and take one night's lodging with you, if convenient, before you go hence. You shall name it. We are in town to-morrow speciali ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy the changes of the voice. I know when it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or cheery. The thin, quavering sensation of an old voice differs in my touch from the sensation of a young voice. A Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow and ebb of a voice is so enchanting that my fingers quiver with exquisite pleasure, even if I do not understand a ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... until they came to a general store, where they occupied themselves in making out an order for supplies and arranging for their delivery on the following day. The trader was a loquacious individual with the unmistakable "Yankee" twang and nasal whine of the man from that important speck of the United States called ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... aggravate me. I say Mary Jane shan't learn to sing and plant another instrument of torture in this house, while I'm boss of the family. Her voice is just like yours; it's got a twang to it like blowing on the edge of ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... of age, with a winy color upon her lips, the faintest perceptible shadow of fading upon the roses of her cheeks, a little anxious wrinkle between her earnest gray eyes, a slight nasal twang in her New England voice, and a fresh flounce upon her old black alpaca dress—the first morning of her experience in an atelier des dames in Paris! She had come down the hill from her dark little room on Montmartre, fancying that the gray December day was crystalline, that the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... rest in changing preachers, but there is nothing in that to bring it. You may leave the minister who thumps the desk and listen to a man with a nasal twang, but you are still restive and unsatisfied. You think the reason your peace of soul is disturbed is that Mrs. Garrulous talked about you, or that the weather is rainy and disagreeable, or that the meetings are dull, or that people are ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... is thin, watery, acrid, irritating, and profuse. The nose may be "stopped up" from the swollen and thickened condition of the lining mucous membrane, so as to necessitate respiration through the mouth, giving to the voice a disagreeable nasal twang. From the nature of the obstruction in this condition, it is useless for the sufferer to endeavor to clear the passage by blowing the nose; this only tends to render a bad matter worse, by increasing the irritation and swelling of the already thickened lining membrane. The swelling ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... flavor, gust, gusto, savor; gout, relish; sapor^, sapidity^; twang, smack, smatch^; aftertaste, tang. tasting; degustation, gustation. palate, tongue, tooth, stomach. V. taste, savor, smatch^, smack, flavor, twang; tickle the palate &c (savory) 394; smack the lips. Adj. sapid, saporific^; gustable^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the mountain stood the Scarlet Hunter with drawn bow. From it an arrow flew over their heads with a sorrowful twang, and fell where the smoke rose among the pines; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity. And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed resentfully at the veteran's contemptuous grunt. His eyes still ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... of the negro's rifle awoke the sleeping echoes. It was succeeded by a yell which seemed to come from under the window. Several dark forms rose so suddenly that they appeared to spring out of the ground. Then came the peculiar twang of Indian bows. There were showers of sparks and little streaks of fire with long tails like comets winged their parabolic flight toward the cabin. Falling short they hissed and sputtered in the grass. Jonathan's rifle spoke and one of the fleeing ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... into a loud laugh, and then placing his hat a little more on one side, and assuming a nasal twang, he said, "Neow dew tell, if you're from Massachusetts. How dew you dew, little Yankee, and how are all the ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... Nature made me all the hours of the day. But when I got back to the Garter, what should I find but that poor old Martin had been stricken with the dead palsy while he was playing his rebeck, and would never twang a note more; and there was pretty Perronel weeping over him, and Nat Fire-eater pledging his word to give the old man bed, board, and all that he could need, if so be that Perronel should be trained to be one of his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... billiard-tables in England, and the pockets were twice as large. The four balls, with which they played, were not much bigger than those generally used at bagatelle. The queus were uncovered at the top with leather; and the player had the satisfaction of hearing the sharp twang of his bare-headed queu as each time it struck the little ivory ball. No chalk was in the room. The Danes possess no word in their language expressive of that convenient mineral. In Denmark, credit is never given. You must pay, or go to prison. Thank ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... made Falcon swerve, and heard therewith the twang of the bowstring and straightway the shaft flew past his ears. Falcon galloped on, and the carle cried out: "There is the highway toward the Burg! Do thy best, do ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the shouts of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... palpitating aerial stain. Here and there in the distance the coils of the river gleamed clear gold; and overhead, in the hollow amber-and-lilac arch of sky, the high-wandering night-hawks swooped with the sweet twang of smitten strings. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Cirencester, was an apparition: being demanded, whether a good spirit, or a bad ? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang. Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the audience, pleased to find themselves on such easy terms with the new language. But to Pinchas the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with such locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine talking with a twang—how could he permit such an outrage upon his ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... being a practical cowman, understood the situation; but Camp was restless and uneasy as if he expected to find the cattle in the corrals at the ranch. Camp was years the older of the two, a pudgy man with a florid complexion and nasal twang, and kept the junior member busy answering his questions. Uncle Lance enjoyed the situation, jollying his sister about the elder contractor and quietly inquiring of the red-haired foreman how and where Dupree ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... judge from the following succinct and business-like memorandum of a ghost-seer. "Anno 1670. Not far from Cirencester was an apparition. Being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad, returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang. M.W. Lilly believes it was a ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... had promised to go to Lambert's rooms after dinner on that evening; he had asked us because he said we ought to have a talk about the freshers' wine, but we knew well enough that he intended to twang his wretched banjo and sing little love songs which made the night hideous. If only he would have sung comic things he might not have caused such wholesale pain, though I should not like to speak positively upon that point. I did not go to this entertainment immediately after dinner, and when I ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... some apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at most inconvenient ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... same, and it takes the form of one vowel or another, solely according to the shape which the "resonator" assumes, and which may be described as a mould into which the tone is cast. The quality of the voice also—its throatiness, its nasal twang, its shrillness, harshness, and ugliness, or its purity, roundness, fulness, and beauty—depend mainly upon the nature of the resonator, and upon the way in which we work it. It is, therefore, a matter of the highest importance to be fully acquainted with ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... Putnam—a short, rugged, fat, white-haired farmer from Connecticut of bluff manners and nasal twang and of great animation for one of his years—he was then fifty-seven. He was often seen flying about the camp on a horse. The young man had read of the heroic exploits of this veteran of ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one could hear it faintly twang: ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... muttered Robin, betwixt set teeth, and he aimed with all his heart and soul in it. There came the twang of the bowstring, and the next moment the gooseshaft ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... and nearer! Instinctively he thrust out his fiddle at them. The jarring of the strings made than leap back. Hope returned. He drew his hand violently across the strings—twang, twang! Instantly the wolves sprang back as if he had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous housekeepers—too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note of preparation, and then they received grandly. To ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... deals. In a quarter of an hour in came our supper,—black bread, fried eggs, and a skein of wine. We fell to; but, alack! what from the smut of the chimney and the dust of the pan, the eggs were done in the chiaro scuro style; the wine had so villanous a twang, that a few sips of it contented me; and the bread, black as it was, was the only thing palatable. I got the landlady persuaded to boil me an egg; and though the Italian peasants only dip their eggs in hot water, and serve them up raw, it was preferable to the conglomerate ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... quick fierce cry That rends the utter silence! 'tis the whoop Of battle, and a throng of savage men With naked arms and faces stained like blood, Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream; Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short, As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors And conquered vanish, and the dead remain Mangled ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... chaps that sit i' Parliament Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang; If t' coontry goes to t' dogs, it's 'cause they've sent Ower mony city folk to mend ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... the Avenue when we crossed it again, yet we all went on about our daily tasks as one passes the blind man on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-third Street. He may receive a penny, a twang of the heart strings, but he must be passed to go into the shop. My list was in my purse bearing but a faint resemblance to the demands of other years. I thought as I took it out what confusion of mind would have been my portion had I found it in my purse ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... no longer in Maraquita's power to give, for they had already been transferred with all the other treasures of a young and loving heart, to the keeping of a dark-eyed youth of Manilla. He had been rudely repulsed by her parents, but often would the cautious twang of his guitar bring her to a midnight interview. These clandestine meetings were interrupted. Her dark-eyed lover no longer came, and she was told she would never see him more. A marriage with the Don was urged, she resisted—the alternative was a convent! ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... had stopped during the speech-making suddenly started up with a loud twang of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Two Indian boys laughed and started on a run for the merry-go-round and ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... good claret, here, eh, Silverbridge?" He could never hit off his familiarity quite right. He had my-Lorded his young friend at first, and now brought out the name with a hesitating twang, which the young nobleman appreciated. But then the young nobleman was quite aware that the Major was a friend for club purposes, and sporting purposes, and not for ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... risen cautiously to his feet. Then the antelope appeared to become aware of some unusual feature in the scene, and halted to investigate, whereupon Phil cautiously drew his bowstring, released it with a loud twang, and the arrow, flying straight and true, pierced the creature's heart, so that it fell dead in its tracks, and they had their first deer. And now again Stukely gave fresh evidence of his uncanny knowledge, for although he ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... He did not know what was before him. Torture or death? Both, most likely. He tried to be resigned, but how could one be resigned when one was so young and so strong? The hum of the village life came to him, the sound of voices, the tread of feet, the twang of a boyish bowstring, but the guard in the doorway never stirred. It seemed to Dick that the Sioux, who wore very little clothing, was carved out of reddish-brown stone. Dick wondered if he would ever move, and lying ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... its sunshine, with its opulent colour, luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my memory; I remember the cloudless ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... weapons, and with lighted matches glowing redly in the linstocks, a few of the bolder inhabitants summoned up courage enough to shout an inquiry as to what was amiss. And when at length the more persistent ones were told, in good Castilian, that yet had in it the suspicion of an alien twang, that nothing was amiss, and were advised to return to their beds and resume their interrupted slumber, suspicion at last began to awake, and instead of returning to bed the citizens proceeded to arouse their households, and to hurriedly dress. Then a few of the more courageous ones—but ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... desolation—a mind unredeemed by virtue save in the shape of remorse—unvisited by weakness, until it came transmuted into the tiger of madness—whose very sermons were satires on God and man—whose very prayers had a twang of blasphemy—whose loves were more loathsome than his hatreds, and yet over whose blasted might and most miserable and withered heart men mourn, while they shudder, blend tears with anathemas, and agree that the awful mystery of man itself is deepened ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... while Billy Grey and Ludwig Wolfen stood on the top of it and sang, or tried to sing, 'Home Sweet Home'; and the writer of this memory of those old Pacific days sat in a chair in the doorway and wondered where we should all be the next year. For, as we sang and danced, and the twang, twang of Sera's guitar sounded through the silent night without, Tom Devine, the American, held up his hand ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... passed away, Like a tide. Doors are open, windows wide. Why in stuffy London stay?" Sing the Sirens (slyboots they!) With a Tennysonian twang, To the Tourist, (Not the poorest You may bet your bottom dollar, Which those Sirens aim to "collar." Demoiselles, excuse ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... finally, "it's Susie Capper, commonly called 'Tootles.' And I tell you what it is. If you come snooping round my place to get me before the beak, I'll scream and kick, so help me Bob, I will." There was an English cockney twang in her voice. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Horace tasted very much like Aristotle;—you know I am fond of variety. Terentius I could not have told from Menander. Naso, to my astonishment, was Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus—and Titus Livius was positively Polybius and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as she addressed him, and Ferdinand noticed that it was icy cold. She was trembling all over and her eyes were troubled. He was just about to answer when a sharp twang caught his ear, and turning his head he saw Ezra in the act of handing the violin ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was heard at the time and from what was subsequently ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... correct kind of letter to write to excuse a dirty trick, Sam. It's got the true, rotten, swell twang about it." ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... pleasantly as MacHeath and Griffin came into the gun chamber. "I just thought I'd come down and see how you were getting along," he said. His voice was a low tenor, with just a touch of Midwestern twang. "Sometimes the creative mind gets bogged down in the nth-order abstractions that have no discernible connection with anything at all." He chuckled. "When that happens, I drop everything and go out to find ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of the innumerable naked footsteps of all past ages seems to patter along the stone terraces. Now and then the twang of the Javanese angklong and the beautiful notes of a flute sweep sweetly into the ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... down to his right Colt. A blaze of flame leaped from the region of his hip. Along with the crashing roar of the explosion came a sharp, metallic twang. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... my most trustie page, Goe not nowe aboute to hinder my mariage, So feruent hotte wowyng, and so farre from wiuing, I trowe neuer was any creature liuyng, With euery woman is he in some loues pang, Then vp to our lute at midnight, twangledome twang, Then twang with our sonets, and twang with our dumps, And heyhough from our heart, as heauie as lead lumpess: Then to our recorder with toodleloodle poope As the howlet out of an yuie bushe should hoope. Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledum thrum, ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... followed, and then Long Tom said, "There is another has had his lesson, Sir Eustace. I heard a bow twang across there, and as there was no cry you may be sure that the shaft sped straight, and that the man had ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... opened my eyes, so he cheerfully remarked, in a strong twang known by some supercilious English as the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the first to speak, and it was evident to me that he cloaked his own voice, putting on the nasal twang and the manner of an East-end ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... near to the village with quick and joyful steps. He saw the smoke curling through the roof, and the thatch where green plants had thickly sprouted. He heard the children shouting and calling, and from a window that he passed came the twang of the koto, and everything seemed to cry a welcome for his return. Yet suddenly he felt a pang at his heart as he wandered down the street. After all, everything was changed. Neither men nor houses were those he once knew. Quickly he saw his old home; yes, it was still there, but it had a strange ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... say to Englishmen travelling in America, don't condescend to the "guessing" and other loose styles of expression, and don't affect the nasal twang. Americans, with all their boast of one man being as good as another, are greatly pleased to entertain or travel with Englishmen having a title, and they pay a marked respect to Britishers who speak in a classical style, and who, while being ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... on a wave, far ahead the boys could see the lights of the Brutus. Only for a second, however, for the next minute she would vanish in the trough of a huge comber, and then they could hear the strained towing cable "twang" like ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Zeleia's walls once safe restored. Compressing next nerve and notch'd arrow-head He drew back both together, to his pap Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow, And when the horn was curved to a wide arch, 145 He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed Leap'd off, impatient for the distant throng. Thee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods Forgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil, Thy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart. 150 Far as a mother wafts the fly aside[7] That haunts ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... heeling her over until her starboard waterway was buried. The breaking sea swept the deck like a cataract, lifting the boat clean off it, just as I sprang back into the cockpit; there was a little jerk and a twang as the rope parted, and in an instant we were afloat and driving rapidly away to ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the cathedrals, which is called "intoning." It is a plaintive, rhythmical chant, with as strong an unction of the nasal as ever prevailed in a Quaker or Methodist meeting. I cannot exactly understand why Episcopacy threw out the slur of "nasal twang" as one of the peculiarities of the conventicle, when it is in full force in the most approved seats of church orthodoxy. I listened to all in as uncritical and sympathetic a spirit as possible, giving myself up to be lifted by the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... into a fortress where he was deserted by his troops. His wife saved the situation. She upbraided her husband as he was scaling the palisades to escape by night, fortified him with wine, girded his sword on herself, and caused her female attendants—of whom there were "several tens"—to twang bowstrings. Katana, taking heart of grace, advanced single handed; the Yemishi, thinking that his troops had rallied, gave way, and the Japanese soldiers, returning to their duty, killed or captured all ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... walked upstairs very slowly. The nasal twang of that high-pitched voice in the hall had wiped the bloom off her anticipation. The small double dormitory in which she slept was No. 3, Room 5. The door was half-open, so she entered without knocking. Both beds, the chairs, and most of the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... myriad sparks from the hot iron fly; A golden eagle on a screen their mark, So distant that it seemed a sparrow's size— "For," said the prince, "let not this joyful day Give anguish to the smallest living thing." They strain their bows until their muscles seem Like knotted cords, the twelve strings twang at once, And the ground trembles as at the swelling tones Of mighty organs or the thunder's roll. Two arrows pierce the eagle, while the rest All pierce the screen. A second mark was set, When lo! high up in air two lines of swans, Having one leader, seek ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... thus that he made his proposal to the girl of his choice; and no one, hearing it, would have guessed that beneath his calm, even phlegmatic, exterior, the man was in a ferment of anxiety. He spoke with a slight nasal twang that seemed to emphasise his deliberation, and his face was mask-like in its composure. Of beauty ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... I do to make you glad— To make you glad and gay, Till your eyes gleam bright As the stars at night When as light as the light of day Sing some song as I twang the strings Of my sweet guitar through its wanderings?" And she sighed in the weary way she had,— "Do not sing—it ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... the companion of a few brief weeks of my boyhood. I dared not picture her as growing up, for I had no faith in the influence of Rufus Blight, whom I had always associated with packages of tea and prizes. Penelope grown, I feared, might have become fat and florid, might speak with a twang and wear gaudy hats and gowns. My life in New York, even though I was but a quiet observer, had made me critical of women, and when I could brood unhappily over Gladys Todd's stray wisps of hair I could have little sympathy ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... nab with a gage of ben bouse,[4] And stall thee by the salmon into clowes,[5] To maund on the pad, and strike all the cheats, [6] To mill from the Ruffmans, Commission, and slates, [7] Twang dells i' th' stiromel, and let the Quire Cuffin And Harman Beck strine and trine to the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... well-educated young men, who know not what it is to speak in the House of Commons. He heard much slovenly English, much trite reasoning, some eloquent thoughts, and close argument, often delivered in a jerking tone of voice (popularly called the parliamentary twang), and often accompanied by gesticulations that would have shocked the manager of a provincial theatre. He thought how much better than these great dons (with but one or two exceptions), he himself could speak,—with what more refined logic, with what more polished ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Prioress that his men had spied a lad accompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought, had a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he carved for the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire, than the inquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she had been lodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast, sat meantime with the ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But it was nothing against him in her judgment that he was a greasy, fawning, pawing, creeping, black-browed rascal, who could not look her full in the face, and whose every word sounded like a lie. There was a twang in his voice which ought to have told her that he was utterly untrustworthy. There was an oily pretence at earnestness in his manner which ought to have told that he was not fit to associate with gentlemen. There was a foulness of demeanour about him which ought to have given ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... which sounded strangely familiar to my ears,) ending in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here present, the Lord-Mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"—giving a sort of sentimental twang to the two words,—"and sends it round among you!" And forthwith the loving-cup—several of them, indeed, on each side of the tables—came slowly down with all the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did almost immediately, I had no suspicion of what they were. The voice had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yankee twang, as some people would call it, which I had always associated with the nuthatch family. On the contrary, it was decidedly finchlike,—so much so that some of the notes, taken by themselves, would have been ascribed without hesitation to the ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... ridge, we halted. The cavalry were keeping up a lively fire just ahead and on the right, and there was every prospect of an interesting time. Very soon we were ordered forward to skirmish. As the order was received, Smith remarked, with a peculiar twang to his heavy voice and an odd ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... his doublet, laid his great hands upon the Sieur Amaury de Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand crowns out of him, with his horse and harness. 'Tis true that a French wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it; but what then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing if money was not made to be spent; and how better than on ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... longer in Maraquita's power to give, for they had already been transferred with all the other treasures of a young and loving heart, to the keeping of a dark-eyed youth of Manilla. He had been rudely repulsed by her parents, but often would the cautious twang of his guitar bring her to a midnight interview. These clandestine meetings were interrupted. Her dark-eyed lover no longer came, and she was told she would never see him more. A marriage with the Don was urged, she resisted—the alternative was a convent! In pity ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... trench he open'd: in a line he placed. The level axes, and the points made fast (His perfect skill the wondering gazers eyed, The game as yet unseen, as yet untried). Then, with a manly pace, he took his stand: And grasp'd the bow, and twang'd it in his hand. Three times, with beating heart, he made essay: Three times, unequal to the task, gave way; A modest boldness on his cheek appear'd: And thrice he hoped, and thrice again he fear'd. The fourth had drawn it. The great ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... country that I was rather agreeably surprised by the few specimens of native Americans that I have seen. They were for the most part, polite, well-behaved people. The only peculiarities I observed in them were a certain nasal twang in speaking, and some few odd phrases; but these were only used by the lower class, who "guess" and "calculate" a little more than we do. One of their most remarkable terms is to "Fix." Whatever work requires to be done it must be fixed. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Captain Wilding's affectation. For indeed there seem to be as many ways of pronouncing English as there are people that speak it, and even in Norfolk itself I have met with people who were not free from something like the Suffolk twang. Seeing, I suppose, that I was disappointed by this answer, he leant over and ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... the parlor attracted every one. A San Francisco lady, much "got up" in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... answer, with the true cockney twang. "Trade ain't very brisk. There's too bloomin' many of ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr. Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the choral frogs in Aristophanes; ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man, with large features and spectacles, and a deep internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in it; and he goggled over his plate like a horse. I often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth upwards at the sides. Wordsworth, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... spirit characteristic of his age and class. He could have entered into this circle of strangers—strangers for the most part, in all probability, to one another—and in ten minutes' time been one of them. Their screams, their twang, their slang, their gossip, their jolly banter, and their gay ineptitude would have been to him like a welcome home. But he was Norrie Ford, known by name and misfortune to every one of them. The boys and girls on the pier, the elderly women in the rocking-chairs, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... him was to ask, "When you first came amongst us, major, you spoke with the barbaric provincialism and nasal twang of your countrymen, but in your years with us you have lost them. Could you upon occasion ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... speaking to your nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... his song had ended with a last resounding twang, And within the harp's dumb chambers murmurous echoes faintly rang, Up then sprang the guest, and straightway downward rolled his garment dun— There stood Harold, ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... modulated, yet resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of itself to draw and hold each listener; while a certain extravagance of gesticulation—a fantastic movement of both form and feature—seemed very near akin to fascination. And so flowed on the ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... war-whoop, cheering, and the thundering noise of the planks, grating along the deck, together with the ringing and clattering of their metallic vessels, they made altogether such a hideous "rattle-come-twang," that it was enough to raise all Chatham. All this was transacted in utter darkness. The officers doubtless saw, that bloodshed and promiscuous death would be the consequence of firing among the rioters, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... comfortably in her lap; her elm was faintly murmurous with a constant soft rustling and whispering of the lace of leaves around its great boughs. Now and then a tree-toad spoke, or from the pasture pond behind the house came the metallic twang of a bullfrog. But nothing else broke the deep stillness of the summer night. Lizzie's elbow was on her knee, her chin in her hand; she was listening to the peace, and thinking—not anxiously, but seriously. After all, it was a great undertaking: Nathaniel wasn't "hearty," perhaps,—but when you ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... was a nasal tone in his voice always—a twang that grated on sensitive ears. He turned on Gilbert. "How about dinner?" he asked, almost as though the young fellow were a ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... stamped and swung his legs in tune. Masha was all a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and twang the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... a voice startlingly like Harris's. It was Meeker, or Thirkle, as his men called him, imitating the high-pitched nasal twang of ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... string broke with a sudden harsh twang that made her jump. She was so startled that the tears came to her eyes, and so nervous that she flung herself face downward on the pillows of the long-Persian divan, and began sobbing hysterically. The strain of ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the utterances of all southerners, particularly of the women, whose avocations, taking them less from home, are less favourable to their throwing off this ignoble trick of pronunciation, than the more varied occupation, and the more extended and promiscuous business relations of men. The Yankee twang of the regular down Easter is not more easily detected by any ear, nice in enunciation and accent, than the thick negro speech of the southerners: neither is lovely or melodious; but though the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... lips, which habitually smiled. A tuft of yellow beard on the end of his sharp chin, gave his face a comical expression resembling that which caricature bestows on Uncle Sam. His voice was pitched in a high key, and was modified by that nasal twang supposed to indicate Yankee origin; but a habit of giving his declarative sentences an interrogative finish, might denote that he came from the mountain regions of Pennsylvania or Virginia. A pair of linsey pantaloons, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... dressed as for a ball. There was a priest at the table to tell the girls what to do. High Mass was performed, then a long sermon was delivered by a priest who spoke very fluently, but with a strange twang and in a very odd style, continually apostrophising the two girls by name, comparing them to olives and other fruit, to candelabri, and desiring them to keep themselves pure that 'they might go as ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the best they utter impertinences which, issuing from a big and barbarous mouth in a peculiar patois, pass for pleasantry amongst those who are not over-nice about the quality of that article. The tone of voice is peculiar; it is pitched in the usual savage key, modified by the twang of the chapel and by the cantilene of the Yankee—originally Puritan Lancashire. Hence a 'new chum' may hear the women talking for several days before he finds out that they are talking English. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... the other one. At least he was a man!' "Well, we dream our dreams, sentimental little girls that we are! And after a time we open our eyes like kittens on life. I have opened mine, Larry,—very wide open. There isn't a sentimental chord in my being that you can twang any longer.... But we can be good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,—only let me finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading,—it is ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... paddle, but this time he missed, and down went the otter again. It did not dive deep, however, and the shaft of the arrow told where it might be expected. As its round head, with bright, staring eyes, thrust up above the water, there came the twang of the young Aleut's bow, and the second arrow chugged into the body of the otter. Even the older hunter greeted ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... cases. There she had to attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their sort: just their very ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her eyes the right roll, her haunches the right swing. She seemed altogether just the ticket. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... weavers, and shoemakers, not the shadow of a gentleman among them!—a man who ate brose, went with bare knees, worked like any hind, and did not dare offend his wretched relations by calling his paltry farm his own!—for the sake of such a fellow, with a highland twang that disgusted his fastidious ear, his own daughter made a mock of his authority, treated him as a nobody! In his own house she had risen against him, and betrayed him to the insults of his enemy! His ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... dry winds that are the curse of that country was blowing up from Kansas. The white, western moonlight threw sharp, blue shadows below us. The streets were silent at that hour, and we could hear the gurgle of the fountain in the Post Office square across the street, and the twang of banjos from the lower verandah of the Hotel Lincoln, where the colored waiters were serenading the guests. The drop lights in the office were dull under their green shades, and the telegraph sounder ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... power, however, was one of which he did not often avail himself, as his nerves were seldom in a fit state for riding. His hair was dark red, and he wore red moustaches, and a great deal of red beard beneath his chin, cut in a manner to make him look like an American. His voice also had a Yankee twang, being a cross between that of an American trader and an English groom; and his eyes were keen and fixed, and cold ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... turquoise and with malachite, With bronze and purple pied, I march before him like the night In all its starry pride; LULLI may twang and MOLIERE write His pastime to provide, But seldom laughs the KING So much as when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... he burst into a loud laugh, and then placing his hat a little more on one side, and assuming a nasal twang, he said, "Neow dew tell, if you're from Massachusetts. How dew you dew, little Yankee, and how are all ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... lisp in his "s" I accepted as part of the "real Yankee" utterance. Nor, indeed, was this unnatural, in view of the "th" sound, that stumbling-block of every foreigner, whom it must needs strike as a full-grown lisp. Bender spoke with a nasal twang which I am now inclined to think he paraded as an accessory to the over-dignified drawl he affected in the class-room. But then I had noticed this kind of twang in the delivery of other Americans as well, so, altogether, English impressed me as the language of a people afflicted with defective ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... had been held that the nasal cavities must be cut off from the mouth by the closing of the soft palate against the back of the throat; that the passage of ever so little of the sound above the palate would give a nasal twang, and that the sound was reinforced and developed only in the cavities of the throat and mouth. My practice in Oral Surgery, coupled with my own vocal studies exposed this fallacy and revealed to me the true value of ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... Dwarf turned his head to fly, and as he did so he heard the twang of a golden harp, and right before him whom should he see but the little man of the hills, holding a harp in one hand and striking the strings with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Europe, the trumpeter of a French cavalry corps had a fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every body else; for once, on being removed to another part of the forces, and consigned ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... technical shortcomings might be, he could make any tune sound pretty when he sang it. He had the native gift of ease, pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm—and a delightful sympathetic twang in his voice. His mother must have sung something like that; and all Paris went mad about her. No technical teaching in the world can ever match a genuine ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... pricked up his ears at the sound of the slow rumble of a wagon turning into the yard. The wagon halted, and they heard the buzzing twang of a ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... chambers. The wind was high, and blew gustily round the mansion. The few servants, consisting of a son of the steward, footman, and page, were all buried in profound slumber. Genji called to them loudly, and they awoke with a start. "Come," said he, "bring a light. Valet, twang your bow-string, and drive away the fiend. How can you sleep so soundly in such a place? ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... thin nostrils dilating, as if the air did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered himself of these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone, thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely becomes hereditary after three or four generations raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately, as if weighing his words well, so that, during ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... was in no mood for play. The quiet that had reigned through the building for the last two hours was suddenly broken in upon by sounds of mirth and jollity—merry boyish voices talking, singing, some accompanying themselves with the twang of a banjo or the tinkle of a guitar; but Max, closing and putting his book aside, kept his seat, his elbow on the desk, his head on his hand, while with a far-away look in his dark eyes, he ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... and leaves so bright a line in its wake?—it is a noble stag. Look at the broad chest with which he breasts the water so gallantly; see how proudly he carries his antlered head! He has no fear in those lonely solitudes—he has never heard the crack of the hunter's rifle—he heeds not the sharp twang of that bow-string, till the arrow rankles in his neck, and the crimson flood dyes the water around him. He turns, but it is only to present a surer mark for the arrow from the old hunter's bow. And now the noble beast turns to bay, and the canoe is rapidly launched ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool it would have been in Homer's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... but the culmination of a great and honourable social service, a conviction that had been her tacit comfort during much distasteful loyalty seemed to shrivel and fade. No doubt the writer was a thwarted blackmailer; even her accustomed mind could distinguish a twang of some such vicious quality in his sentences; but that did not alter the realities he exhibited and exaggerated. There was a description of how Sir Isaac pounced on his managers that was manifestly derived from a manager he had ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the upright parts, and its notch caught in the bow-string. Everything is then in readiness. The tiger soon steals along his beaten track. He comes nearer and nearer the trap until at last his breast presses the string. Twang, goes the bow and the arrow is imbedded in the flesh of its victim. He writhes for a few moments, until he is released from his torments by the certain death which follows the course of the poison through ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... sentimental Christianity is very defective in this respect. You cannot love Jesus Christ too much, but you can love Him with too little reverence. And if you take up some of our luscious modern hymns that people are so fond of singing, I think you will find in them a twang of unwholesomeness, just because the love is not reverent enough, and the approaching confidence has not enough of devout awe in it. This generation looks at the half of Christ. When people are suffering from indigestion, they can only see half of the thing that they look at, and there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the old woman, "is the third night, and these fires must blaze yet eleven nights and days more, during which time the axe is not seen in the hand of the forester, nor doth the bow twang in the woods of Tarapajan; neither may he which seeth these rites depart ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... well, sir, your scorn to parade Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid, But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose No sound is so sweet as that ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... a hush fell upon the noise outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)—I heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing resolutely in English, but with a strong foreign twang, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... understanding the text: with clear articulation, and the moderate emphasis proper to room-reading; with the advantage also of never having known the Theatre in his youth, so that he has not picked up the twang of any Actor of the Day. Then he read me King John, which he has some thoughts of editing next after Richard III. And I was reminded of you at Ipswich twenty-eight years ago; and of your Father—his ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... moved toward and away from this permanent magnet. If the reader should stretch a wire tightly between two pegs on a table, and should then hold the arms of a common horseshoe magnet very near it, and should twang the stretched wire with his finger, as he would a guitar string, the electrometer would show an induced alternate current in the wire. Since this is an illustration of the principle of the dynamo, stated in its simplest form, it ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... were fighting within thirty yards of the spot where the Bushman lay. The twang of a bowstring might have been heard by one of the koris, had he been listening. The other could not possibly have heard it; for before the sound could have reached him, a poisoned arrow was sticking through his ears. The ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew. "Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me, bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... state and ceremony, yet they were also very demonstrative times, when tears and embracings were expected of near kindred; and, indeed, the King and Queen were equally occupied with their brother and nieces; but presently Eleanor heard a low voice observe, with a sort of sarcastic twang, 'If Madame has sufficiently satiated her tenderness, perhaps she will remember the due of others.' Margaret started as if stung, and Eleanor, looking up, beheld a face, young but sharp, and with a keen, hard, set look in the narrow eyes, contracted ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can of milk, saying, with a twang: "Show me the way that I may walk therein," and, accompanied by the laughing girl, made rapid way to the pig-pen just as the old man set up a ferocious shout to call the hired hand out of ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... friend," he said, speaking slowly, as if learning the lesson from her. There was a slight subdued twang in his utterance which attracted ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... assured that all the strings would act in unison when striking the butt of the arrow. And so we had all things ready for the discharge; whereupon, I placed my foot upon the trigger, and, bidding the bo'sun watch carefully the flight of the arrow, pushed downwards. The next instant, with a mighty twang, and a quiver that made the great stock stir on its bed of rocks, the bow sprang to its lesser tension, hurling the arrow outwards and upwards in a vast arc. Now, it may be conceived with what mortal interest we watched its flight, and so in a minute discovered that we had aimed too much ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... Muenster, translated into the old Norse language, and no doubt somewhat modified by the influence of Scandinavian legends on the mind of the translator. In its present form it is not a poem but a prose work, and though the flow of the ballad and the twang of the minstrel's harp still often make themselves felt even through the dull Latin translation of Johan Peringskiold, there are many chapters of absolutely unredeemed prose, full of genealogical details and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the village, which lay a half-mile back; no roll of wheels, or shout, or peal of bell. Burr Gordon kept on in utter silence until he came near the Hautville house. Then he began to hear music: the soaring sweetness of a soprano voice, the rich undertone of a bass, and the twang of stringed instruments. ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... I reached the camp and sold my pears like lightning, for there is no want of money there, nor of the will to spend it. What a hubbub, Maria! It seemed like the gayest kind of a fair; nothing was to be heard but the twang of guitars, singing, and hurrahs for the queen. I need only tell you that the commander-in-chief has had to forbid so much singing and guitar playing at night, because it served as a guide to the accursed Moors. I was just inquiring for the King's regiment, when the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... I be doin' i' heaven," he asked, "wi' a crown o' gowd on my heead and nowt to do all day but twang a harp, just as if I were one o' them lads i' t' band? What mak o' life's yon for a chap like me, that's allus bin used to tug an' tew for ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... of the new school is a sad backslider. He would think it undignified to beat a boy; he wears a black frock coat, keeps novels in his cabin, wears a finger-ring, and tries to look like a ship-broker. He mixes his north-country accent with a twang learned in the West-end theatres, and he never goes ashore without a tall hat and an umbrella. His walk is a grievous trouble to his mind. The ideal ship-broker has a straight and seemly gait; but no captain who ever tried to imitate ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... having an acute brain and generous impulses, and being a New-Englander by birth, she had believed herself called to be a reformer, and had lectured in public last winter. Her lightest remarks had, somehow, an oratorical twang. The man might have seen what a true, grand face hers would be, when time had taken off the acrid, aggressive heat which the, to her, novel wrongs in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the blue-bent blade, And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear; Many a time on a summer's night. When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright, They had been roused from the haunted ground, By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound; They had heard the tiny bugle-horn, They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string, When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn, And the nettle shaft through air was borne, Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing. And now they deemed the courier-ouphe, Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground; And they watched ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and the guests were departing. Singly or in pairs, glittering in finery, they came mincing down the steps, the ghost of the night's smirk fading to jadedness as they sought the dark recesses of their chairs. From within sounded the twang of fiddles still swinging manfully at it, and the windows were bright with the light of many candles. When the door was flung open to call the chair of Lady Mary Carlisle, there was an eager pressure ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... the head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the twang of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast—also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything turn aside the point of the arrow ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... he caught the sound of the twang of a bowstring, followed by a stifled cry and a fall, then came a loud yell, checked almost before it was uttered. But the alarm had been given, and loud shouts rose from several throats. He ran, as directed, some fifty yards ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... became the sires Of scribes, commissioners, and triers; Whose bus'ness is, by cunning slight, To cast a figure for mens' light; To find, in lines of beard and face, 1155 The physiognomy of grace; And by the sound and twang of nose, If all be sound within disclose, Free from a crack or flaw of sinning, As men try pipkins by the ringing; 1160 By black caps underlaid with white, Give certain guess at inward light. Which serjeants at the gospel ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... wreck, heeling her over until her starboard waterway was buried. The breaking sea swept the deck like a cataract, lifting the boat clean off it, just as I sprang back into the cockpit; there was a little jerk and a twang as the rope parted, and in an instant we were afloat and driving rapidly away to leeward ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... itself into a perfect miniature of the tri-coloured cloverleaf in the sky ahead. Chick saw, however that the positions of the red and green were just the obverse of what glowed in the distance; and then he heard the voice, strong and distinct, speaking with a slight metallic twang as from a microphone hidden in that little, blazing, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... that a little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to make up the pudding of our modern civilization? And pertinent to this question another—Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... provided they are so fortunate as to have a good sound article of pleasant flavor. With most of the tea found in England, and especially so with that generally used in America, the sugar and cream are no doubt necessary to drown the "twang." A Chinaman would put this practice on a par with putting sugar in Chateau Lafitte. Tea is the wine of the Celestial. A mandarin will "talk" it to you as a gourmet talks wine with us; dilate upon its quality and flavor, for the ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... much,' mused Miss Pillby, as she listened, or seemed to listen, to the trials and triumphs of the children of Israel, chanted by fresh young voices with a decidedly rural twang; 'this explains everything.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... snow, no waits, no snowmen, and no skating on the Pol. Then there were all those things. To-day was of a hard, glittering frost; the sun, like a round, red lacquer tray, fell heavily, slowly through a faint pale sky that was not strong enough to sustain it. The air had the cold, sweet twang of peppermints in the throat. Polchester was a painted town upon a blue screen, the Cathedral towers purple against the sky; the air was scented with burning leaves, and cries from the town rose up clear and hard, lingering and falling like notes of music. Somewhere they were playing football, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at most inconvenient hours, swallow ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... very point of speeding toward them. Directly over the shaft, with head slightly inclined, like that of a hunter sighting over his gun, were the gleaming eyes and face of the young Shawanoe. It looked as if he had turned his head to one side that he might catch the music made by the twang of the string when it should dart forward with the speed of the rattlesnake striking ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... lower classes, were dancing. The dancing is kept up, at intervals, throughout the day, but the crowd, the spirit, and the lite come in at night. The next night, which was the last, we went ashore in the same manner, until we got almost tired of the monotonous twang of the instruments, the drawling sounds which the women kept up, as an accompaniment, and the slapping of the hands in time with the music, in place of castanets. We found ourselves as great objects of attention as any persons or anything at the place. Our sailor dresses— and we took great ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... if you go further and pause to admire A ship that's as neat as your heart could desire, As smart as a frigate aloft and alow, Her brasswork like gold and her planking like snow, Look round for a mate by whose twang it is plain That his home port is somewhere round Boston or Maine, With a jaw that's the cut of a square block of wood, And beat it, my son, while the going is good! There'll be scraping and scouring from morning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... the truth is I heard scarce a note. There were quartettos and overtures by gentlemen performers whose names and faces I know not, and such was the never ceasing rattling and noise in the card-room, where I was kept almost all the evening, that a general humming of musical sounds, and now and then a twang, was all ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... careless nudity, slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and not "put on," that secretly pleases the soul more than the wrought and re-wrought polish of the most perfect verse?) Mark the native spice and untranslatable twang in the very names of his songs-"O for ane and twenty, Tam," "John Barleycorn," "Last May a braw Wooer," "Rattlin roarin Willie," "O wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast," "Gude e'en to you, Kimmer," "Merry hae I been ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Murray as he popped into sight to seize the side of his swift little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang— ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... great nation's finding, to prove weak The "glorious arms" of military kings. And so with wide embrace, my England, seek To stifle the bad heat and flickerings Of this world's false and nearly expended fire! Draw palpitating arrows to the wood, And twang abroad thy high hopes and thy higher Resolves, from that most virtuous altitude! Till nations shall unconsciously aspire By looking up to thee, and learn that good And glory are not different. Announce law ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... they said "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous housekeepers—too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note of preparation, and then they received grandly. To ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... dinner the sun had set, and night had dropped down softly over the Bay. Capri had disappeared. The long serpent of lights had uncoiled itself along the sea. Down below, very far down, there was the twang and the thin, acute whine of guitars and mandolines, the throbbing cry of Southern voices. The stars were out in a deep sky of bloomy purple. There was no chill in the air, but a voluptuous, brooding warmth, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly with the two who now represented ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... a New-Englander. His background was that of Boston and its remote suburbs. And when he preaches the necessity of the cooperative commonwealth, he does it with a Yankee twang. In fact, he is as essentially native American as Norman Thomas, the present leader of the Socialist ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... movement. Low and loud, base and treble, they clang together with unequal intervals, but each in time and tune. They could not work in silence, and nature demands that from one end of heaven to the other they shall be sonorous with a deep diapason. The far off give a loud treble twang. Those nearest to the moon sound low and base. The earth, the ninth in order, immovable upon its lowest seat, occupies the centre of the system. From the eight there come seven sounds, distinct among themselves, Venus ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... daunted, he attacked mate the third; and was led to infer better things, as the young gentleman commenced expatiating on the "purple sky," and "dark blue sea." This hope did not last long; for this lover of nature turned round to Sir Henry, and asked him in a nasal twang, if he preferred Cooper's or Mr. Scott's novels? Delme was not naturally a rude man, but as he turned away, he hummed something very ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... melodious, slightly mournful but of a delightful freshness. The third section with the appoggiaturas realizes a vivid vision of country couples dancing determinedly. Who plays No. 2 of this set? It, too, has the "native wood note wild," with its dominant pedal bass, its slight twang and its sweet-sad melody in C sharp minor. There is hearty delight in the major, and how natural it seems. No. 3 in E is still on the village green, and the boys and girls are romping in the dance. We hear a drone bass—a favorite ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Patrol was a Southern boy, Charlie Maxfield by name, though known simply as "Chatz." He possessed all the traits to be found in boys who have been born and raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, was inclined to be touchy whenever he thought anyone doubted his honor, talked with a quaint little twang that was really delightfully musical, and taken in all had grown to be a ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... bird, that one does not have to go to the woods or away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever-welcome meadow-lark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our spring meadows. What emphasis in its "z-d-t, z-d-t," and what character in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp beak is ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... in addition, to disguise the fact that the delinquent I speak of (I had almost written renegade) is an Irishman. No wonder that he should attempt the disguise, for he must deeply feel his delinquency. In all cases such as this, the Cockney twang and occasional curtailment is assumed to overcome the brogue, but in vain. For the first half dozen words of each paragraph in a conversation it gets on well enough, but the ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... the morrow he was there betimes, and the morn was windy as on the day before, but the clouds higher and of better promise for the day. Face-of-god walked to and fro on the Maiden Ward, and as he turned toward Burgstead for the tenth time, he heard, as he deemed, a bow-string twang afar off, and even therewith came a shaft flying heavily like a winged bird, which smote a great standing stone on the other side of the way, where of old some chieftain had been buried, and fell to earth at its foot. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... He described the quaint, the picturesque, the amusing side of life in the East. He was full of enthusiasm for the land of soft voices and smiling faces, where countless little shops spread their wares under the light of the evening lanterns, where the twang of the samisen and the geisha's song are heard coming from the lighted tea-house, and the shadow of her helmet-like coiffure is seen appearing and disappearing in silhouette ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... piano which had stopped during the speech-making suddenly started up with a loud twang of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Two Indian boys laughed and started on a run for the merry-go-round ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... fit state for riding. His hair was dark red, and he wore red moustaches, and a great deal of red beard beneath his chin, cut in a manner to make him look like an American. His voice also had a Yankee twang, being a cross between that of an American trader and an English groom; and his eyes were keen and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... harmonics and succession of harmonics in thirds and in sixths. His long fingers were of invaluable service to him in unusual stretches, and his fondness for pizzicato passages may be traced to his familiarity with the twang of his father's mandolin. He shone chiefly in his own compositions, which were written in keys best suited to the violin. Students will find all that he knew of his instrument and everything he did in his Le Stregghe (The Witches), the Rondo de la Clochette, and the Carnaval de Venise, ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... then I sang and shouted, Keeping measure as I sped, To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe As it sprang ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... shutters must be looked to." "I daresay," I remarked, looking disconsolately around me, "you don't find it very easy to get tenants for houses of this kind." "Very easy!" said Mr. M'Craw, with somewhat of a Highland twang, and, as I thought, with also a good deal of Highland hauteur—as was of course quite natural in so shrewd and extensive a house-agent, when dealing with the owner of a domicile that would not let, and who ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... only from his voice, that he was the same man who spoke to us in Mohammed's coffee-shop at Beyrout. He had a most peculiar twang in his speech, which I ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Nigel appealed much to Myra, and endeavoured to draw out her mind and feelings. He lent her books, and books that favoured, indirectly at least, his own peculiar views—volumes of divine poesy that had none of the twang of psalmody, tales of tender and sometimes wild and brilliant fancy, but ever full of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... bosom of that church of which his sovereign, many of his family, and the greater part of the civilized world, were members." And his lordship added a postscript, of which Esmond knew the inspiring genius very well, for it had the genuine twang of the Seminary, and was quite unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of writing and thinking; in which he reminded Colonel Esmond that he too was, by birth, of that church; and that his mother and sister should have his lordship's prayers to the saints (an inestimable benefit, truly!) ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Andrew: scout mee for him at the corner of the Orchard like a bum-Baylie: so soone as euer thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw'st, sweare horrible: for it comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang'd off, giues manhoode more approbation, then euer proofe it selfe would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... you a lie then, and you believed her!' we heard a loud voice with a marked nasal twang say a minute later. 'To begin with, it wasn't at the big club but at ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with the shrill wails of the slaves, the guttural cries of the seamen, the screams of the wounded and the derisive howls of those maddened by battle. The decks were crimson with blood; sails split and tore as the chain-shot hummed through the rigging, and the sharp twang of the arquebusques was mingled with ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... upon thy venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang; And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance; Tearing my nerves wi' ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... nearer. There was a little laugh in a girl's voice, then the dry twang of the plucked strings of a guitar, then silence. After a minute the guitar strings twanged again, and a girl's voice began to sing a peasant ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... from his arms and sat down. Some late roisterers passing by in the street were heard singing to the twang of a mandolin. It was a full, deep song, and the casual voices blended in perfect accord. As the harmony floated out of hearing, she looked up at him with a ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... much of a surprise for Horace, but he was spared the humiliation of owning it by the entrance of some half-dozen dusky musicians swathed in white and carrying various strangely fashioned instruments, with which they squatted down in a semi-circle by the opposite wall, and began to twang, and drub, and squall with the complacent cacophony of an Eastern orchestra. Clearly Fakrash was determined that nothing should be wanting to make the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... writer, who is always present, as Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us himself, that this was a mistake, that "the pulpit was for preaching; the garden, the parlour, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... we will behave when we are taken prisoner by the Germans. He is safe, because he is an American citizen. The unfortunate thing about me is my passport, otherwise, by means of a well-simulated nasal twang I might get through as an American novelist. I've been mistaken for one often enough in my own country. But, as I don't mean to be taken prisoner, and perhaps murdered or have my hands chopped off, without a struggle, ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... over with rage: but ere the geyser could explode, Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Spain—had disposed of those affections, no longer in Maraquita's power to give, for they had already been transferred with all the other treasures of a young and loving heart, to the keeping of a dark-eyed youth of Manilla. He had been rudely repulsed by her parents, but often would the cautious twang of his guitar bring her to a midnight interview. These clandestine meetings were interrupted. Her dark-eyed lover no longer came, and she was told she would never see him more. A marriage with the Don was urged, she resisted—the alternative was a convent! In pity she implored a short ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... Instinctively he thrust out his fiddle at them. The jarring of the strings made than leap back. Hope returned. He drew his hand violently across the strings—twang, twang! Instantly the wolves sprang back as if he had fired a gun ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... bosom of that Church of which his sovereign, many of his family, and the greater part of the civilized world, were members." And his lordship added a postscript, of which Esmond knew the inspiring genius very well, for it had the genuine twang of the seminary, and was quite unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of writing and thinking; in which he reminded Colonel Esmond that he too was, by birth, of that Church; and that his mother and sister should have his lordship's ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... passes into mid-day, amid a hundred sounds symbolical of the various phases of life in the Western capital,—the shout of the driver, the twang of the cotton-cleaner, the warning call of the anxious mother, the rattle of the showman's drum, the yell of the devotee, the curse of the cartman, the clang of the coppersmith, the chaffering of buyer and seller and the wail of the mourner. And above all the ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... of which sounded strangely familiar to my ears), ending in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here present, the Lord Mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"—giving a sort, of sentimental twang to the two words,—"and sends it round among you!" And forthwith the loving-cup—several of them, indeed, on each side of the tables—came slowly down with all ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... quietly on, and so passed the car. As she went by, she heard Hegner's friend say in a kindly voice, and in excellent English, albeit there was a twang in it, "I hope you've not been cold, my boy. My business took a little longer than I thought it would." And the shrill, piping answer, "Oh no, sir! I have been quite all right, sir!" And then the motor gave a kind of ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... floated through the windows and wandered into the woods. The twang of the tuning-fork was drowned by a succession of cries. The smart young man's eyebrows went up to meet his roach while he stood in the aisle astonished to see a lady in trailing black clothes pounce upon a child strange ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... fine charger assigned to him, of which he became passionately fond, and which, by gentleness of disposition and uniform docility, equally evinced its affection. The sound of the trumpeter's voice, the sight of his uniform, or the twang of his trumpet, was sufficient to throw this animal into a state of the greatest excitement; and he appeared to be pleased and happy only when under the saddle of his rider. Indeed he was unruly and useless to every body else; for once, on being removed to another part of the forces, and consigned ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... own,—were allowed to see the inhabitant of the big black case; and now that the deanery was so nearly deserted, Posy's fingers had touched the strings and had produced an infantine moan. "Grandpa, let me do it again." Twang! It was not, however, in truth, a twang, but a sound as of a prolonged dull, almost deadly, hum-m-m-m-m! On this occasion the moan was not entirely infantine,—Posy's fingers having been something too strong,—and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... it in. Lanpher plucked at the loose strings of his courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll show you whether I got ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... cheers having been given with due emphasis, if not discretion, they all stood up round the table. "Now, my boys, keep time. Mr Prose, if you attempt to chime in with your confounded nasal twang, I'll ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... worth while may contradict him. At Castri we drank of half a dozen streamlets, some not of the purest, before we decided to our satisfaction which was the true Castalian, and even that had a villanous twang, probably from the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Jewel-robbery in the Merchant of Venice. He read me the Play; and very well; thoroughly understanding the text: with clear articulation, and the moderate emphasis proper to room-reading; with the advantage also of never having known the Theatre in his youth, so that he has not picked up the twang of any Actor of the Day. Then he read me King John, which he has some thoughts of editing next after Richard III. And I was reminded of you at Ipswich twenty-eight years ago; and of your Father—his look up at Angiers' Walls as he went out in Act ii. I wonder that Mrs. Siddons should ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... succinct and business-like memorandum of a ghost-seer. "Anno 1670. Not far from Cirencester was an apparition. Being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad, returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang. M.W. Lilly believes it was a Fairie. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... his dinner the sun had set, and night had dropped down softly over the Bay. Capri had disappeared. The long serpent of lights had uncoiled itself along the sea. Down below, very far down, there was the twang and the thin, acute whine of guitars and mandolines, the throbbing cry of Southern voices. The stars were out in a deep sky of bloomy purple. There was no chill in the air, but a voluptuous, brooding ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... unfortunate Violinist, by a musician: "It was about the month of November, 1753, that I, with some friends, were met to spend the evening at a tavern in the City, when this man, in a mean but decent garb, was introduced to us by the waiter; immediately upon opening the door I heard the twang of one of his strings from under his coat, which was accompanied by the question, 'Gentlemen, will you please to hear my music?' Our curiosity, and the modesty of the man's deportment, inclined us to say yes, and music he gave us, such as I had never heard before, nor shall again under the same ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... maid, her grudge against the two sexes; the old man, his gray hairs and his lost hours. And can it be, that all this which should have been immortal, is quite—quite lost, is as though it had never been?" he sighed. "Can it be that its fame is now sustained by me; who twang with my poor lute, cracked and old, these feeble praises of ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... heard him shout. "Thought she looked in prime condition at the Springs." (Bush language frequently has a strong twang of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... bloom of cheek and lips, Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the joke is—she does not know it! My "Co." has also been much amused by a brightly-written Novel, in one volume, called A Bride from the Bush. Mr. E. W. HORNUNG evidently knows his subject well, and has caught the exact tone, or rather nasal twang of our Australian cousins. My "Co." says that "the Bride" is a particularly pleasant young person, thanks to her youth, good heart, and beauty. However, it is questionable—taking her as a sample—whether her "people" would "pan out" quite so satisfactorily. On the whole it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... a gage of ben bouse,[4] And stall thee by the salmon into clowes,[5] To maund on the pad, and strike all the cheats, [6] To mill from the Ruffmans, Commission, and slates, [7] Twang dells i' th' stiromel, and let the Quire Cuffin And Harman Beck strine and trine to the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at bridal presents being ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doublet, laid his great hands upon the Sieur Amaury de Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand crowns out of him, with his horse and harness. 'Tis true that a French wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it; but what then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing if money was not made to be spent; and how better than ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... play. The quiet that had reigned through the building for the last two hours was suddenly broken in upon by sounds of mirth and jollity—merry boyish voices talking, singing, some accompanying themselves with the twang of a banjo or the tinkle of a guitar; but Max, closing and putting his book aside, kept his seat, his elbow on the desk, his head on his hand, while with a far-away look in his dark eyes, he ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... man with a very nasal twang to bless the humble fare set before them, and a very long prayer followed before the benches were drawn closer to the board, and the large bowls of bread and milk, flavoured with strips of onion, were attacked by the hungry brethren ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... they would say the whole family were prisoners. One thing that surprised and shocked us was to hear the little kids swearing; they would use the most frightful oaths, and the funny part of it was that they gave them the pure cockney twang; I suppose they had heard and were imitating the Imperial troops. Well, after travelling all day we finally arrived in C—— and we were marched off to our first billets. I belonged to "C" Company ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... one was safe. The war party might at any moment find itself ambushed by the very ones it hoped to surprise. The snap of a twig; the dropping of a fruit from some tall tree; each sudden sound was interpreted as the twang of a hostile bow. Overwrought nerves peopled the jungle with spectral enemies; they found ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... do I get on? This is No. 15," said Appleboy, counting some white lines on the table by him; and taking up a piece of chalk, he marked one more line on his tally. "I don't think this is so good a tub as the last, Tomkins, there's a twang about it—a want of juniper—however, I hope we shall have better luck this time. Of course, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... entirely conducted on these principles; man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failed upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from his heights, and sing from half a dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally over the mysteries of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snapped down to his right Colt. A blaze of flame leaped from the region of his hip. Along with the crashing roar of the explosion came a sharp, metallic twang. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... in any country. The young professor had been toiling over it for three years and it had constantly baffled him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, he heard an almost inaudible sound—a faint TWANG—come ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... place. Then, beneath it, as foundation to it, rose a rustling sound as of a forest of reeds through which a breeze went rhythmically. Into this stole the broken song of a thin instrument with a timbre rustic and antique as the timbre of the oboe, but fainter, frailer. A twang of softly-plucked strings supported its wild and pathetic utterance, and presently the almost stifled throb of a little tomtom that must have been placed at a distance. It was ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... splendid May day—to-day seems inclined to be soft, as we call it; but tant mieux. Yesterday had a twang of frost in it. I must get to work and finish Boaden's Life of Kemble, and Kelly's Reminiscences,[263] ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... which had stopped during the speech-making suddenly started up with a loud twang of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Two Indian boys laughed and started on a run for the merry-go-round and the ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... sound of their voices Lucian detected so pronounced a twang, and so curious a way of collocating words, as to conclude that Mrs. Vrain and her amiable parent hailed from the States. The little lady seemed to pride herself on this, and indicated her republican origin in her speech more than was necessary—at ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... the savages. Their enjoyment of this phase of human nature was hardly possible so long as they had to proceed warily on a forest trail, their eyes keen for the first glimpse of a hideously painted face, their ears alert for the twang of a bowstring or the hiss of a feathered arrow. Their deep but practical interest in the Indians found expression in scores of books, which fall roughly into three groups. In the first are the scholarly works of the heroic John Eliot, "the apostle ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man, with large features and spectacles, and a deep, internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in it; and he goggled over his plate, like a horse. I often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth upward at the sides. Wordsworth, who notices similar mysterious manifestations ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... breathe the wish that this land may never know such prosperity. I do not wish to be murdered; no man does; yet rather than see the ostrich and deer chased beyond the horizon, the flamingo and black-necked swan slain on the blue lakes, and the herdsman sent to twang his romantic guitar in Hades as a preliminary to security of person, I would prefer to go about prepared at any moment to defend my life against the sudden assaults ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... authorish twang with it, which will wear out my name for poetry. Give him a smile from me till I see him. If you do not drop down before, some day in the week after next I will come and take one night's lodging with you, if convenient, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... replied, as one versed. His tones took on a nasal twang. "Well, as I was saying, I've about got ready to settle down, and I've had my eye on the lady this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... essentially a New-Englander. His background was that of Boston and its remote suburbs. And when he preaches the necessity of the cooperative commonwealth, he does it with a Yankee twang. In fact, he is as essentially native American as Norman Thomas, the present leader of the Socialist Party in ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... around him for something. I was still more disgusted by one of the officers rising, and proposing this important gentleman's health to both tables; and my surprise was greater by recognizing, in the tone of this proposal, the barbarous twang of an Irishman. Some of the French regiments are half filled with these Irish renegades. I cannot speak of them with any patience, as I cannot conceive any voluntary degradation more contemptible, than that of passing from any thing British or American into any thing French ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... thought she saw the forms of her dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen held a candle close to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... because, having an acute brain and generous impulses, and being a New-Englander by birth, she had believed herself called to be a reformer, and had lectured in public last winter. Her lightest remarks had, somehow, an oratorical twang. The man might have seen what a true, grand face hers would be, when time had taken off the acrid, aggressive heat which the, to her, novel wrongs in the world ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all get up at ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... not expect to be taken by surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did almost immediately, I had no suspicion of what they were. The voice had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yankee twang, as some people would call it, which I had always associated with the nuthatch family. On the contrary, it was decidedly finchlike,—so much so that some of the notes, taken by themselves, would have been ascribed ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog 15 from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New England twang, or Connecticut drawl, and some tones rang true ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... good morning!" he said, in a perfectly good Yankee twang. "Can I do anything for you to-day in my line? Step in, gentlemen; I'm John Higginbotham." They entered and, behind the desk, sighted a stout woman of medium size, middle ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... onslaught, or whether he was hampered by his orders, did not shoot: he stood wavering; and before he had time to come to himself, Dick bounded at his throat, and sent him sprawling backward on the turf. The arrow went one way and the bow another with a sounding twang. The disarmed forester grappled his assailant; but the dagger shone and descended twice. Then came a couple of groans, and then Dick rose to his feet again, and the man lay motionless, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crisis. The secretary of all the governors Lower Canada had yet had, corresponded, most confidentially, with his home masters, somewhat, perhaps, to the prejudice of his honor the administrator. As general Simcoe loathed the nasal twang, attenuated appearance, and the vulgar republicanism of a downeast American, so Mr. Witsius Ryland abominated Romanism. Speaking of the Roman Catholic clergy of Canada, he says:—"I call them Popish to distinguish them from the clergy of the Established Church and to express ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... unbound, And cast his purple garment on the ground. A trench he open'd: in a line he placed. The level axes, and the points made fast (His perfect skill the wondering gazers eyed, The game as yet unseen, as yet untried). Then, with a manly pace, he took his stand: And grasp'd the bow, and twang'd it in his hand. Three times, with beating heart, he made essay: Three times, unequal to the task, gave way; A modest boldness on his cheek appear'd: And thrice he hoped, and thrice again he fear'd. The fourth had drawn it. The great sire with joy Beheld, but with a ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... he should receive a percentage of the profits for his trouble. Mr. Rattray was also of assistance to them when, as soon as the expense could be managed, these two middle-aged Americans, whose grief was not less impressive because of its twang, arrived in London to arrange that their daughter's final resting-place should be changed to her native land. Mr. Bell told him in confidence that while he hoped he was entirely devoid of what you may call race prejudice against the English people, it didn't, seem as if he could let ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... which habitually smiled. A tuft of yellow beard on the end of his sharp chin, gave his face a comical expression resembling that which caricature bestows on Uncle Sam. His voice was pitched in a high key, and was modified by that nasal twang supposed to indicate Yankee origin; but a habit of giving his declarative sentences an interrogative finish, might denote that he came from the mountain regions of Pennsylvania or Virginia. A pair of linsey pantaloons, a blue hunting shirt with a fringe of red and yellow, moccasins of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... played cricket with Conrade, made boats for Cyril, prattled with Lady Temple, or studied with Rachel, all was done with grace, zest, and sympathy peculiarly her own. Two practisings at the school removed the leaden drawl, and lessened the twang of the choir; and Mr. Touchett looked quite exalted, while even Rachel owned that she had hardly ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and sparkling eyes, proclaiming the advent of the god: "'Tis he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple's vault, which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued from the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We heard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor." Hearing these cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on—the Gauls are panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pleasing to the discerning critic. An out of door, reckless, humorous, honest personality was stamped on every line of it and every movement of the man. When he spoke his voice had a marked tinge of the twang of the wild west that sounded a little oddly on the lips of a country gentleman in these northern parts. He wore an open flannel collar, a shooting coat, well cut riding breeches and immaculate leather leggings, finished off by a most substantial pair ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... faith of my body sir you must prouide for a hot kitchen against you growe olde, if you mean to liue my yeares: but happy the father that begot thee, and thrise happy the Nurse that soffred such a toward yonker as thy selfe: I know thy vertues as well as thy selfe, thou hast a superficiall twang of a little something: an Italian ribald can not vomit out the infections of the world, but thou my pretty Iuuinall, an English Dorrell-lorrell, must lick it vp for restoratiue, & putrifie thy gentle brother ouer against thee, ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... morning. There were eggs without egg-spoons, toast which was leathery from being kept, dried-up rashers, and grounds in the coffee. Above all, there was that dreadful smell which pervaded everything and gave a horrible twang to every mouthful. ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and I'm tough, though I'm small," she retorted, with her pretty twang. "By the way, speaking of to-morrow night. I wonder whether this Mr. Falconer ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... slight start of recognition when he saw the American. It was not the first time he had seen the lean brown face and deep-set eyes, but he kept this to himself. In spite of his nasal twang and a little surface roughness, Hugh Rossiter was decidedly a gentleman: the mere fact of his presence at the Manor House was a sufficient proof of this. But he was evidently a very eccentric and unconventional being. In age he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... their chairs up to a dinner table generously loaded with country hotel fare. There were two school directors in this happen-so party, a carter, a salesman, a lawyer, a farmer and two teachers, who talked with a professional twang. The salesman listened impatiently to the educational clap-trap, watching for an opening between phrases. When at last the ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... well, they know my mind. I hate that same twang, twang, twang, fum, fum, fum, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle, then scrue go the Pins, till a man's Teeth are on an edge; then snap, says a small Gut, and there we are at a loss again. I long to be in bed ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... were rapidly moved toward and away from this permanent magnet. If the reader should stretch a wire tightly between two pegs on a table, and should then hold the arms of a common horseshoe magnet very near it, and should twang the stretched wire with his finger, as he would a guitar string, the electrometer would show an induced alternate current in the wire. Since this is an illustration of the principle of the dynamo, stated in its simplest form, it may be well to remember that in this manner—with ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... hack away with our knives at the lanyards, and presently, after what appeared to have been a terribly protracted interval, but which was probably not more than a couple of minutes, the last lanyard parted with a twang, and the next instant, with a crash heard even through the terrific hubbub of the gale, the foremast snapped close off by the deck and plunged, with all attached, into the boil to leeward. Then we breathlessly ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... take off their masks even with their accomplices, "yes, madame, we have excellent news from our house at St. Herem. M. Hardy, the infidel, the freethinker, has at length entered the pale of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." Rodin pronounced these last word with a nasal twang, and the devout ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... myself, orty-like, hout, And wished it could go on all night, wich my pardner did ditto, no doubt. Modern Venice in minichure, CHARLIE, ain't really so dusty, you bet; I wos quite a Bassanio in breeks, and I ain't lost the twang of it yet. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... obvious that the twang of this fine phrase gave Jack uncommon pleasure. He repeated it again and again under his breath, flourishing his pipe, so as, allegorically and metaphorically, to set forth the extent of ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in daily use in rural England have been dropped ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Pathan, royal as a Turk, buzzing like a Bahna.' This refers to the noise of the cotton-cleaning bow, the twang of which as it is struck by the club is like a quail flying; and at the same time to the Bahna's loquacity. Another story is that a Bahna was once going through the forest with his cotton-cleaning bow and club or mallet, when a jackal ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... morn was windy as on the day before, but the clouds higher and of better promise for the day. Face-of-god walked to and fro on the Maiden Ward, and as he turned toward Burgstead for the tenth time, he heard, as he deemed, a bow-string twang afar off, and even therewith came a shaft flying heavily like a winged bird, which smote a great standing stone on the other side of the way, where of old some chieftain had been buried, and fell to earth at its foot. He ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... and replied, quite loud now, for the choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one could hear it faintly twang: ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... see the hot towns paddling in the surf of Spanish waters, And prowl beneath dim balconies and twang discreet guitars, And sigh our adoration to Don Juan's lovely daughters Till they lifted their mantillas and their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by degrees that which had seemed so marvellous ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... oppressively warm; one of those dry winds that are the curse of that country was blowing up from Kansas. The white, western moonlight threw sharp, blue shadows below us. The streets were silent at that hour, and we could hear the gurgle of the fountain in the Post Office square across the street, and the twang of banjos from the lower verandah of the Hotel Lincoln, where the colored waiters were serenading the guests. The drop lights in the office were dull under their green shades, and the telegraph sounder clicked faintly in the next room. In all his long tirade, Crane never raised his voice; he ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... tall young yew-tree, and the cord was a long and tough grape-vine. As he sat sharpening this great arrow, he grinned until his horrid teeth looked like a pale-fence around a little garden, and he muttered to himself as he worked away,—"Four hundred and nine more rubs, and I can send it twang through him; twang, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... the answer, given with a country twang that caused several spectators to smile. "I jest seen him comin' and I see he was headed for them people what's goin' to Europe, I expect. I didn't want their voyage spoiled, so I jest jumped ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... his lute he twang-ed straightway, And thereon began most sweetly to play; And after that lessons were played two or three, He strained ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... contact of water and coffee causes twang and bitterness, and the finer the grind the less the contact should be. The infusion, when brewed, is injured by being boiled or overheated. It is also damaged by being chilled, which breaks the fusion of oils and water. It should be served immediately, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... upon the oaken planks; and then, what with screaming, yelling, like the Indian war-whoop, cheering, and the thundering noise of the planks, grating along the deck, together with the ringing and clattering of their metallic vessels, they made altogether such a hideous "rattle-come-twang," that it was enough to raise all Chatham. All this was transacted in utter darkness. The officers doubtless saw, that bloodshed and promiscuous death would be the consequence of firing among the rioters, and prudently left it to subside with the darkness of the night. These disorderly fellows ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... violently and then fell end over end, crashing in the forest. With a bellow of fury, Mado fired with the kalbite tube at his hip. There was the twang of the propelling ray, and the slender arrow-like torpedo sped forth on its message of death, singing spitefully as it ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... scout mee for him at the corner of the Orchard like a bum-Baylie: so soone as euer thou seest him, draw, and as thou draw'st, sweare horrible: for it comes to passe oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang'd off, giues manhoode more approbation, then euer proofe it selfe would haue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... an inch or two, a slight gesture to indicate the ceiling again. He brought his other hand up, and using both, cocked the Colt, that click carrying with almost a shot's sharp twang through the room. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... been demolished, but tell their whole story still, in spite of wide gaps and breaks—ay, and with a far more soul-moving voice than when they could show to the enemy their crenated parapets without a flaw, when not a stone was wanting to any tower or gateway, and when the twang of the cross-bow might have been heard from every loophole. There are heaps of stones where the lizard runs, where the coiled snake basks untroubled, where the dwarfed fig-tree sprouts when the spring has come, and where the wild cucumber pushes forward its yellow ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... not easily tired; and I'm tough, though I'm small," she retorted, with her pretty twang. "By the way, speaking of to-morrow night. I wonder whether this Mr. Falconer would ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... slowly to the temple, the principals in a closed brougham in the middle. It was just like one of Tadema's pictures on the move—barring the brougham! The players led the way in white, with the dark wood chanters mounted with silver bells and mouthpieces, and made music with a little of the twang of our pipe chanter, but without the continuity and lift or crisp grace-notes. Young girls, with their faces tinted yellow with saffron, followed in dull red dresses. Behind the procession were classical-looking ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... he did not often avail himself, as his nerves were seldom in a fit state for riding. His hair was dark red, and he wore red moustaches, and a great deal of red beard beneath his chin, cut in a manner to make him look like an American. His voice also had a Yankee twang, being a cross between that of an American trader and an English groom; and his eyes were keen and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the deer in its tracks or forfeit both deer and shaft. Far back came the right hand and the bow, that you or I might not move, bent easily beneath the muscles of the forest god. There was a singing twang and Bara, leaping high in air, collapsed upon the ground, an arrow through his heart. Tarzan dropped to earth and ran to his kill, lest the animal might even yet rise and escape; but Bara was safely dead. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... escorted and who, he believed, were all princes or princesses; but if I asked him about his relations or his companions he remained silent, and assumed an air of indifference and boredom. When cadging for a promise of substantial baksheesh, the nasal twang of his voice assumed caressing inflexions. He thought out subtle stratagems and expended whole treasuries of prayers in order to obtain a cigarette. Noticing that I liked to see the donkey-boys treat their beasts with kindness, he used, in my presence, to ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... cedar. The latter will send the arrow much farther, and so swiftly does it leave the string that it baffles the eye. But the cedar bow must be cared for like a delicate machine; overstring it, and it breaks; twang it without an arrow, and it sunders the cords; scratch it, and it may splinter; wet it, and it is dead; let it lie on the ground, even, and it is weakened. But guard it and it will serve you as a matchless servant, and as can no ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... on to camp, but Fox-eye would not turn back. He drew his arrows from the quiver, and prepared to fight. But, even as he placed an arrow, a Snake had crawled up by his side, unseen. In the still air, the Piegan heard the sharp twang of a bow string, but, before he could turn his head, the long, fine-pointed arrow pierced him through and through. The bow and arrows dropped from his hands, he swayed, and then fell forward on the grass, dead. ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... when it was dark enough for the blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in a moment they recognised the twang of Malcolm's banjo and Miss Allison's guitar. "It's a serenade," called Eugenia. "What a good alto ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... laughed at the nasal twang which Annie gave to the words, and Prudy imitated it to perfection, not ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... his secretary had been called and had filled the court with the echoing twang of New York (the controlled fury of the aged Witt was highly effective), Mrs. Henry Leek was invited to the witness-box. She was supported thither by her two curates, who, however, could not prevent her from weeping at the stern voice of the usher. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... Dana shall twang a guitar And murmur a passionate strain; Oh, fairer by far Than those ravishments are ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... so much feeling. Duprez is also a singer of no common stamp, and of whom any nation might be proud, and I have often met men in society sing together most delightfully, either duets, trios, or quartettos, and totally devoid of the nasal twang, or, as the reader will observe, delightful it could ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... had occasion to speak: he was a first-class mimic; and he took no little pride in showing off his powers. He could imitate the brogue of an Irishman the broken English of a Dutchman, or the nasal twang of a Yankee, to perfection; and one day, while he was in the barn saddling his horse, he carried on a lengthy conversation with Bob Kelly (who was on the outside of the building), about some runaway cattle, and the old trapper thought all ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... was wrecked by fanaticism. In his journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great admiration of his friends. On being released ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... most willing man I ever knew. He was an uncommunicative soul. Never talked about himself. His history, so far as we were concerned, began the day he signed on the DUCHESS. Where he learned to shoot, the stars alone can tell. He was a Yankee—that much we knew from the twang in his speech. And that was all we ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... his neat jaw, low brow, and velvety, volcanic look, excited his proper English animosity. "Your friends are mine," murmured Kasteliz. He spoke with suavity, and hissed his s's. A long, vibrating twang quavered through the room. Swithin turned and saw Rozsi sitting at the czymbal; the notes rang under the little hammers in her hands, incessant, metallic, rising and falling with that strange melody. Kasteliz had fixed his glowing eyes ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fatal title in itself—was a hatter by trade, who had come to Georgia in search of a precarious livelihood. He obtained permission to build him a little log hut by the side of a running stream; and, for a year or two, people going along the road could hear the snap and twang of his bowstring as he whipped wool or rabbit fur into shape. Some said he was from North Carolina; others said he was from Connecticut; but whether from one State or the other, what should a hatter do away off in the woods in Putnam County? Grandsir Kendrick, who was shrewd, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... one knee, bracing himself as firmly as he could against the rock, and, with his shield above his head and his sword in his hand, awaited the attack of the enraged animal. He heard the twang of the bow behind him; then he felt a mighty blow, which beat down his shield and descended with terrible force upon his helmet, throwing him forward on to his face. Then there was a heavy blow on his back; and it was well for him that he had on backpiece as well as breastplate, ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... language which a Roman Catholic of the lower class does not understand, is the one in which it is disposed to pray. As for him he had lots of English prayers, though he was totally ignorant of that language. The twang from the nose, the loud and rapid tone in which he spoke, and the malaproprian happiness with which he travestied every prayer he uttered, would have compelled any man to smile. The priests laughed outright before the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... when chaps that sit i' Parliament Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang; If t' coontry goes to t' dogs, it's 'cause they've sent Ower mony city folk to mend ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... up at me; I nodded; and as the executioner clapped his heels together, straightened himself, and drew the arrow to his ear, we heard a low twang! And saw the black hand of the Seneca pinned to his own bow by the Night ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... you come to tell old Surefoot about his daughter's love," the letter goes on, "you should fall into a positive imitation of his manner: crest, motionless, and hands in front, and deliver your preambles with a nasal twang. But at the second invitation to speak out, you should cast this to the winds, and go into the other extreme of bluntness and rapidity. [Quite right!] When you meet him after the exposure, you should speak as you are coming to him and ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye—you ask a Boy ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... pleased when, in a fortnight or so, he had to modify that view, for Bidan (Prosper) prospered more rapidly even than himself. That grey look was out of the boy's face within three weeks. It was wonderful to watch him come back to life, till at last he could say, with his dreadful Provencal twang, that he felt "tres biang." A most amiable youth, he had been a cook, and his chief ambition was to travel till he had attained the summit of mortal hopes, and was cooking at the Ritz in London. When he came to us his limbs seemed almost to have lost their ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the organ, were permitted in the Sanctuary. To the hymn succeeded a long and fervent prayer, in which Mr. Robinson, the minister (the term Reverend had then a slight papistical twang), after bewailing with ingenious particularity the sins and back-slidings of himself and people, and the ingratitude of the whole land, and recounting the innumerable blessings that had crowned their basket and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... wroth, and showered upon His bold antagonist his quivered store— Then Rustem raised his bow, with eager eye Choosing a dart, and placed it on the string, A thong of elk-skin; to his ear he drew The feathered notch, and when the point had touched The other hand, the bended horn recoiled, And twang the arrow sped, piercing the breast Of Ushkabus, who fell a lifeless corse, As if he never had been born! Erect, And firm, the champion stood upon the plain, Towering like mount Alberz, immovable, The gaze and wonder ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... by their domestic degenerates. The sun was shining full in at the little diamond-paned window. The window was open, and a late fly of metallic hue was shooting about with a pinging noise, like the twang of some instrumental string. But neither fly, nor sun, nor the tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece had awakened the cat. It was the click of ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Hottentot twang, if that's what you mean. Nor did he say, "Caesar and Pompey berry much alike, 'specially Pompey," which is the only specimen of negro language I can remember just at ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... swords, And twoscore ships o' the line, with frigates, sloops, And gunboats sixty more, make headway now, Bleaching the waters with their bellying sails; Or maybe they already anchor there, And that level ooze of Walcheren shore Ring with the voices of that landing host In every twang of British dialect, Clamorous to loosen fettered Europe's ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... sir, your scorn to parade Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid, But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose No sound is so sweet as ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... your banjo, Matt," urged Joe. "Nothing like the merry old twang to make the new boys feel at home in ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... Southern boy, Charlie Maxfield by name, though known simply as "Chatz." He possessed all the traits to be found in boys who have been born and raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, was inclined to be touchy whenever he thought anyone doubted his honor, talked with a quaint little twang that was really delightfully musical, and taken in all had grown to be a prime ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... of saying pretension and pomposity do have a wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats, but rather think it was the latter—having a foreign twang to it, of course, it impressed ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... at the head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the twang of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast—also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything turn aside the point of the arrow ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... speaking eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one could hear it faintly twang: ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... seized the hair-brushes and looking at myself in the glass began to use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the noise outside, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown open)—I heard a deep calm voice, not on board my ship, however, hailing resolutely in English, but with a strong foreign twang, "Go ahead!" ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... He likes a dark, low-ceilinged, and not too obtrusively sanitary place to take his ease. At McSorley's is everything that the innocent fugitive from the world requires. The great amiable cats that purr in the back room. The old pictures and playbills on the walls. The ancient clocks that hoarsely twang the hours. We cannot imagine a happier place to sit down with a pad of paper and a well-sharpened pencil than at that table in the corner by the window. Or the table just under that really lovely little portrait of Robert Burns—would there be any ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... a lie then, and you believed her!' we heard a loud voice with a marked nasal twang say a minute later. 'To begin with, it wasn't at the big club ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... medium width, well developed, and nearly equal all over, and it is singularly bowed from bottom to top, meeting, when joined (for it is in two parts), just as will a string of a violin when you hold it in both hands, and twang it to test ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... his head to fly, and as he did so he heard the twang of a golden harp, and right before him whom should he see but the little man of the hills, holding a harp in one hand and striking the strings with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... sonnets, and twang with our dumps, And hey hough for our heart, as heavie as lead lumps. Then to our recorder with toodle doodle poope, As the howlet out of an yvie bushe should hoope Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledrum thrum, Thrumpledum, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... his head and made Falcon swerve, and heard therewith the twang of the bowstring and straightway the shaft flew past his ears. Falcon galloped on, and the carle cried out: "There is the highway toward the Burg! Do thy best, do thy best! Lo ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... evidently was to awaken the lady in whose honour it was perpetrated; but Militona's window continued closed and dark; and at last the man, compelled to content himself with an invisible auditory,—in spite of the Spanish proverb, which says, no woman sleeps so soundly that the twang of a guitar will not bring her to the window,—began to sing in a strong Andalusian accent. The serenade consisted of a dozen verses, in which the singer celebrated the charms of a cruel mistress, vowed inextinguishable love, and denounced fearful vengeance upon all rivals. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... had his little theory of Boniface Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man. He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper of all men who were unusually neat ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... unmistakeably glass. The whole effect of the face, however, was singularly pleasing to the discerning critic. An out of door, reckless, humorous, honest personality was stamped on every line of it and every movement of the man. When he spoke his voice had a marked tinge of the twang of the wild west that sounded a little oddly on the lips of a country gentleman in these northern parts. He wore an open flannel collar, a shooting coat, well cut riding breeches and immaculate leather leggings, finished off by a most substantial pair of shooting boots. Unlike Mr. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Why, Don Benito is a very capricious commander. But he is not the first of the sort I have seen; though it's true he rather exceeds any other. But as a nation—continued he in his reveries—these Spaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it. And yet, I dare say, Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Ah good! last "Rover" ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... close to the right bank. Across his vision flashed a picture of a brave armed with bow and arrow standing above him on the shore. He dived instantly. When he came up for air, only a bit of his red topknot showed. The swimmer heard the twang of an arrow and dived a second time. He was in the deep shadows of overhanging brush when he shook the water out of his eyes next time. For a dozen seconds he drew his breath in fear. But there came no shout of warning to other watchers, no shot or outcry to shatter the stillness. He guessed that ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... no sooner pronounced, than the can was lifted to every man's mouth with admirable uniformity; and the next word taken up at the end of their draught with a twang equally expressive and harmonious. In short, the company began to understand one another; Mr. Pickle seemed to relish the entertainment, and a correspondence immediately commenced between him and Trunnion, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... queer smile came over his face. Then he crept as silently upstairs, opened the window of the bathroom quietly, and slipped on to the leads. There were a couple of insulators here, against the wire of one of which Henson tapped his knuckles gently. The wire gave back an answering twang. The other jangled ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... Japan long enough to get tired of orientalism. He described the quaint, the picturesque, the amusing side of life in the East. He was full of enthusiasm for the land of soft voices and smiling faces, where countless little shops spread their wares under the light of the evening lanterns, where the twang of the samisen and the geisha's song are heard coming from the lighted tea-house, and the shadow of her helmet-like coiffure is seen appearing and disappearing in silhouette against ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... were flat and dull, as a rule, but a few cracked viciously as though fired close at hand. These last followed the vacuum of low-flying bullets and had a spat and twang of their own. ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... mountaineers, who talk to each other from hill tops half a mile asunder, announced that "our lady" was approaching. Whereupon a great hubbub arose; dogs barked, and feminine voices responded eagerly. Two or three muskets were presently discharged, and the twang of the balls as they passed near gave my nerves rather an unpleasant shock. I did not then know that the Black Mountaineers always receive their friends thus; in this instance female hands had loaded and fired, the men being almost all away ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... all my friends who have visited Australia say they haven't got manners, and all have a cockney twang. When they open their mouths they always spoil ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... silence followed, and then Long Tom said, "There is another has had his lesson, Sir Eustace. I heard a bow twang across there, and as there was no cry you may be sure that the shaft sped straight, and that the man had ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... to sketching the view from the window, and talking about church singing from notes, whereupon the president sent a deacon to fetch his book, and the latter sang for us an anthem, the vociferation and screechings of which was so alarming, not to mention the nasal twang, that my niece had to run away to indulge in an obstreperous laugh, and her senior companion had also much difficulty in refraining from the same kind of expression of opinion. The Oriental system of church musical notation is very complicated, having no stave-lines or bars, but only ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... a "meal of victuals," and they said "dooty" and "roomor" and "noos" and "clawg," and sometimes would pop out "his'n" and "her'n." Several of the Stenes had been in business thirty years in metropolitan Chicago, yet they spoke in the twang of a Yankee hill-country. The women of the family were famous housekeepers—too neat to keep a cat lest there might be a cat hair on the carpet, and never liking visitors unless there was a dreadful note of preparation, and then they received grandly. To show Lydia their good-will, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... sing that way in prayer-meeting, every one trying to sing, though not knowing one note from another. One old man by me sang five notes below the key; a woman on the other side screamed out as many above; a girl before me had a strong nasal twang. I should think you'd go distracted; and, by the way, what a quantity of ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... Their enjoyment of this phase of human nature was hardly possible so long as they had to proceed warily on a forest trail, their eyes keen for the first glimpse of a hideously painted face, their ears alert for the twang of a bowstring or the hiss of a feathered arrow. Their deep but practical interest in the Indians found expression in scores of books, which fall roughly into three groups. In the first are the scholarly works of the heroic John Eliot, "the apostle to the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... compact" so ably brought to a crisis. The secretary of all the governors Lower Canada had yet had, corresponded, most confidentially, with his home masters, somewhat, perhaps, to the prejudice of his honor the administrator. As general Simcoe loathed the nasal twang, attenuated appearance, and the vulgar republicanism of a downeast American, so Mr. Witsius Ryland abominated Romanism. Speaking of the Roman Catholic clergy of Canada, he says:—"I call them Popish ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... whence he came nor who he was. These deficiencies or drawbacks Lizzie recognised. But it was nothing against him in her judgment that he was a greasy, fawning, pawing, creeping, black-browed rascal, who could not look her full in the face, and whose every word sounded like a lie. There was a twang in his voice which ought to have told her that he was utterly untrustworthy. There was an oily pretence at earnestness in his manner which ought to have told that he was not fit to associate with gentlemen. There was a foulness of demeanour about him ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed before ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... me foolish, especially after coming from London, where many nice maids looked at me (on account of my bulk and stature), and I might have been fitted up with a sweetheart, in spite of my west-country twang, and the smallness of my purse; if only I had said the word. But nay; I have contempt for a man whose heart is like a shirt-stud (such as I saw in London cards), fitted into one to-day, sitting bravely on the breast; plucked out on the morrow morn, and the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... dormer window in the high roof watching the Spanish soldiers in the batteries working their guns, when, happening to look round, they saw a crossbow protruded from a window of the warehouse to their right, and a moment afterwards the sharp twang of the bow was heard. There was nothing unusual in this; for although firearms were now generally in use the longbow and the crossbow had not been entirely abandoned, and there were still archers in the English army, and many still held that the bow was a far ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... delivered in quiet, Neutral American, the speech that covers the great prairie states and is as near accentless and pure as American English ever is. It branded her Ozark twang as a lie, and a great many other things about her. But it added something very solid ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... chase his shadow and his mate the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the shouts of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, women wail ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... this hopped-up layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... moved rigid Alfieri to admiration. It remains embedded in a burlesque poem, one of the most perfectly outlined triumphs of refined Italian romantic art. Yet such was the strength of the master's hand, so loyal was he to his principle of contrast, that he cuts the melodious idyl short with a twang of the guitar-strings, and strikes up a tavern ballad on Lucrezia. The irony which ruled his art demanded this inversion of proprieties. Cynthia wooing Endymion shows us woman in her frailty; Lucrece violated by ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... thing seemed to him to suggest dim, cloudy, vast possibilities; and he groped in his brain for some hint of the nature of these possibilities. Yet as far as he could see it was good for nothing but to make a faintly pleasant twang for the amusement of women and children. At last he could keep his hands off it no longer. "Give it to me," said he suddenly, laying hold ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and the Tommies used to sing 'em. There was one song with a chorus, and it said something like this." The Infant dropped into the true barrack-room twang: ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... answer, but I do not know what train of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a low voice, without any expression, but his accents were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some time had wounded ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... attacked mate the third; and was led to infer better things, as the young gentleman commenced expatiating on the "purple sky," and "dark blue sea." This hope did not last long; for this lover of nature turned round to Sir Henry, and asked him in a nasal twang, if he preferred Cooper's or Mr. Scott's novels? Delme was not naturally a rude man, but as he turned away, he hummed something very ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... large. The four balls, with which they played, were not much bigger than those generally used at bagatelle. The queus were uncovered at the top with leather; and the player had the satisfaction of hearing the sharp twang of his bare-headed queu as each time it struck the little ivory ball. No chalk was in the room. The Danes possess no word in their language expressive of that convenient mineral. In Denmark, credit is never given. You must pay, or go to prison. Thank ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... TWANG. I reckon so. Our Guvner takes a crazy sight more pains than I would to sweetin thet ragin' devil Tecumseh's temper. I'd sweetin it wi' sugar o lead ef I ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... have passed away, Like a tide. Doors are open, windows wide. Why in stuffy London stay?" Sing the Sirens (slyboots they!) With a Tennysonian twang, To the Tourist, (Not the poorest You may bet your bottom dollar, Which those Sirens aim to "collar." Demoiselles, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... shatter the sunlit stillness, save the three-fold sound of their going—the clatter of hoofs, the clank and rattle of the tonga-bar rising and falling to a tune of its own making, and the brazen-throated twang of the horn, which the tonga-drivers of Upper India have ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen held a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... town, away from the smoke and the roar of the elevated trains. To make the air more salubrious an oxygen apparatus had been placed in the room, which liberated just enough gas to make the air fresh and to give it an autumn twang. ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... good one, very true and mellow, and her mother had taught her the liquid Spanish touch which showed it to its best advantage. Garnet also was doing her best. Her plectrum vibrated evenly and rapidly, and the metallic twang, her gravest fault, was not nearly so evident as usual. The audience, unfamiliar with these particular instruments, was not hypercritical, and so long as the players kept well together, and sounded no ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... offering his hand to lead a lady to the piano. "Do excuse me, sir, I beg of you," she replies, "I have not touched an instrument of music half a dozen times since I was married—one, you know, has so much to do." Thus music as a science lags in the rear, while musical instruments in myriads twang away in the van: and thus the window cobweb having caught its flies for the season is swept away by ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... has not exactly the genuine twang, but I hope no one will observe that but himself. I have more incidents in it than usual in works of the class—an elopement, a divorce, a duel, a ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... of barges loaded with brick for new houses came floating down the stream behind a busy little tug. On the soft morning breezes the young Southerner's keen car caught the twang of a banjo and the joyous music of negro brickmen singing an old-fashioned melody of his native state; while over all, like an eternal chorus, came the dim muffled roar of the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... careless expanse of ether rolled her destined chariots thundering along the pre-ordained highways of heaven, crushing a soul here and a life there with the tragic completeness of a steam-roller, granite-smashing, steam-fed, irresistible. And butter was churned with a twang in it, and rustics danced, and sheep that had fed in clover were "blasted," like poor BONDUCA's budding prospects. And, from the calm nonchalance of a Wessex hamlet, another novel was launched into a world of reviews, where the multitude of readers is not as to their external ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... buck went by. He had not spied us while we lay still, but the moment my comrade moved, he threw up his head and bounded off. Yet not before a quick twang from Sir Ludar's bowstring had sent an arrow into his quarter. "Are you mad?" cried I, in terror, "it ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... alighted upon him: the glory of the king of day crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... sick!" I heard him shout. "Thought she looked in prime condition at the Springs." (Bush language frequently has a strong twang of cattle in it.) ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... flame on a summer Sunday with such gorgeous millinery as would have shocked the grave people of thirty years ago. The deep bass note which once pealed from the belfry with a solemn and solitary dignity of sound has now lost it all amid the jangle of a half-dozen bells of lighter and airier twang. Even the parson himself will not be that grave man of stately bearing, who met the rarest fun only benignantly, and to whom all the villagers bowed,—but some new creature full of the logic of the schools and the latest conventionalisms of manner. The homespun disciples of other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... their accomplices, "yes, madame, we have excellent news from our house at St. Herem. M. Hardy, the infidel, the freethinker, has at length entered the pale of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." Rodin pronounced these last word with a nasal twang, and the devout lady bowed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... few of the old women were smoking clay or corncob pipes; the children laughed, cried, played with each other, rolled upon the ground, and disported themselves as children, white, black, or particolored, do all the world over; the occasional twang of a banjo and a fiddle was heard, and everything looked like enjoyment and anticipation. Of course, the huts of the future brides constituted the centre of attraction: from the chattering of tongues within we inferred that the wedding dresses were ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. We all ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang— ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... about the month of November, 1753, that I, with some friends, were met to spend the evening at a tavern in the City, when this man, in a mean but decent garb, was introduced to us by the waiter; immediately upon opening the door I heard the twang of one of his strings from under his coat, which was accompanied by the question, 'Gentlemen, will you please to hear my music?' Our curiosity, and the modesty of the man's deportment, inclined us to say yes, and music he ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... voice has a peculiar nasal twang, as in phonation the air is expelled through the nose instead of through the mouth, and the articulation, especially of certain consonants, is very indistinct. Taste and smell are deficient. The constant exposure of the nasal and pharyngeal mucous membrane renders ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... said to have, in this country and among its white inhabitants, reinvented. Seated in our easy-chair, we follow him gayly and untiringly into the depths of the woods, drink in the rich, cool, damp air, and revel in the primeval silence that is only broken by the twang of the bowstring or the call of its destined victim. We enjoy his marvellous shots with some little infusion of envy, and his exemplary patience under ill-success and repeated failure with perhaps more. We end, like his "Cracker" friend, with respecting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the coming repast, he would turn his plate, cup, and saucer up; which mode of reserving seats seemed respected by the rest. And as the evening wore on, the shouting and quarrelling at the doorway in Yankee twang increased momentarily; while some seated themselves at the table, and hammering upon it with the handles of their knives, hallooed out to the excited nigger cooks to make haste with the slapjack. Amidst all this confusion, my brother ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... the light of a flare, but both curses and Koran ceased as the procession passed under the arch. In the market-place a Soosi juggler was performing before a throng of laughing people, and a story-teller was shrieking to the twang of his ginbri; but the audience of the juggler broke up as the procession appeared, and the ginbri of the storyteller was no more heard. The hammering in the shops of the gunsmiths was stopped, and the tinkling of the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... against a wall, Upon a pin did hang'a, The harp itself, with ly' and all, Untouched by hand did twang'a. ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... gustily round the mansion. The few servants, consisting of a son of the steward, footman, and page, were all buried in profound slumber. Genji called to them loudly, and they awoke with a start. "Come," said he, "bring a light. Valet, twang your bow-string, and drive away the fiend. How can you sleep so soundly in such a place? But has ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... a ludicrous turn, but fortunately the Dominican intervened. "Gentlemen," he began in an authoritative tone and with the nasal twang that so well becomes the friars, "you must not confuse things or seek for offenses where there are none. We must distinguish in the words of Fray Damaso those of the man from those of the priest. The latter, as such, per se, can never give offense, because they spring from absolute ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... companion, Mr ——, is a poor little weakly Israelite, but very inoffensive, although he speaks with a horrible Yankee twang, which Mr Sargent and the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Mackay could see little difference between them and the Chinese, except in the cast of their features, and their long-shaped heads. They wore Chinese dress, even to the cue, worshiped the Chinese gods, and spoke with a peculiar Malayan twang. ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... sharp twang of a citerne was heard in the street below her window,—nothing new in these piping times of love and minstrelsy; but so sensitive was the ear now become to exterior impressions, that she started, as though expecting a salutation from the midnight rambler. Her anticipations were in some ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... returned the quondam murderer for the newspapers, with a nasal twang, "should be very glad to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is called "intoning." It is a plaintive, rhythmical chant, with as strong an unction of the nasal as ever prevailed in a Quaker or Methodist meeting. I cannot exactly understand why Episcopacy threw out the slur of "nasal twang" as one of the peculiarities of the conventicle, when it is in full force in the most approved seats of church orthodoxy. I listened to all in as uncritical and sympathetic a spirit as possible, giving myself up to be lifted by the music as ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... look at her speculatively. "Well," he said at length, speaking with something of a twang, "I guess your father knows what he's about, but it beats me to understand why he has me here to study. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... voice that spoke, soft and wheedling, yet with a certain unpleasant twang in it. She spoke to Melody, who sat still, with folded hands, and head bowed as ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... was blowing up from Kansas. The white, western moonlight threw sharp, blue shadows below us. The streets were silent at that hour, and we could hear the gurgle of the fountain in the Post Office square across the street, and the twang of banjos from the lower verandah of the Hotel Lincoln, where the colored waiters were serenading the guests. The drop lights in the office were dull under their green shades, and the telegraph sounder clicked faintly in the next room. In all his ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... residence in the Canton of the Grisons made me familiar with all sorts of Valtelline wine; with masculine but rough Inferno, generous Forzato, delicate Sassella, harsher Montagner, the raspberry flavour of Grumello, the sharp invigorating twang of Villa. The colour, ranging from garnet to almandine or ruby, told me the age and quality of wine; and I could judge from the crust it forms upon the bottle, whether it had been left long enough in wood to ripen. I had furthermore arrived at the conclusion that the best Valtelline ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... about these women, from the youngest to the oldest, and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety, they could twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human body, but a woman of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair and square, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Difference in the Men; yet Heaven at first did its part, but the Devil has since so over-done his, that what with the Vizor of Sanctity, which is the gadly Sneer, the drawing of the Face to a prodigious length, the formal Language, with a certain Twang through the Nose, and the pious Gogle, they are fitter to scare Children ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... most trustie page, Goe not nowe aboute to hinder my mariage, So feruent hotte wowyng, and so farre from wiuing, I trowe neuer was any creature liuyng, With euery woman is he in some loues pang, Then vp to our lute at midnight, twangledome twang, Then twang with our sonets, and twang with our dumps, And heyhough from our heart, as heauie as lead lumpess: Then to our recorder with toodleloodle poope As the howlet out of an yuie bushe should hoope. Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledum thrum, Thrumpledum, thrumpledum, ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... those who heard him, and once more the big building rang with cheering. As the sound of hearty acclamation died away there was a great clatter of thrust-back benches through which the tuning of a fiddle broke. Then out of the tentative twang of strings rose, clear and silvery, the lament of Flora Macdonald, thrilling with melancholy, and there were men and women there whose hearts went back to the other wild and misty land of rock and pine and frothing river which they had left far away across the ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... honeyed a Cockney twang) speedily came back to report that Miss. French had left about half-an-hour ago, and was not likely ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... difficulties the teacher had to deal with, Polly Vaughn was the greatest. She was nearly perfect in all her studies, but a little mischievous and very dear to him. "Pretty;" that is one thing all said of her there in Faraway, and they said also with a bitter twang that she loved to lie abed and read novels. To Sidney Trove the word "pretty" was inadequate. As to lying abed and reading novels, he was free to say that ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... all. Van Koppen was described as a brisk, genial, talkative old fellow, rather fat, with a clear complexion, sound teeth, shrubby grey beard, a twang barely sufficient to authenticate his transatlantic descent, and the digestion of a boa-constrictor. He was tremendously fond of buttered tea-cakes—so the Duchess said; a man who, in the words of Madame ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... engrossed in conversation, passed abreast of the party on the outside of the boundary fence and not ten feet from them. The speaker was a short, broad, powerfully built man in appearance, and he spoke in a harsh voice and with a twang that marked him as a ruffian of the city slums. He wore a cap, pulled so low over his features as to make them indistinguishable. And he walked with a ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... curse upon thy venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang; And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance; Tearing my nerves wi' bitter ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... would comprise a jew's-harp, a bit of catgut, screws whittled out of wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. But when robbed of all these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, which, when put between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, would yield a delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. He could also fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means of spools and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life was an old tuning-fork that ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... flock, 140 To fair Zeleia's walls once safe restored. Compressing next nerve and notch'd arrow-head He drew back both together, to his pap Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow, And when the horn was curved to a wide arch, 145 He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed Leap'd off, impatient for the distant throng. Thee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods Forgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil, Thy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart. 150 Far as a mother wafts the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... doubled the price on him. It's a pity he should be a-tellin' of lies of the Yankees all the time; this will help him now to a little grain of truth." Then mimicking his voice and manner, he repeated Allen's words with a strong nasal twang, "'Most time for you to give over the clock trade, I guess, for by all accounts they ain't worth havin', and most infarnel dear too; folks begin to get their eyes open.' Better for you, if you'd ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... practice, in the main, was confined to the courts of justices of the peace. He was a shrewd, sensible old man, of a remarkably kind and genial disposition, but just about the homeliest looking individual I ever saw. And he had a most singular, squeaky sort of a voice, with a kind of a nasal twang to it, which if heard once could never be forgotten. He was an old friend of my father's, and had been his legal adviser (so far as his few and trifling necessities in that line required) from time immemorial. And for a year or so prior to the outbreak of the war my thoughts had been ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
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