"Twopenny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tenderness. His pathos sometimes melts into a mawkish sensibility, or crystallizes into all the prettinesses of allegorical language, and glittering hardness of external imagery. But he has wit at will, and of the first quality. His satirical and burlesque poetry is his best: it is first-rate. His Twopenny Post-Bag is a perfect "nest of spicery"; where the Cayenne is not spared. The politician there sharpens the poet's pen. In this too, our bard resembles the bee—he has ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... bound to end in a blow-up. These imitation Scotch niggers in their plaid sarongs, as they call them, will be getting up a big quarrel with my men with their bounce and contempt for my well-drilled, smart detachment. Here's every common, twopenny-halfpenny Malay looking down upon my fellows, while there isn't one among my lads who isn't a better man than their Rajah. There will be a row some ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... Twopenny Eggs" is the headline of a morning paper. A good plan is to grip them firmly round the neck and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... of the previous year continued, owing partly to a commercial panic brought on by overspeculation in railways, and partly to a repeated failure of the crops. To relieve the potato famine in Ireland, Parliament voted L10,000,000 for that country. In the midst of this general distress the twopenny omnibuses made their first appearance in London, and the first issue of the "Daily News" appeared in the metropolis. Leigh Hunt brought out his stories from the Italian poets. Sir Aubrey De Vere, the Irish poet, died in his thirty-ninth year. A few years before his death he had published his "Song ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... ware, two huge cases of common and much damaged wax dolls, barrels of rotted dried apples, and decayed pork, an ice-making plant, bales and bales of second-hand clothing—men's, women's and children's—cheap and poisonous sweets in jars, thousands of twopenny looking-glasses, penny whistles, accordions that wouldn't accord, as the cockroaches had eaten them up except the wood and metal work, school slates and pencils, and a box of Bibles and Moody and Sankey hymn-books. And the smell was something awful! ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... from morning till night about twopenny matters, if any of which is forgotten I am complained of as a man who minds not his business. I pray heaven for a lazy and lucrative office, and then I shall with alacrity turn my ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... And the kingdom of heaven is of the child-like, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure. Mighty men of their hands, the smiters and the builders and the judges, have lived long and done sternly and yet preserved this lovely character; and among our carpet interests and twopenny concerns, the shame were indelible if WE should lose it. Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties. And it is the trouble with moral men that they have neither one nor other. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... building intended for use as a Concert Hall, &c., will soon be opened in Snow Hill, to be conducted on temperance principles.—A series of popular Monday evening concerts was commenced in the Town Hall, Nov. 12, 1844, and was continued for nearly two years.—Twopenny weekly "Concerts for the People" were started at the Music Hall, Broad Street (now Prince of Wales' Theatre), March 25, 1847, but they did not take well.—Threepenny Saturday evening concerts in Town Hall, were ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the price of the paper to twopence— Twopenny Trash* was the title of the leading article—in order to give the League an opportunity of extending the paper's radius of action as an organ of the League's principles. . . . "Every reader who has been buying one copy at sixpence, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The 'History of Susanna' had been an established puppet play for more than two generations. An old copy of verses on Bartholomew Fair in the year 1665, describing the penny and twopenny puppet plays, or, as they had been called in and since Queen ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... It was a twopenny-ha'penny shop, and no doubt about it; a two-storied day-before-yesterday lodging-house, with a bow window like a Metallurgique bonnet and a door about as big as the top of ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... Beaumont, I won't stand it," exploded the large old gentleman. "I won't be made game of by a twopenny literary adventurer like that. I won't be made a ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... prints, pictures, pipes, china (all cracked), Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed; A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see; What matter? 'tis pleasant to you, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... he should be alone together. The incidental diatribe was no mere padding, either; it was the sincere utterance of a passionately provincial soul. Nobody in all London, he declared, and apparently without excepting Mr. Thrush, cared a twopenny curse what became of his poor boy. In view of the fact that the present company alone knew of his disappearance, and not so very many more of the boy's existence, this was an extravagantly sweeping statement. But the distracted man had a particular instance to bear him out; he had been to see his ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... see, and I know she's like enough to win the cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either, though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year, owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the boy that rode him pulled his head half off—I saw him do it—and then he won the Chester, and brought his ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... an alteration in the rates of the existing duties." In moving this resolution the chancellor of the exchequer said that he proposed a penny rate, because he had been convinced by the arguments and evidence of the committee that the latter expedient would involve less loss to the revenue than a twopenny postage, which had been recommended by the committee. After some observations from Mr. Goulburn and Sir Kobert Peel, both of whom intimated further hostility to such a change, the resolution was agreed to without a division. On the 12th of July, when the order of the day ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of about ten, and began, in great glee, to describe to us the glorious things that were performed by those "dear little monkeys and dogs." He was quite eloquent in his delight; and, "Oh!" said he, "if I had but another sechser (twopenny-piece), wouldn't I see it again!" "There is another sechser, then!" said I, and put one into his fat little hand. What an astonished, bright face looked up into mine; and he seized my hand in both his, and shook it almost off. And away he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... an agreement, like the simple young men who combine to maintain a twopenny baggage, she ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... mere literary smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do and to do well was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything done well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and inspired him. I remember him with a twopenny Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly fitted that, when one was driven home, the others started from their places; the whole spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; that plain piece of carpentry was as much inspired by the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enviable gusto. In those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit and in fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, and admired, respected, and feared him in his private capacity, and paid him ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... have a funeral procession as long as you like, at the rate of about forty shillings a foot. But you'll never touch the great heart of the enlightened public of these boroughs in any other way. Do you imagine anyone cared a twopenny damn for Perkins's ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... . . To regale the poor, a bullock, two sheep (each weighing a hundred pounds), eight hundred twopenny loaves, with a great quantity of beer and porter, the gift of Sir Felix Felix-Williams, were distributed in the Market House and Town Hall by the Mayor (Dr. Hansombody) and gentlemen. Every individual appeared happy: indeed it was highly ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Gazette," and was author of a sea song once popular, "The King is a true British Sailor." He was an irreclaimable drunkard, thought only of the necessities of the hour, and slept in the fields when his finances would not admit of payment of a twopenny lodging in St. Giles's. His largest work was "Johnny Newcome in the Navy," for which the publisher gave him the generous remuneration of a shilling a day till he finished it. He died in St. Giles's workhouse ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... goods. So also at Tours (St. Julien). One of the most interesting and superb pieces of middle-age domestic architecture in Europe, opposite the west front of the cathedral, is occupied as a cafe, and its lower story concealed by painted wainscotings; representing, if I recollect right, twopenny rolls surrounded by circles of ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... forgiven beneath his twopenny-halfpenny tombstone, and Thompson, reflecting that not only was his own monument designed (with a canopy of Carrara marble), but the cost of it invested in the three per cents., walked contentedly back to the station, repeating on his way with ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... free trade thoroughly established: the future was tinged with a golden hue. Ivory would be almost inexhaustible, as it would flow from both east and west to the market where such luxuries as twopenny mirrors, fourpenny knives, handkerchiefs, ear-rings at a penny a pair, finger signet-rings at a shilling a dozen, could be obtained for such comparatively useless ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... sank a shaft, sixty feet deep, rigged up a corrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, and lowered his men one at a time down the shaft, in a big bucket. The whole affair was ricketty, amateurish, and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow was forgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place as Throttle-Ha'penny. "What!" said a collier to his wife: "have we got no coal? You'd better get a bit from Throttle-Ha'penny." "Nay," replied the wife, "I'm sure I shan't. I'm sure I shan't ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the deuce couldn't he have kept his twopenny thunderbolt in his pocket for a few hours, instead of launching it to-night and spoiling our sole a la Morny ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... about it; and if you want a horse to ride, we'll see if we can't find you a horse to ride. I dare say you think your old father a terrible martinet, but it's all for your good, you know. You must say to yourself when you feel dissatisfied about some little twopenny-halfpenny disappointment that he ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... told. Tent, watch. Tere, muscle. Thae, those. Thieveless, useless. Thilk, that same. Thir, these. Thole, endure. Thrang, throng, thronging, busy. Thrave, twenty-four sheaves. Thraw, twist. Thrawart, perverse. Tint, lost. Tippeny, twopenny (ale). Tither, the other. Tittlin', whispering. Tochelod, dowered? dipped? Tod, fox. Tout, toot, blast. Tow, rope. Townmond, twelvemonth. Towsie, shaggy. Toy, cap. Transmugrify'd, changed, metamorphosed. Tryste, appointment, fair. Twa, tway, two. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... (Moving to the centre of the room) 'E's all right. Takes 'is fun where 'e finds it. And leaves it.... Cracks 'imself up, you know. Pretends 'e doesn't care a twopenny, but always got 'is eye on what you're thinking of 'im ... if you ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... the bright colours and pleasant flavour of the appetible fruit. We take up the newspaper. What heads the column? Half a score advertisements of the "Mysteries of Paris"—a new edition of the "Wandering Jew," "illustrated by the first artists"—"Memoirs of a Physician," in twopenny numbers and shilling volumes; French novels, in short, at all prices and in every form. We step into the club; the produce of Paris and Brussels presses strews the table, and an elderly gentleman, with a solemn face and quakerish coat, searches amongst them for the nine-and-twentieth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... lord, his uncle, who a short time before would not speak to him, as Tom passed under my lord's coach window, his lordship going in state to his place at Court, while his nephew slunk by with his battered hat and feather, and the point of his rapier sticking out of the scabbard—to his twopenny ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... on modern politics? Is it science—when did it show you order in apparent disorder, and help you to put two and two together into an inseparable four? Is it ethics— when did it influence your conduct in a twopenny-halfpenny affair between man and man? Is it a novel—when did it help you to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it poetry—when was it a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or a fire to warm your ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... several years' experience in best London Society, is anxious to meet with bold and speculative Manager who will offer him a first engagement. Can sing—omitting a few high notes—various popular melodies, comprising, "Aunt Sarah's Back-hair," "The Twopenny Toff of 'Ighgate 'Ill," and "Tommy Robinson's Last Cigar," and also play piano if required, with one finger, but prefers to be accompanied by indefatigable friend, who plays entirely by ear, and if allowed to smoke freely, can "pick up" any tune in a quarter of an hour. Seldom breaks down or forgets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... circumstances are as they always are at this time of year. Yesterday a poor man stole a loaf from the counter and ran off with it; now he'll be branded all his life. 'My God, that he should want to make himself a thief for so little!' said the master's wife—it was a twopenny-ha'penny roll. It's not easy to grasp—branded for his whole life for ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... medium, deem their house the best in the world, their gun the truest, their very pointer a miracle—as Colonel Hanger suggested to economists to do; namely, provide their servants each with a pair of large spectacles, so that a lark might appear as big as a fowl, and a twopenny loaf ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "You really think I care a twopenny damn what anybody thinks about you or anyone else under the sun? I say, don't be an ass, Green, whatever else you are! It's too tiring for all concerned. If you really want ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Louis were in a body at the sally-port, with the French saint at their head, crying to speak a word under favor. A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which can be bought with sugar hogsheads! and then your twopenny marquisates. The thistle is the order for dignity and antiquity; the veritable 'nemo me impune lacessit' of chivalry. Ye had ancestors in that degree, Duncan, and they were an ornament to the nobles ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... out on a fine morning, Salemina and I, and travel twenty miles in the day, though we have to double our twopenny fee several times ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... k was we never shall know, for Angelica, in a rage, cried, 'Get out, you saucy, rude creature! How dare you to remind me of your rudeness? As for your little trumpery twopenny ring, there, sir, there!' And she flung it ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... half a dozen together, pretty much with the same tone and emphasis as though he had said a twopenny postman; "the devil ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... more than is necessary.' And then he glanced at Henry. 'Look here, my bold buccaneer, you've got nothing to do just now, have you? You can stroll along with me a bit, and we'll see if we can buy you a twopenny ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... "That's right, my twopenny," a name he used confidentially to her. "A little faint; the room is rather close," and he opened the window a trifle at the top, returning to his seat, and ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... a failure also. Mr. Snodgrass was affected, but he undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a twopenny postman. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... into the bottle, together with a silver twopenny piece of 1772. Having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, he placed it, the next morning in a pile of stones, erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north shore of the harbour, and near to the place where it was ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... back of the stage were two doors for the players, and between them hung a painted cloth or arras behind which the prompter stood. Over these doors were two plastered rooms, twopenny private boxes for gentlefolk. In one of them were three young men and a beautiful girl, wonderfully dressed. The men were speaking to her, but she looked down at Nick instead. "What a pretty boy!" she said, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... roared the gallant soldier, becoming a rich purple. "I know my duty, thank God! and I'm going to do it. When a man insults my daughter, it's my duty, as a gentleman and an officer, to give him a jolly good thrashing. When that twopenny sawbones of a doctor was rude to you, I licked him within an inch of his life. I kicked him till he begged for mercy; and if more men had the courage to take the law into their own hands, there'd be fewer damned blackguards ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... children, living in the midst of sticks, stones, ditches, mud, and game, and concentrated upon the 'guinea buttons,' 'black-haired Susans,' 'red cloaks,' 'scarlet hoods,' the cunning craft of the old men, the fortune-telling of the old women, the 'sparkling eyes' and 'clapping of hands,' and 'twopenny hops' of the young women, who certainly can take care of themselves, just as other un-Christianised and uncivilised human beings can. I do not profess—at any rate, not for the present—to take up the cause of the men and women ditch-dwelling Gipsies ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... considerably before two, quite in the style of Mr. Knight. Nice smiling Mr. Barlowe met us at the door and, in reply to enquiries after news, said that peace was generally expected. I have taken possession of my bedroom, unpacked my bandbox, sent Miss P.'s two letters to the twopenny post, been visited by M^{de} Bigeon and am now writing by myself at the new table in the front room. It is snowing. We had some snowstorms[282] yesterday, and a smart frost at night, which gave ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... pass—for the present. We propose to deal with an earlier effort of Sir G. G. Stokes. Nearly two years ago he delivered a lecture at the Finsbury Polytechnic on the Immortality of the Soul. It was reported in the Family Churchman, and reprinted after revision as a twopenny pamphlet, with the first title of "I." This is the only pointed thing about it. The lecture is about "I," or, as Sir G. G. Stokes, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... Cause were at their lowest ebb. Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-room concerts and can recognise bits from different composers without referring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has ideas. He didn't care a twopenny fiddlestring about the Cause, but he rather enjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it is possible, though I should think highly improbable, that he admired Lena Dubarri. Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... queer ideas," thought Queen Selina, as the chariot rapidly receded from sight. "As if that twopenny-halfpenny pendant of Miss Heritage's could—but the Court Godmother will be annoyed if I don't follow her advice—and it's best not to offend the old creature. I'll go up and see if it's ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... take her "twopenny mulready envelope" to a shop where stamps are sold for collections. This is the only plan, if not disposed of to a private collector. We do not think she will make ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... accommodated in the stable, agreed to pass the time, until the weather should clear up, over a bowl of rumbo, which was accordingly prepared. But the fourth, refusing to join their company, took his station at the opposite side of the chimney, and called for a pint of twopenny, with which he indulged himself apart. At a little distance, on his left hand, there was another group, consisting of the landlady, a decent widow, her two daughters, the elder of whom seemed to be about the age of fifteen, and a country lad, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... another, of greater literary value, The Violet, in the same year. In 1831 we have an unfinished poem, The Trumpet Hath Sounded; and in 1832 a very long poem called The Bridal. Some of them, as for example a poem called Richard Coeur de Lion and Blondel, are written in penny and twopenny notebooks of the kind used by laundresses. Occasionally her father has purchased a sixpenny book and has ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter |
