"Two-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sword won in battle from the Saracen admiral Anthenor by Mangis d'Aygremont, the hero of the romance of that name. Ancient swords were frequently "flamboyant," or with waved edges; more especially those used for purposes of state. The Dukes of Burgundy bore a two-handed sword of this form. Indeed, "flaming swords," as they were called, were worn down to the time of our Charles II., and perhaps later. It is rather singular that the ordinary synonyma for a sword should be "brand." The name of the weapon taken from King Bucar by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... prepared to depart with Lute for bed. A second bridge quartet had been arranged—Ernestine, Bert, Jeremy Braxton, and Graham; while O'Hay and Bishop were already deep in a bout of two-handed pinochle. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... had always supposed it to be, that geometrical symbol of a face, turns out to be precisely the face of the Japanese woman when she is made up. So the monstrous entanglements of men fighting, which one sees in the pictures, the circling of the two-handed sword, the violence of feet in combat, are seen to be after all the natural manner of Japanese warfare. This unrestrained energy of body comes out in the expression of every motion. Men spit and sneeze ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... as their custom is, in a three-sided box, and leaning forward over the washboard that sloped down into the water. As they washed they held the linen in one hand, and rubbed it with the other; then heaped it into a mass upon the board and beat it with great two-handed blows of a stick. They sang, meanwhile, one of those plaintive airs of which the Italian peasants are fond, and which rose in indescribable pathos, pulsing with their blows, and rhythmic with the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... series of single combats. Dick, who had come first into the mellay, was engaged by three; the first he cut down at the first blow, but the other two coming upon him hotly he was fain to give ground before their onset. One of these two was a huge fellow, almost a giant for stature, and armed with a two-handed sword, which he brandished like a switch. Against this opponent, with his reach of arm and the length and weight of his weapon, Dick and his bill were quite defenceless; and had the other continued to join vigorously in the attack, the lad must have indubitably fallen. This ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... depth, extending from the bend of the eye- brow across the zygomata to the ear, and No. 3 wears cuts across the forehead. I was shown a sword belonging to the Mijolo: all declared that it is of native make; yet it irresistibly suggested the old two-handed weapon of Europe, preserved by the Bedawin and the Eastern Arabs, who now mostly derive it from Sollingen. The long, straight, flexible, and double-edged blade is neatly mounted by the tang in a handle with a pommel, or terminating knob, of ivory; others ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... had come our lads sprang up with a cheer, and, forgetting their proper weapons, let go at the enemy with their oars, using them as spears and two-handed swords, and with such effect that in less than a minute the wretches were driven back or beaten into the water, to swim to and cling to their half-sunken boat, whose light bamboos refused to ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... feet of line are drawn from the reel. Third cast to the right; fourth cast to the left. Then a little more line. And so, with widening half-circles, the water is covered, gradually and very carefully, until at length the angler has as much line out as his two-handed rod can lift and swing. Then the first "drop" is finished; the man in the stern quietly pulls up the anchor and lets the boat drift down a few yards; the same process is repeated on the second drop; and so on, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Bertino had been trained like a pupil by my brother; and my brother felt the most unbounded love for him. So then, off dashed the four brave lads, and came up with the guard of the Bargello-upwards of fifty constables, counting pikes, arquebuses, and two-handed-swords. After a few words they drew their weapons, and the four boys so harried the guard, that if Captain Cattivanza had but shown his face, without so much as drawing, they would certainly have put the whole pack to flight. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... a very 'handsome pittance,' I guess, as Artemus Ward would say," said Fulkerson, getting back some of his lightness. "There are lots of two-handed fellows in New York that are not doing much better, I guess. Maybe he gets some writing on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room, and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... which Richard wore, and he stood before Saladin in the close dress which showed to advantage the strength and symmetry of his person, while it bore a strong contrast to the flowing robes which disguised the thin frame of the Eastern monarch. It was Richard's two-handed sword that chiefly attracted the attention of the Saracen—a broad straight blade, the seemingly unwieldy length of which extended wellnigh from the shoulder to the heel of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... though the Bar was very well represented on the only occasion on which I flew in the face of my country's laws, and, taking my reputation in my hand, penetrated into that grim supper- house. And Colette's frequenters, thrillingly conscious of wrong-doing and 'that two-handed engine (the policeman) at the door,' were perhaps inclined to somewhat feverish excess. But the place was in no sense a very bad one; and it is somewhat strange to me, at this distance of time, how it had acquired its ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the room are two full suits of armor, one Italian, and one English of the time of Henry V., the latter holding in its hands a stupendous two-handed sword, I suppose six feet long, and said to have been found on Bosworth field. Opposite to the door is the fireplace of freestone, imitated from an arch in the cloister at Melrose, with a peculiarly graceful spandrel. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... middle class, the small farmer. Long white hair and beard, spectacles with great round, staring glasses, a broad-brimmed hat of ante-Revolutionary pattern, clothes that had apparently descended to him from some ancestor who had come over with Oglethorpe, and a two-handed staff with a head of buckhorn, upon which he leaned as old peasants do in plays, formed such an image as recalled to me the picture of the old man in the illustrations in "The Dairyman's Daughter." He was as garrulous as a magpie, and as opinionated as a Southern white always is. Halting ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... suddenly becoming quite tragical, and actually despatching two or three heroes with very little ceremony. The first of these unfortunate gentlemen perished, if I remember correctly, by "a tremendous backstroke of a two-handed, double-edged sword, that severed his head from his body." At this sentence, which seemed pretty decisive, Johnny was somewhat staggered, but, immediately recovering himself, he bade Max "go on," expecting, I verily believe, that it would turn out that the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... these conceit-drugged travesties on the male sex by caring about anything they say," she tells him. "You have so many things they never will have! Why, you're a big, clean, two-handed man and—" She breaks off and gives a giggle that I would have took Verdun for. "But there!" she goes on. "I—I—guess I'm ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... oldest of its kind, is the very knightliest memorial an English gentleman could have. A plain slab of brass, on which has been elaborately engraved the figure of a soldier in full chain mail, with his six-foot lance and its fringed pennon, his long prick-spurs, and his great two-handed sword, it has lain in an English church for nearly six centuries and a-half. The Lombardic lettering which runs round the brass is half illegible, but the form of the old inscription, perfect in its simple ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... thy deeds thou canst not see Nor where thou art, nor what things dwell with thee. Whence art thou born? Thou know'st not; and unknown, On quick and dead, on all that were thine own, Thou hast wrought hate. For that across thy path Rising, a mother's and a father's wrath, Two-handed, shod with fire, from the haunts of men Shall scourge thee, in thine eyes now light, but then Darkness. Aye, shriek! What harbour of the sea, What wild Kithairon shall not cry to thee In answer, when thou hear'st what bridal song, What wind among the torches, bore thy strong ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... some, but the point I had in view was what old Judge Hinky used to call "shifting the issue." I wanted to make one stab at just one man—not the whole party—on grounds that the rest of the crowd, who was plainly all good two-handed punchers, would see was perfectly fair. And I intended to land that stab so's they'd see I was no trifler. It was my bad luck that not a soul in the crowd knew me—even by reputation, or my hair would have made it easy for me. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... a light two-handed rod, and fancied that a single Test-fly on very fine tackle would be the best lure. It certainly rose the trout, if one threw into the circle they made; but they never were hooked. One fish of about a pound and a half threw himself out of the water at it, hit it, and broke ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... the best is the Englishman, who can pierce a suit of armor through and through, and at a hundred steps he will not miss a dove. Czechowie (Bohemians) cut dreadfully with axes. For the big two-handed sword the German is the best. The Swiss is glad to strike the helmets with an iron flail, but the greatest knights are those who come from France. These will fight on horseback and on foot, and in the meanwhile they will speak very brave words, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bare chest still smarted from the blow of his wooden fencing sword. If it had been the real two-handed Lunarian dueling sword, with its terrible mass behind a curved razor edge, the blow would have produced a cut deep into the bone. It was always the same, ever since Garth and I had fenced as boys with crooked laths. Back to back, we could beat the whole school, but I never had ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... Burlings, the ruling elder in the kirk, popped into the shop, and, in our two-handed crack, after asking me in a dry, curious way if I had come by no skaith in the business of the play, he said the thing had now spread far and wide, and was making a great noise in the world. I thought the body ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Lomond and the Highlands, and on the other hand, the Clyde and the Isle of Bute. In the soft and still balminess of the morning, it was a lovely picture. In the armory, I lifted the sword of Wallace, a two-handed weapon, five feet in length. We were also shown a Lochaber battle-axe, from Bannockburn, and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... engine, an explosive engine that differed in no essential particular from those in use in the light motor bicycles of the period. Below was a single large wheel. The rider sat astride of a saddle, as in the Butteridge machine, and he carried a large double-edged two-handed sword, in addition ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... camp. They were ornamented after the usual Australian aboriginal fashion, some with slanting cuts or grooves along the blade, others with square, elliptical, or rounded figures; several of these two-handed swords were seven feet long, and four or five inches wide; wielded with good force, they were formidable enough to cut a man in half ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... moment all was a wild melee. A company of City Guards—pikemen, musketeers, and horsemen with two-handed swords dashed into the Piazza from one street, the Pope's troops from another. They charged the crowd. The soldiers of the revolting captain, revolting in their turn, wheeled round and drove back their followers. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... been as prone in those days as at present to seek for victory by laying the enemy on board and trusting to the strength of their own arms. At present, instead of battle-axes and clubs, or spears, or two-handed swords they have a fondness for their cutlasses and pistols. In the days, before Britannia could loudly roar with her thunder, naval combats were carried on with all the noise and hubbub the men on either side could create with their voices, as also with the braying ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... had fits. His first wife was no betther than she shud be, an' his second wife didn't care f'r him. Willum Shakespeare is well known as an author of plays that no wan can play, but he was betther known as a two-handed dhrinker, a bad actor, an' a thief. His wife was a common scold an' led him th' life he desarved. They niver leave th' ladies out iv these stories iv th' gr-reat. A woman that marries a janius has a fine chance iv her false ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... very much a demon after all. But the revenge of government was longer lived than the popular rejoicing. Their first intention was a general casting out of all who had foiled them in the debate: a two-handed slaughter of officials—a massacre of the innocents. But the wrath cooled, and was satisfied with turning off Carter, master of the rolls; Malone, prime serjeant; Dilks, the quarter-master general; and abolishing the pension of Boyle, a near ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... art yet ordained for greater things. There is another, too, a kept mistress, a brave strapping jade, a two-handed whore! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... on the table: the dealer is at liberty to do the same to his partner, and vice versa. The two who have received their partners' cards play the game, previously discarding their worst card for the one received from their partners. The game then proceeds as at two-handed Put. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: —But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Wharton's leadership. They referred constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irish fellows." The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was to learn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together and strike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine," ready to smite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate organisation, separate place in the House, separate Whips—they were ready, nay clamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on Harry Wharton as a leader. They spoke of the Clarion with enthusiasm, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Glaymore, or great two-handed sword, and afterwards the two-edged sword and target, or buckler, which was sustained on the left arm. In the midst of the target, which was made of wood, covered with leather, and studded with nails, a slender lance, about two feet long, was sometimes ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Professor Walker, speaking of the most exquisitely harmonious lyric ever written in English, or perhaps in any other language,[31] says with great truth: "The reader of Lycidas rises from it ready to grasp the 'two-handed engine' and smite; though he may be doubtful what the engine is, and what ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... cuirass, singing a roundelay of decidedly loose tendencies, precisely as he had once charged beside Prince Rupert on the bloody day of Long Marston; and Master John Grimston would have snuffled a psalm through his nose and made a thanksgiving prayer over a cut throat, swinging his long two-handed sword meanwhile, as he had done when mowing down the 'malignants' at Naseby, under the very eye of Oliver himself. That would have been an odd mixture for the same army; but we have an odder, when the neat-whiskered clerk from behind the dry-goods ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... thou dost, Rose," said Eveline; "yet credit me, girl, we will be at the Red Pool, and thus far on our way home again, ere thy father has donned his best doublet, girded on his two-handed sword, and accoutred his strong Flanderkin elephant of a horse, which he judiciously names Sloth—nay, frown not, and lose not, in justifying thy father, the time that may be better ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... me frind Biv'ridge iv Injyanny," said Mr. Dooley. "An' I'm f'r him f'r leader iv th' party. He's wan iv th' best two-handed orators in th' sinit or annywhere. He has a wondherful left an' his repartee with th' right is said to be very stingin'. He's inthrajooced th' sthrangle holt be means iv which th' debate can be suddenly cut off. He's ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... knot or flaw, and about five feet long, he fitted to the iron head with great neatness and skill. The polishing of this formidable weapon he deferred to a period of greater leisure. Having completed this piece of work, Erling next turned to another corner of the forge and took up the huge two-handed sword which he had made for ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... fighting at close quarters, and can be described here in a few lines because of their guileless simplicity. They consisted of conical explosive bombs on the ends of broom handles! A strong man could whirl one of them round his head, like a two-handed sword or battle-axe, and, when the momentum was sufficient, hurl it over the water for about seventy-five feet. On nose-diving into the sea and hitting the hull of a submarine in the act of rising or plunging, the little bomb, containing ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... played with the two-handed sword, with the back sword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... dead, he died about a year after his bodily demise in 1825. The romanticism killed him. Walter Scott, from his Castle of Abbotsford, sent out a troop of gallant young Scotch adventurers, merry outlaws, valiant knights, and savage Highlanders, who, with trunk hosen and buff jerkins, fierce two-handed swords, and harness on their back, did challenge, combat, and overcome the heroes and demigods of Greece and Rome. Notre Dame a la rescousse! Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert has borne Hector of Troy clear ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... preparations for the men and the cares of the children. From the profusion of ornaments which they wore, one may imagine, however, that they were well cared for by their lords in return for their affectionate labors; and the general bearing of the tall Banjara who bore a long two-handed sword gave evidence of a certain inward sense of protection over his belongings which probably found vent in many an affectionate gift of rings and bracelets to his graceful partner. It must be confessed that the gypsying of these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... at a very acute angle, would keep off the former, while the mingled refuse hay and muck beneath would nurse a smoke that would prove a thorough protection against the latter. And then, when Jim, the two-handed, mounting the trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had severed it thrice with easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the logs in front of the shanty, had kindled a fire, which, getting the better of the dampness, soon cast a bright glow over all, shedding warmth and ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... Satan, who that day Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms No equal, ranging through the dire attack Of fighting Seraphim confused, at length Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felled Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down Wide-wasting; such destruction to withstand He hasted, and opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield, A vast circumference. At his approach The great Arch-Angel ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... a splendid triumph. A hundred and fifty tonsured apostles of incivism here fell in one day beneath the two-handed sword of freedom. A cardinal, two archbishops, dignitaries, monks, hoary with prejudices, antiquated with abuses, extinguishers of the new light of liberty, here were offered on the national shrine! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... the woods at a place called Methven, when the followers of Bruce believed themselves to be safe from attack, and had taken off their armor. As the English with shouts and battle cries attacked the unguarded Scots, Bruce leaped to his horse and with his great two-handed sword drove his enemies before him like chaff. But while the English recoiled before the blows of his powerful arm, they succeeded in routing his followers. A large number of Bruce's friends and retainers ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... precision. The nigger drivers chaffed one another as the shells made melody above their heads, and made the air fairly dance with the picturesque terms of endearment they bestowed upon their mules, between the welts they bestowed with their long two-handed whips. When two of their leaders jibbed and refused to budge, they howled and called them Mr. Steyn and Ole Oom Paul; but when they got down solid to their work they laughed until even their back teeth were showing beyond the dusky horizon of their ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... 1779, proposed to deviate from this course, and to separate Man from the apes as an order apart, under the name of Bimana, or two-handed. In making this innovation he seems at first to have felt that it could not be justified without calling in psychological considerations to his aid, to strengthen those which were purely anatomical; for, in the earliest edition of his "Manual of Natural History," he defined Man ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... hindrances Melted upon his lips to natural ease, As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he wore, Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled By velvet courtesy or caution cold, That sword of honest anger prized of old, But, with two-handed wrath, If baseness or pretension crossed his path, Struck once nor needed to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... host, filled the stout heart of a king with a belief that he encountered no earthly foe. Fortunately, perhaps, for Ferdinand and Spain, the contest did not last long. Twenty horsemen spurred into the melee to the rescue of the plumed diadem: Tendilla arrived the first; with a stroke of his two-handed sword, the white banner was cleft from its staff, and fell to the earth. At that sight the Moors round broke forth in a wild and despairing cry: that cry spread from rank to rank, from horse to foot; the Moorish infantry, sorely pressed on all sides, no sooner ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to the side of the travellers (for the bravest troops must yield to numbers) had not Susan the chambermaid come luckily to support her mistress. This Susan was as two-handed a wench (according to the phrase) as any in the country, and would, I believe, have beat the famed Thalestris herself, or any of her subject Amazons; for her form was robust and man-like, and every way made for such encounters. As her hands and arms were formed to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... boys!" "That's your sort!" "Bravo, old Waterproof!" this last cheer being for Macintosh, who shot a chief who was leading on his tribesmen, brandishing a huge two-handed sword. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... followed Martin across the courtyard to the walled-in stables, and up a ladder to the room where the serving man slept. It was a queer place, and filled with an extraordinary collection of odds and ends; the skins of birds, otters, and wolves; weapons of different makes, notably a very large two-handed sword, plain and old-fashioned, but of excellent steel; bits of harness and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... you must bring it forward a little again. Never till now, in the history of an Earth which to this hour nowhere refuses to grow corn if you will plough it, to yield shirts if you will spin and weave in it, did the mere manual two-handed worker (however it might fare with other workers) cry in vain for such 'wages' as he means by 'fair wages,' namely food and warmth! The Godlike could not and cannot be paid; but the Earthly always could. Gurth, a mere swineherd, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, tended pigs in the wood, and did ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and Knox at this time does not shrink from dating his notarial act as in such a year 'of the pontificate of our most holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Paul, Pope by the Providence of God.' Only three years later, in 1546, he was carrying a two-handed sword before Wishart, then in danger of arrest and condemnation to the stake at the hands of the same Archbishop Beaton under whom Knox held his orders. And in the following year, 1547, Knox is standing in the ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... order, command, send orders; to send; — comparecer, to summon (to appear) mandoble, m., two-handed sword, broadsword. ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... is tessellated or somehow inlaid with marble. There was statuary in marble on the floor, and in niches stood several figures in antique armor, of various dates; some with lances, and others with battle-axes and swords. There was a two-handed sword, as much as six feet long; but not nearly so ponderous as I have supposed this kind of weapon to be, from reading of it. I could easily have ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and flattering title the Pope also sent the King a costly two-handed sword, intended to represent Henry's zeal in smiting the enemies of Rome. But it was destined by fate to become to tsymbol of the King's final separation from the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... his foe, Wrenches back. I can hear the dull rasping, The steel through the bone grating low! And the raven rocks! Thurston has landed Two strokes, well directed and hard, On the standard pole, wielding, two-handed, A blade crimson'd up to the guard. Like the mast cut in two by the lightning, The black banner topples and falls! Bewildering! back-scattering! affright'ning! It clears a wide ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... any attention to the sighs which exhaled from my bosom while scouring the rust from my long, two-handed sword, my uncle, magnifying glass in hand, was engaged in the examination of a lot of medals which he had purchased that morning. Suddenly he raised his ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... fantastic, flatly palmated or leaflike structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short, polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife. And his head, instead of being short, broad, ponderous, and shaggy, like Last Bull's, was long, close-haired, and massively horse-faced, with a projecting upper lip heavy ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... to hope for many years to come that human beings generally will be as well cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago remarked that the four-footed worker has already got all that this two-handed one is clamouring for: "There are not many horses in England, able and willing to work, which have not due food and lodging and go about sleek coated, satisfied in heart." You say it is impossible; but, said Carlyle, "The human brain, looking at ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... English. Where the weapons on either side are unlike, battles are decided by the momentum—that is to say, by the combined weight and speed of the weapons employed. The English fought on foot mostly with two-handed axes; the Normans fought not only on horseback with lances, but also with infantry, some of them being archers. A horse, the principal weapon of a horseman, has more momentum than an armed footman, whilst an arrow can reach the object ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... but Ralph, who was wary, though he were young, and had Falcon well in hand, turned his wrist and made the horse swerve, so that the man-at-arms missed his attaint, but could not draw rein speedily enough to stay his horse; and as he passed by all bowed over his horse's neck, Ralph gat his sword two-handed and rose in his stirrups and smote his mightiest; and the sword caught the foeman on the neck betwixt sallet and jack, and nought held before it, neither leather nor ring-mail, so that the man's head was nigh smitten off, and he ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... up a great two-handed sword, "I am ready. Let me but meet him — let me but face him for a moment, and I will slay him ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... send you mine: when I have kissed you I will go on. My eyes have been seeing so much that is new, I shall want a fresh vocabulary for it all. But mainly I want to say, let us be here again together quickly, before we lose any more of our youth or our two-handed hold on life. I get short of breath ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... sometimes learning to drive, sometimes just tearing through the air, en route to some mine or other which she wanted to see, they might be found in the "Falcon" lounge, playing bridge with another couple or just sitting alone, talking of London lamp-posts. Sometimes they played two-handed poker, for Marice not only sympathized but shared with Druro his passion for cards. Perhaps this drew their hearts as well as their heads together. At any rate, to lookers-on they seemed absorbed ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... recognise, in Scott, the absence of lightness of touch, of delicacy in the small sword-play of conversation. In fencing, all should be done, the masters tell us, with the fingers. Scott works not even with the wrist, but with the whole arm. The two-handed sword, the old claymore, are his weapons, not the rapier. This was plain enough in the word-combats of Queen Mary and her lady gaoler in Loch Leven. Much more conspicuous is the "swashing blow" in the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Secure used to say that the blind and lame in Mansoul were able to keep the gates of the town against Emmanuel's army (2 Sam 5:6). This Captain Secure did Captain Conviction cleave down the head with a two-handed sword, when he received himself three wounds in his mouth. Besides these, there was one Captain Bragman, a very desperate fellow, and he was captain over a band of those that threw fire-brands, arrows, and death; he also received, by the hand of Captain ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... prepared. The sergeants and capitas distribute the rations among the soldiers and paddlers, and at an order of the Chief, the whole crowd disappears into the huts. Then we eat our dinner, consisting of the usual chicken and eggs, have a game of two-handed bridge and turn in. ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Spanish warriors, with whom Don Juan had manned his vessel, hesitated. Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the tall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... possessed by each atom. The atom of hydrogen has only one hand, and the same is true of potassium. Each atom of oxygen has two hands; so that one oxygen atom can hold two hydrogen atoms in the chemical compound called water (H-O-H or H20). Other elements having two-handed atoms are magnesium and calcium. Strange to say, the sulfur atom has six hands but sometimes uses only two, the others seemingly being clasped together in pairs. I will write it ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... it was a training in itself. For the rest, he punched the swinging ball and worked with the dumb-bells for an hour every morning and evening, and boxed twice a day with Ted Barton in the gymnasium, gaining as much profit as could be got from a rushing, two-handed slogger. Barton was full of admiration for his cleverness and quickness, but doubtful about his strength. Hard hitting was the feature of his own style, and he exacted ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accoutred for battle, with a chamfron or plaited head-piece upon his head, having a short spike projecting from the front. On one side of the saddle hung a short battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene carving; on the other the rider's plumed head-piece and hood of mail, with a long two-handed sword, used by the chivalry of the period. A second squire held aloft his master's lance, from the extremity of which fluttered a small banderole, or streamer, bearing a cross of the same form with ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... to check the number stamped on the short one's scratched chestplate. Alec Diger had been his only close friend during those thirteen boring years at Orange Sea Camp. A good chess player and a whiz at Two-handed Handball, they had spent all their off time together. They shook hands, with the extra squeeze that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... decides gay and reckless that we'll breakfast and lunch in and take our dinners out. That listened well and seemed easy enough—until Vee got to huntin' up a two-handed, light-footed female party who could boil eggs without scorchin' the shells, dish up such things as canned salmon with cream sauce, and put a few potatoes through the French fry process, doublin' ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to greater efforts, not of mere bravado, but of daring skill. Perhaps the most wonderful regular feat of all was 'spading,' which meant slewing the boat close in, as the whale was about to sound, and cutting the tendons of its tremendous death-dealing tail by a slicing blow from the two-handed razor-edged 'spade.' Perhaps the most wonderful of all exceptional escapes was that of a boat which was towed by one whale right over the back of another. And perhaps the most exciting finish to any international race was the one in ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... be," cried Bersi; and took up his other sword, Whitting, two-handed, and smote Thorkel his deathblow. ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... the two-handed alphabet, I think it is much easier for those who have sight than the manual alphabet; for most of the letters look like the large capitals in books; but I think when it comes to teaching a deaf-blind person to spell, the manual alphabet ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... lightnings. Wherever the eye turned it was met by a blaze of broken rainbows. They were there by hundreds, and every gem was a fortune—whole cases of swords with hilts and scabbards of solid gold studded with gems, the great two-handed coronation sword of the German emperors, daggers covered with brilliants and rubies, diamond buttons, chains, and orders, necklaces and bracelets of pearl and emerald, and the order of the Golden Fleece made in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... hearthstone in front of it, where the live coals tumble down, and a pair of gigantic brass andirons. The brasses are burnished, and shine cheerfully in the firelight, and on either side stand tall shovel and tongs, like sentries, mounted in brass. The tongs, like the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be wielded by puny people. We burn in it hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this aromatic forest timber, and its clear flame. The birch is also a sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritual flame and an even temper,—no snappishness. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... promptly, "that's all I ask of you. If you think I'm wrong you're welcome to vote against me; but believe me, this is no Sunday-school job. There's a big fight coming on, I can feel it in my bones, and the best two-handed scrapper wins. Old W. H. Stoddard, when he had me in jail and was hoping I was going to be sent up, he tried to buy me out of this mine. He started at nothing and went up to twenty million, so you can ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... State of California is a bank—a new bank. The more depositors we have, the stronger we shall be—provided our depositors have faith in us. We have their good will now. We need solid, two-handed men who can take hold and prove that investment in our State ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... pass the long hours of convalescence, is by playing games with your patient. I am sure no training school for nurses has added the study of cribbage, pinochle, bezique, chess, checkers, backgammon, or dominos to its curriculum. All these are two-handed games, the playing of which will help the convalescent to forget himself and his past illness and present weakness. The nurse, if she knows only one game that is unfamiliar to the patient, gives him new thoughts while she ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... our house, a little farther up the mountain, he has discovered a fencing-gallery: that till nightfall he had been engaged in a fencing-bout against Japanese, who fought with two-handed swords, springing like cats, as is the custom of their country. With his French method of fencing, he had given them a good drubbing. Upon which, with many a low bow, they had shown him their admiration by bringing him a quantity of nice little iced things to drink. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Draw- or Two-handed Bridge.—This is the best form of bridge for two players. Each player has a dummy, which is placed opposite to him; but the cards are so arranged that they cannot be seen by his opponent, a special stand being required for the purpose. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... say that life is short, and to call for watchfulness and prayer. The fireplace of the hall yawned like a great cavern, and nothing else, one would think, than a cart load of western sycamores could have supplied an appropriate fire. A great two-handed sword of some ancestor hung over the fireplace. On taking it down it reached to C——'s shoulder, who, you ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... of a couple of thousand shares, the proceeds of which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a material surplus. Under these circumstances, a two-handed banquet was proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end. So many stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway directors, that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was scrupulously defrayed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... new one, and pow-wowing around, I told him good-by and said to him, 'Bob, old man, when I hit Dodge, I'll take a drink and think of you back here on the trail, and regret that you are not with me, so as to make it two-handed.' We said our 'so-longs' to each other, and I gave the gray his head and he took the water like a duck. He could outswim any horse I ever saw, but I drowned him in the Washita two weeks later. Yes, tangled his feet in some vines in a sunken treetop, and the poor fellow's light went out. My ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... old mediaeval knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield— The sword two-handed and the shining shield Suspended in the hall and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white; So I behold these books ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... two-handed sword; I don't want him to be slain. Take a couple of swords from the wall. Give him another steel cap, and full body armour. That of his own would not keep out ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... fool a proud man. "Lord Scroope shall hear of this, Johnie," he said to himself, with a chuckle of delight, as he dismounted, and stripped the unconscious man of his coat-of-mail, his steel helmet, and his two-handed sword. He knew that if he went home empty-handed, and told his master that he had fought with Johnie Armstrong and defeated him, Lord Scroope would laugh him to scorn, for Johnie was known to be one of the best fighters ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... in A.; and there is, formally, an illicit process of the minor; though the conclusion is true; and the evidence, such as it is, is materially adequate. ('Two-handed,' being a peculiar differentia, is nugatory as a middle term, and may be cut out of both premises; whilst 'cooking' is a proprium peculiar to the species Man; so that these terms might be related in U., All men are all cookers; ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... first championship between England and Ireland was played in 1904. Badminton may be played by daylight or by artificial light, either with two players on each side (the four-handed or double game) or with one player on each side (the two-handed or single game). The game consists entirely of volleying and is extremely fast, a single at Badminton being admitted to require more staying power than a single at lawn tennis. There is much scope for judgment and skill, e.g. in "dropping" (hitting the shuttle ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... blade undulating like flame. Look at those grooves contrived for the blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to tear out the entrails in withdrawing the weapon. It is a fine character of ferocious arm, and will look well in your collection. This two-handed sword is very beautiful. It is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this colichemarde, with its fenestrated guard—what a superb specimen ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... question was noteworthy. It was a single-handed weapon of iron, made in Egypt, to suit the size and strength of its owner, and was large enough to have served as a two-handed sword for ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... "yarning." At first the conversation ran in ordinary channels, such as short reminiscences of old world rascality, perils in the Bush. Till at length a topic arose which seemed to have a paramount interest for all. This was the prowess of a certain Two-handed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and I were upon him, but though we lifted him clear off the ground we could not loosen that two-handed strangling grip. At we were struggling there a light hand touched my shoulder. ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... inhabitant of the apartment was a noble-looking boy of about fifteen, far less steadily employed than his companions, for at one time he was poising a heavy lance, and throwing himself into the various attitudes of a finished warrior; at others, brandished a two-handed sword, somewhat taller than himself; then glancing over the shoulder of his sister—for so nearly was he connected with the maiden, though the raven curls, the bright flashing eye of jet, and darker skin, appeared to ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Covered with shield and sword, one, leaping, sped Now here now there, and thus himself defended, Lest a two-handed mace upon his head Should fall, with which the giant still offended: — On the field lay his horse, already dead. Rogero paused, and to the strife attended: And straight his wishes leant towards the knight, Whom he would fain see conqueror ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... greeting to many an old acquaintance as they shouldered through it, Wulf and he, straight for the heart of the throng; Ulf still carrying in one hand his unbent sea-bow, and Wulf, the long, straight, two-handed sword of his father, as well as his own keen axe —of ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... of oppression and unrighteousness," said the tallest and most powerful of the angels. His voice was deep and strong, and by his shining armour and the long two-handed sword hanging over his shoulder I knew that he was the archangel Michael, the mightiest one among the warriors of the King, and the executor of the divine judgments upon the unjust. "The Earth is tormented with injustice," he cried, "and the great misery that I have seen among men ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... frescoes, dealing with the legend of S. John, show a remarkable advance; and they are luckily in better preservation. A soldier lifting his two-handed sword to strike off the Baptist's head is a vigorous figure, full of Florentine realism. Also in the Baptism in Jordan we are reminded of Masaccio by an excellent group of bathers—one man taking off ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... not the skeleton with the dart, or the phantom with the shrouded face, but a tall, beautiful young man,—as beautiful as they could get into the cast, at any rate,—clothed in simple black, and standing with his back against the mantlepiece, with his hands resting on the hilt of a long, two-handed sword. He is so quiet that you do not see him until some time after the child has seen him. When she begins to question him whether she may not somehow get to heaven without dying, he answers with a sort of sorrowful tenderness, a very sweet ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... champion of Berne had hanging along his back one of those huge two-handed swords, the blade of which measured five feet, and which were wielded with both hands. These were almost universally used by the Swiss; for, besides the impression which such weapons were calculated to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... dipped pannikin in and taken a mouthful, which set him coughing and choking, with the tears running down his cheeks. Further on he met a sturdy black-bearded man, mounted on a brown horse, with a rosary in his right hand and a long two-handed sword jangling against his stirrup-iron. By his black robe and the eight-pointed cross upon his sleeve, Alleyne recognized him as one of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose presbytery ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of their horses for turning right or left. Ladies and gentlemen have no swords to carry, and neither possess, nor can desire to possess, such machines as troop-horses. Besides other more important advantages which will presently be described by commencing with two-handed riding, a lady is more likely to continue to sit squarely, than when holding the reins with one hand, and pretending to guide a horse who really guides himself. A man has the power of turning a horse, to a certain extent, with his legs and spurs; a woman must depend on her reins, whip, and ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... of all I have seen in Italy. Their clumsiness and stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two having been spent in getting as much as would make one good kitchen-fire, is enough to try the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century, on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances, and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements for casting missiles; some of them were climbing ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... like some kings, in hobby grooms, Knights of the manger, curry-combs, and brooms, Lost to all glory, Charles did not delight— Nor joked by day with pages, servant-maids, Large, red-polled, blowzy, hard two-handed jades: Indeed I know not what Charles did ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the grin of perfect hate on Palura's face as both his hands came up with automatics in them—a two-handed gunman with his prey. ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... what the grim wolf, with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows. "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an old two-handed sword." ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... or Unger. Out of the wild North Sea he has come. Record observes him, one of a small, fierce group, standing on the sands of desolate Northumbria, staring landward, his worldly wealth upon his back. This consists of a two-handed battle-axe, value perhaps some forty stycas in the currency of the time. A careful man, with business capabilities, may, however, manipulate a small capital to great advantage. In what would appear, to those accustomed to our slow modern methods, an incredibly short space of time, Inge's ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... spake, and breathed great strength into his heart. And having prayed, he cast his spear, and smote Eupeithes through the helmet, so that he fell dead upon the ground. Then Ulysses and his son fell upon the men of Ithaca with swords and two-handed spears. Verily, they had slain them all, but that Athene cried aloud, saying: "Cease, men of Ithaca, from the battle, for it ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... the ground making final spasmatic muscular movements in his death throes, and not more than three feet from him, coolly, David Moroka sat, bracing his elbows on his knees and aiming, two-handed, as his gun ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... prepare the King for that officer's reception. Taking with him four troopers of the body-guard, he was galloping along the main road, when, shortly after crossing the river, he was suddenly attacked by an Affghan, who, rushing from behind a wall, made a desperate cut at him with a large two-handed knife. He dexterously avoided the blow by spurring his horse on one side; but, passing onwards, he was fired upon by about fifty men, who, having seen his approach, ran out from the Lahore gate of the city to intercept him. He reached ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... are that way," asserted the Emperor. "To be left-handed is usually to be two-handed; the right-handed people are ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum |
