"Twang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fortitude to prosecute. Not 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 ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... 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
... on 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
... the Hoopoes' crowns was known, every one turned fowler and began to hunt the precious birds. In all the land of Israel was heard the twang of bows and the whirling of slings. Bird lime was made in every town, and the price of traps rose in the market so that the trap-makers became rich men. Not a Hoopoe could show his unlucky head without being slain or taken captive, and the days ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... with never a sound to 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 elevated to ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... on his head as stiff as a pump-handle; and scarcely crediting his ears, he returned a searching look at the cat, who very quietly proceeded in a sort of nasal twang— ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Her Majesty wouldn't mention just how many years. He didn't think he could stand it, and he was almost grateful for the cowboy's nasal twang. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... hear the twang of bowstrings now, but the shouts still came to them, though much softened by the distance. Presently they too died away, and with silence returning to the forest Henry and Shif'less Sol stood upright. They listened only a moment or two, and ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as he advanced, and soon it became tolerably dark at the bottom where the high walls shut out the light. Suddenly his horse stumbled, and, as Ted shot over its head, he heard the twang of a broken wire that had been stretched ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... to hurry the cook—bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... 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" ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 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
... hoverer and vanisher; he too charmingly sister'd, though sister'd only, and succumbing to monstrous early trouble after having "shown some talent" for music. The ghostliness of these aesthetic manifestations, as I allude to them, is the thinnest conceivable chip of stray marble, the faintest far-off twang of old chords; I ask myself, for the odd obscurity of it, under what inspiration music and sculpture may have tinkled and glimmered to the Albany ear and eye (as we at least knew those organs) and with what queer and weak delusions our unfortunates may have played. Quite ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... upon your venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang, An' thro' my lug gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance, Tearing my nerves wi' bitter ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... was delivered on the 20th by Sir William Erle.] with a few verbal alterations. I am sorry I cannot deliver the latter; but the state of our work in Chancery is such that the sittings cannot be well curtailed, even for an hour. I trust some member of the board, with a strong nautical twang, will be so good as to deliver it; and if the speaker could but adopt that hitch of the trouser which made Lord Clarence Paget so effective in the House of Commons, it would, I have no doubt, add much to the effect of a composition otherwise ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... turned 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
... ye arren't famous," he said. His voice had the faint, infinitely sweet twang of certain Irishry; a thing as delicate and intangible as the scent of lime flowers. "Our noble friend"—he indicated Carlos with a little flutter of one white hand—"has told me what make of a dare-devil gallant ye are; breaking the skulls of half the Bow Street runners for ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... 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 liked the sounds; ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... sputtering, and steaming, like so many young Curates at a Penny Reading. Suddenly the Philosopher looked up. He spoke to himself. "Everything is ready," he said, and pressed a button by his side. There was a sound as of a Continent expectorating, a distant nose seemed to twang, the door opened, and a tall lantern-jawed gentleman, wearing a goat-beard and an expression of dauntless cunning, stepped ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... 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, the ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... "ever 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 Mr. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for a mental ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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
... think, Francis," he said, "of making a plan to see Florence and Sienna and Orvieto on the way down, instead of going straight to Rome?" He spoke in precise, particularly-enunciated words, in a public-school manner, but with a strong twang of ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... to Moonlight. It was equally so to the Bounding Bullers, who, although mightily taken by surprise, were fully alive to the fact that here were two men and two women of their hated Blackfoot foes completely at their mercy. They had only to twang their bowstrings and the death-yells of the men would instantly resound in the forest. But burning curiosity as to what it could all mean, and an intense desire to see the ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... of the blacks, or mutiny, I should call it, captain, broke out four days ago, on last Friday, indeed, sir," said the American promptly in his deep musical voice, and whose foreign accent obliterated all trace of the unmelodious Yankee twang. "But we kept the rascals at bay until last night, soon after sundown, when they made an ugly rush and overpowered us. Captain Alphonse had just sighted your vessel in the distance and was burning a blue light over the stern to attract your attention, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... good-humored; his 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 of linsey ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... you. Think what you please, but I will not have that fact challenged. Perhaps you could count up on your fingers the women who are loved like that; but, anyhow, she was. My second cousin once removed, damn her!" He ended with a vicious twang. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he called his head, poor man, to be ashamed of the name he bore, though owned by many honest and respectable men, and chose to join it to your surname of Mowbray, as having a more chivalrous Norman sounding, and, in a word, a gentlemanlike twang with it?" ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 which ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... 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, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... 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 blustering substantive or the self-asserting verb. And so it is that the native American ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... 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 met him on the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... token,' said Elder Hawkins's deep bass voice, speaking with the strong nasal twang of the Puritans ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... corner beneath which was the entrance to the tunnel, was nothing to the uproar which now arose, to the shouts which echoed across the dreary camp, to the reports of rifles which men, almost too aged to work, and employed as guards, let off in every direction. There was the twang of bullets in the air, while the darkness was punctuated by many a spot of flame, which showed where the sentries were doing duty. That commotion brought the Commandant flaring out of his quarters again, stamping his feet with anger, bellowing with passion. It would also ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... 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 air of ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... habit were always shy of this young person, 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... in. Lanpher plucked at the loose strings of his courage, and managed to draw out a faintly responsive twang. "I'll show you whether ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... pride his first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. He carted human wreckage to the hospitals on the French front for two years before Uncle Sam decided to end the war. There's another one not long from the "Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his uniform. He speaks with a twang of old Virginia on every syllable and they say his family—but that has nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major general and is in these parts ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... the quondam murderer for the newspapers, with a nasal twang, "should be very glad to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 folks ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... 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 the means ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... 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
... 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, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... circumstance untoward feathers plucks Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with 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 her ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... 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 ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... scenes of home Back to sight of eager eyes That have longed for them to come, Till their coming is surprise Uttered only by the rush Of quick tears and prayerful hush; Singing on, in clearer key, Hearty palms of you and me Into grasps that tingle still Rapturous, and ever will! Singing twank and twang of strings— Trill of flute and clarinet In a melody that rings Like the tunes we used to play, And our dreams are playing yet! Singing lovers, long astray, Each to each, and, sweeter things— Singing in their marriage-day, And a banquet holding ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... still another the whining of a dog. He moved to the left, feeling his way gingerly between the humble dwellings. A lighted window caught his attention, and then a man's voice, with a whimsical drawl and twang to it, raised ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... 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. Leaving ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Yeo, for the very purpose of holding up to ridicule that time-honored melody, had put into it the true nasal twang, and rung it out as merrily as he had done perhaps twelve years before, when he got up John Oxenham's anchor in Plymouth Sound. And it befell also that Ayacanora, as she stood by Amyas's side, watching the men, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... of a cock, accidentally awakened, 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 bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... 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
... 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 ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... and I 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 ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... 'pears like 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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)
... 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 ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... 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 ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... 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 ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... he makes a strange figure with that ragged, tattered coat appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean, like the rest of the servants? The fellow has a roguish leer with him which I don't like by any means; besides, he has such a twang in his discourse, and an ungraceful way of speaking through the nose, that one can hardly understand him; I wish the fellow be not tainted with some bad disease." The witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights, and went abroad often at unseasonable ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... were seated 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. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 would ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... 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 ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... friend," he said, speaking slowly, as if learning the lesson from her. There was a slight subdued twang in his utterance which ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... move in the direction of fraternizing was, however, snubbed. A few days ago, having finished my own work, I offered to wash up the plates, but Mrs. C., with a look which conveyed more than words, a curl of her nose, and a sneer in her twang, said "Guess you'll make more work nor you'll do. Those hands of yours" (very brown and coarse they were) "ain't no good; never done nothing, I guess." Then to her awkward daughter: "This woman says she'll wash up! Ha! ha! ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... drew aside as if 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
... 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 ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... my final word at our meeting next week. I would rather step down from the chair than dribble out of it. Even the devil is in the habit of departing with a "melodious twang," and I ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... going to Stockleigh?" he asked. The soft sing-song intonation common to all Devon voices fell very pleasantly on ears accustomed to the Cockney twang of London streets. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... rasp of metal friction, and a loud twang. The lever came free, a length of broken cable flopping into view. The tower fell over as the two on ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... 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 Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his ticket, and wished to secure his place for 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
... you've a nasal name— I'll sound it through "the speaking-trump of fame," And wondering nations, hearing from afar The brazen twang of its resounding jar, Shall say: "These bards are an uncommon class— They blow their noses with a tube of brass!" Rankin! ye gods! if Influenza pick Our names at christening, and such names stick, Let's all be born when summer suns withstand ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... at the nasal twang which Annie gave to the words, and Prudy imitated it to perfection, not knowing it ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... 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 come up ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... soft-headed, 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 and we were quartered in a barn connected with a farmhouse. ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... 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]
... was less desperate than might seem. Alfred's form and face were little known to his enemies. He was a skilful harper. The glee-man in those days was a privileged person, allied to no party, free to wander where he would, and to twang his harp-strings in any camp. He might look for welcome ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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 ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... 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 violation of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... 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
... '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
... of ensnared aural foreign body in a lady, aged about forty years, who, while "picking" her left ear with a so-called "invisible hair-pin" several hours before the consultation, had heard a sudden "twang" in the ear, as if the hair-pin had broken. And so, indeed, it had; for on the instant she had attempted to jerk it quickly from the ear the sharp extremity of the inner portion of its lower prong sprang away from ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... 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 a piece ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... 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 ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... crossbow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience—consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothespin. I raised the crossbow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb's mouth, which happened to be open at the time, and ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... stage no 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 relief in ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... and 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 ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... 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 to the goldfinch or the pine finch, had ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... 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 least, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... the unhesitating confidence of those who were of a more yielding nature. He soon caught the phraseology of his companion, and avoiding his intensity, was less likely to offend his hearers. His manner was better subdued to the social tone of ordinary life, his voice lacked the sharp twang of the backwoods man; and, unlike John Cross, he was able to modulate it to those undertones, which, as we have before intimated, are so agreeable from the lips of young lovers and fashionable preachers. At all events, John Cross himself, was something more than satisfied ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... we are 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
... 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
... 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, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... his more confidential friends; I had loaded my astonishing memory with scraps of theology and of fun. I could sing a French drinking song, taught me by the sub-prior Frere Jacques, and intonate a "Gloria in Excelsis" with a true nasal twang. I had actually learned the Creed in English;[3] and could call all the brothers by their name. I had even learned the Savoyard's dance from my friend Frere Jacques, and sung "Gai Coco" at the same time, like Scaliger's parrot, from whose history Frere Jacques ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... 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 ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... 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
... of the rope had passed from us, and we were congratulating ourselves that the trial would soon be over, when, to our dismay, the strain ceased with a suddenness that caused both of us to recoil upon our backs! At the same instant, we heard the "twang" of the snapping rope, followed by a ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... 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
... birds 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 barb had passed through, and the shaft remained ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and brawny and with a 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, took ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... 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 ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... crossbow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothes-pin. I raised the cross-bow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb's mouth, which happened to be open at the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... know, called mimes. In the fragment of his lost play, AEschylus, after describing the din made by the "mountain gear" of the Mother, the maddening hum of the bombykes, a sort of spinning-top, the clash of the brazen cymbals and the twang of the strings, thus ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... 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 and ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... his first arrow, which must drop 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. As Tarzan stooped ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... reinstated in their old realm, and yet Rome had not ceased to call herself Christian. The hoarse rhetoric of friars in the Coliseum, and the drone of pifferari from the Ara Coeli, mingled with the Latin declamations of the Capitol and the twang of lute-strings in the Vatican. Meanwhile, amid crowds of Cardinals in hunting-dress, dances of half-naked girls, and masques of Carnival Bacchantes, moved pilgrims from the North with wide, astonished, woeful eyes—disciples of Luther, in whose soul, as in a scabbard, lay sheathed the sword ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... aloofe, at distaunce stylle, The Englysh nete but short horse-spears could welde; The Englysh manie dethe-sure dartes did kille, And manie arrowes twang'd upon the sheelde. Kynge Haroldes knyghts desir'de for hendie stroke, 95 And marched furious o'er the bloudie pleyne, In bodie close, and made the pleyne to smoke; Theire sheelds rebounded arrowes back agayne. The Normans stode ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... equatorial house, bringing Mr. Adams, the rival of Leverrier, [Footnote: See Chapter VII.]—another short man, but bright-looking, with dark hair and eyes, and again the thick voice, this time with a nasal twang. He is a fellow of Pembroke College, and master of arts. If Mr. Adams had become a fellow of his own college, St. John, he must have gone into holy orders, as it is called; this he was not willing to do; he accepted ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Orpheus tickled his 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 come ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... the Mayor of Springfield, and many guests whom he introduced one by one to the audience in short speeches. These worthies delivered harangues on the subject of horses and their uses; and the speeches were really very respectable, and not too long, but were delivered in general with a strong nasal twang. There were persons from all parts of ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... Nancrede's outfit across the river at their camp. Dupree, 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
... 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 despondent, the fish would, sooner or ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... thoroughly fuddled. He listened to an orchestral theme, interpreted by koto, fue, biwa, or the taiko (drum). Perhaps there were better voices. Even in their singing the three girls had that sharp, derisive, unpleasant, nasal twang. But Rokuzo was past criticism. To their questioning he told who and what he was; a chu[u]gen in the service of his lord, Endo[u] Saburo[u]zaemon, hatamoto in the land, and now in office at the fireward of the palace. Had he a wife? A chu[u]gen is not one to have a wife. At ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... 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 ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with 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 ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... his horn to the steps of the porch, and there stopping his cart, addressed the farmer's wife in the true nasal twang that characterises the lower class of New Englanders, and inquired "if she had any ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 conscious importance, partly from doubt in itself, boiled and fumed, bubbled and ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald |
