"Whizz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the bit in its teeth, and, as if determining to get rid of me somehow, steered a bee-line for a Chinese-lantern post at a distance of thirty yards. I plunged my hand down, determined to defeat its malicious design, and instantly the little vehicle began to whizz round and round like a fire-work at the Crystal Palace. This was the beginning of the end; the next moment something 'took me in the waistcoat,' and I found myself waltzing in a sitting posture on the ice, my partner being the lamp-post, the lantern attached ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... his fears to heaven. Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy, That he spurn'd the royal feast, And keen'd all night to the grievous owl, And the howling mastiff beast. Loud on that night was the thunder crash, Sad was the voice of the wind, Swift was the glare of the lightning flash, And the whizz it left behind. At morn when the pious brothers came To give the body to ground, The skull, the feet, and palms of her hands Were all that they ever found. Then the holy monks with ominous shake Of the head, looked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... and danced, and called aloud on all her protectors, from the Squire to Miles. No one coming, she restrained her tears, and by a real effort of that "pluck" for which the Ammaby race is famous began to run along the wall to find a lower point for climbing. In doing so, she startled a squirrel, and whizz!—away he went up a lanky tree. What a tail he had! Amabel forgot her terrors. There was at any rate some living thing in the wood besides Bogy; and she was now busy trying to coax the squirrel down again by such encouraging noises as she had found ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... unexpected volley of minnie balls was fired into our ranks, killing this captain of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment and killing and wounding seven or eight of the Georgia militia. I hallooed to lay down, as soon as possible, and a perfect whizz of minnie balls passed over, when I immediately gave the command of attention, forward, charge and capture that squad. That Georgia militia, every man of them, charged forward, and in a few moments we ran into a small squad of Yankees, and captured the ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... above was not promising and blue, nor did the wind have a merry whizz; but it laughed like a maniac, and shrieked and threatened them, warning them to go back home or take ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... throwing up his cap and capering. "It is done! It is done! Under the very nose of the cracksman, too! Merode's got them—got them both! The little lordship and the Mademoiselle Lorne, too! They took the bait like gudgeons; they stepped into the automobile without a fear, and—whizz! it was off to the mill like that! La, la, la! We win, we ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... thus describes his experience which is typical of many another: There had been a charge, a hopeless affair from the start. He lay in the long grass between the lines, unable to move, and with an unceasing throbbing pain in his left leg and arm. A whizz-bang had caught him in both places. He just lay there, feeling strangely peaceful. Above him he could see the stars. All this bloodshed—what was the good of it? He suddenly felt terribly small and lonely, and he was so very, very weak. "God!" he whispered softly. "God everywhere!" ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... Englishmen, who always dreamt of it. By doing this they would have further and completely wrought up the Mohammedans by making more difficult the journey to Mecca. Best of all, we thought, 'We'll simply step into the express train and whizz nicely away to the North Sea.' Certainly there would be safe journeying homeward through Arabia. To be sure, we had maps of the Red Sea; but it was the shortest way to the foe whether in Aden or ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... again, and presently came out on the main highway. As he did this he saw the flash of some lamps in the distance. He crouched down behind some bushes, and a minute later saw the automobile whizz by, with ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... shell goin' in, if one's not bombed from the sky or mined from under the ground, if a sniper doesn't snipe 'arf yer 'ead off, or gas doesn't send you to 'eaven, or flies send you to the 'orspital with disease, or rifle grenades, pipsqueaks, and whizz-bangs don't blow your brains out when you lie in the bottom of the trench with yer nose to the ground like a rat in a trap. If it wasn't for these things, and a few more, the trench wouldn't be ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' The old experience of the leather sling and the five stones out of the brook, in the hand of the stripling, that made short work of the brazen armour of the giant, and penetrated with a whizz into his thick skull, and laid him prostrate, was to be repeated. 'He called his servants, and gave them'—a pound apiece! If you and I, Christian men and women, were true to the Master's legacy, and believed that we have in it more wealth than the treasures ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... with here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a volley. Whizz! Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds. Rattle! New Cross Station. Shock! There we were ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... talk of battle's din, of whizz-bangs and of crumps, Of bombs and gas and hand-grenades, of mines and blazing dumps; If you would wake their sympathy and warm their hearts indeed Describe a Squadron watering, and then the fuss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... at about nine or ten in the morning, dart up to my table, shoot down under the desk, go bang on to the coloured glass window-pane, and then with a circuit or two round my head are off again with a whizz. ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... fatal meeting to thy troops and thee, But thou wast deaf to the divine decree; Young David meets thee, meets thee not in vain; 'Tis thine to perish on th' ensanguin'd plain. And now the youth the forceful pebble slung Philistia trembled as it whizz'd along: In his dread forehead, where the helmet ends, Just o'er the brows the well-aim'd stone descends, It pierc'd the skull, and shatter'd all the brain, Prone on his face he tumbled to the plain: Goliath's fall no smaller terror yields Than riving thunders in aerial fields: The soul ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... on the grass, and having a hot time. Crack, crack! Whizz, whizz! When I saw them downed, I got up, though they yelled at me, 'Get down!' Couldn't leave 'em like that. Nothing to make a song about, seeing I couldn't ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... shook hands—but no; When each opines himself, though frighten'd, right, Each is, in courtesy, oblig'd to fight! And they did fight: from six full measured paces The unbeliever pulled his trigger first; And fearing, from the braggart's ugly faces, The whizzing lead had whizz'd its very worst, Ran up, and with a duelistic fear (His ire evanishing like morning vapors), Found him possess'd of one remaining ear, Who in a manner sudden and uncouth, Had given, not lent, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... in upon them, and, with a groan, Gaston seized her bridle and urged the horses back in the direction from which they had come. The noise was deafening, the raucous shouting of the Arabs and the continuous sharp crack of the rifles. Bullets began to whizz past her. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... his pistol at once and fired. Guentz heard the bullet whizz past on his left. He had directed his barrel a little to the side of his opponent's shoulder, and pressed the trigger. The shot missed fire. He had forgotten ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... feet over our heads, but was it from our guns shelling the hills in front, or from the enemy? In another minute the question was answered by another shell. It was our old friend the gun to the westward, who, irritated by the noisy Maxims, had resolved to put his foot down. Whizz! Bang! came a third shot, exploding among the branches just behind the Colt gun, to the great delight of Mr. Hill, who secured a large fragment which I have advised him to lay on the table in the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... your own!" said West defiantly, and then to his bitter annoyance he started on one side, for there was a flash, simultaneously a whizz close to his face, and instantly the sharp report ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... boy; whizz went the steam, and all the young ladies, as in duty bound, screamed in concert. They were only appeased by the assurance of the martial Helves, that the escape of steam consequent on stopping a vessel was seldom attended with any great loss ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... not expecting to see this mountain greenhorn down here, were you?" she laughed. "As for me, I hardly know which end of me is up. I don't see how you can live in all this whizz, bustle, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... fellows, 3000 yards or more behind, sounded exactly like our own, but the flash came three or four seconds before the sound. Of the German shells—the field guns come with a great velocity—no warning—just whizz-bang; white smoke, nearly always air bursts. The next size, probably 5 inch howitzers, have a perceptible time of approach, an increasing whine, and a great burst on the percussion—dirt in all directions. And even if a shell hit on the front of the ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... Walker according to his habit was strolling along the road that ran past his house, he heard something whizz past him and with a thud strike a tree. Something had been thrown at him. He ducked instinctively. With a shout, "Who's that"? he ran towards the place from which the missile had come and he heard the sound of a man escaping through ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... punkest pavement pounders in little old N' York. Why, a Dago hodcarrier wouldn't be seen dead in 'em; look at th' patches. Gee whizz! Where did His Whiskers dig 'em ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... "the name of the Lord of hosts;" the swift brevity of the narrative of the actual fight, which in its hurrying clauses seems to reproduce the light-footed eagerness of the young champion, or the rapid whizz of the stone ere it crashed into the thick forehead; the prostrate bulk of the dead giant prone upon the earth, and the conqueror, slight and agile, hewing off the huge head with Goliath's own useless sword;—all these incidents, so full of character, so antique in manner, so weighty with lessons ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... this narrow strip—not much more than a hundred yards in width—had been "No Man's Land." Attempts made by day and night to bury some of these bodies had to be given up, as the enemy swept the parapets of both trenches, on the least sign of movement, with "whizz-bangs." The Western Ontario Battalion suffered horribly, a constant stream of stretchers coming through our lines, starting with daybreak. These small shells were fired from light field-guns that had been ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... an officer of his Majesty's infantry!" said old Major Elliott, putting his head over the hedge. "I could have done with a nip after a morning's walk, but it is something new to have a whole bottle whizz past my ear. But what is amiss, that you all stand round like mutes ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... march'd, trumpets sounding—drums beating—flags flying, Where the music of war drown'd the shrieks of the dying, When the shots whizz'd around me all dangers defied, Push'd on when my comrades fell dead at my side, Drove the foe from the mouth of the Cannon away, Fought, conquer'd and bled, all for ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... in an emphatic undertone; and, clicking to the horses irresolutely, he began to urge them on again. But at that very instant there was a sort of sudden rush and whizz, and a very big, wide cart, harnessed with three lean horses, cut sharply at a rush up to us, galloped in front, and at once fell into a walking pace, blocking ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... quivered with excitement as he listened for the whizz of the arrows he expected to ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... had the first coast. There was only room for one at a time on the hill Bert made, so they had to take turns. Flossie sat on her sled on top of the little platform, and pushed herself off. Down she went with a whizz, half way across ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... at the idea of so soon being left alone, and her bravery oozing out rather faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. She heard a step following them along the flags; it stopped when they stopped, looking out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train. They did not speak; their hearts were too full. Another moment, and the train would be here; a minute more, and he would be gone. Margaret almost repented the urgency with which she had entreated him to go to London; it was throwing more chances of detection ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fearful oaths, when I told him that it was no use my trying to dive for it, unless he could hold my shot gun, which I was carrying in my left hand. We had scarcely reached the opposite bank, when thin, slender spears began to whizz about us, and one, no thicker than a lead pencil, caught Poore in the cheek, obliquely, and its point came out quite a yard from where it had entered, and literally pinned ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... a sharp report. I was so thrilled by the mysterious attraction of the chateau that I barely noticed the event. As I passed a small ruined cottage, which I had not observed before, for it was hidden amongst the trees, there was a short whizz on a high note, and then a loud crash. Smoke issued from the windows and the riddled roof, and bits of wood and debris hurtled through the air. Then there was a loud wailing noise followed by a terrific detonation. The chateau was blotted from view by a dense mass of black smoke ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... Man in the Moon has a rheumatic knee, Gee! Whizz! What a pity that is! And his toes have worked round where his heels ought to be. So whenever he wants to go North he goes South, And comes back with the porridge crumbs all round his mouth, And he brushes them off with a Japanese fan, Whing! Whann! What ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... traitor is a just one; do thou then confirm it!" He turned as if about to seek himself for the one who was the cause of the tumult, when the momentary silence was strangely broken. Upon our ears was borne the sharp whizz of an arrow shot true from a tightly-strung bow; then the Dhah who had just finished speaking, with a wild cry that pierced the forest, threw his arms up as if grasping the empty air, and fell ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Gayly she tripped, unconscious all That any danger might befall. But suddenly the song-birds fled From all the branches overhead. Then on her startled hearing rang The sharp and vengeful bow-string's twang A whizz—a yell—a writhing mass Fell on the path she thought to pass— A tawny panther from whose side An arrow drained the living tide. With shrinking eyes she saw the beast Rolling in agony, until At last the sensate struggles ceased, And all ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... often the case, he visited a beer-house, where he met with his fellow-craftsmen and the gentlemen of the council, and in his way enlivened the company with his own rare wit. Meanwhile in the house at home Barbara busily kept her distaff on the whirl and whizz, whilst Rettel balanced the house-keeping accounts, or thought out the preparation of new and hitherto unheard-of dishes, or related again to the old woman, mingled with a good deal of loud laughter, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... about me. I'm a great little dodger of whizz-bangs. Besides I have a superstition that there's something in the power of M.'s cross to bless. It came with the mittens, and is at present ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... I heard a bullet whizz by me, but it did no harm, at the same time it made me fearful. For myself I did not care, but my great strength could not protect my darling against firearms, besides if I were smitten down what would ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the Boche had uninterrupted observation from the ruins of Lombaertzyde, which lay on slightly higher ground just within his lines. It was thus practically impossible to move about by day, for the sight of khaki brought down a hurricane of whizz bangs, special batteries being apparently told off for sniping of this nature. Further, as we lay in a very sharp salient just here our men could be plainly seen behind the breastworks by the enemy on their right rear, and these people indulged in long ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... corner; I heard a laugh that seemed to float to me from a long ways back in the past. It was Jim Jimison's laugh, an' as I came around the corner of the house there he stood with his back to me, talkin' to Barbie. "Well, for the Gee Whizz!" I cried. He turned, an' it was Dick. We looked into each other's eyes a moment, an' then I forced a laugh an' went on to the stallion stable, where I sat down ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... so," said Gurth—"if I could but think so—but no—I saw the javelin was well aimed—I heard it whizz through the air with all the wrathful malevolence of him who cast it, and it quivered after it had pitched in the ground, as if with regret for having missed its mark. By the hog dear to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Ned heard a whizz, as if some beetle had suddenly passed his ear; there was instantaneously a sharp pat, and the moment after the report of a rifle. The club fell into the water ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... realms of old romance, with their Lancelots and Gueneveres, their enchanted castles, their bearded wizards, 'and such odd branches of learning.' There needs a winged griffin, at the very least, to carry them out of the everyday six-and-eightpenny world, or the whizz of an Excalibur to startle their drowsy imaginations into life. The beauties and the wonders of the universe died for them some centuries ago; they went out with Friar Bacon and the invention of gunpowder. Praised be Apollo! this is not our case. There is a snatch of poetry, to our apprehension, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... vex the darkling mind, Where light but faintly streaks the dappled sky, Nor Morn has shot his glittering shafts on high; Trembling with grief and hope, his lyre shall thrill To twilight times of blending good and ill, Where whizz of bullets, and the clanking chain, Jar on the praise of Peace and Freedom's reign. In louder strains shall burst the exulting close, That sounds the triumph o'er the struggling foes,— The slave unbound, War's ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... while I was there a whizz-bang hit my dug-out and blew my sergeant into small pieces, which remained hanging on the branches of the trees. It was a pity, for he was the best forward in the brigade football team. I put all I could find of him into a cloth, announced the burial for the next day, and then, as it was my turn ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... was skin half so scalding as his! When an infant 'twas equally horrid; For the water, when he was baptized, gave a fizz, And bubbled and simmer'd and started off, whizz! As soon ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... started on my home trip, full of that good fellowship you was imbibin' awhile ago. Made the engine whizz! We was awful jolly, the fireman and me. Never was drunk when I got on my engine before, or the Company would have shipped me. Warn't no such time made on that road before nor since. I had just sense enough ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the steam, but we rush on faster and faster. Through another long tunnel, then into the open air round a curve, flying along an embankment until we think we must go over it. Rush, roar, and rattle! Speed slackens, bump, thump, whizz, a long whistle; green and red lights above and below, a big station, engines beside us, people like phantoms on the platforms, crash, bang! Tunbridge is passed, and we are running on level ground, in a straight line for full twenty miles, to Ashford. Ah, we can breathe ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a kind of lark we call Funiculars. There are times when islands cease somehow to dazzle, and towns and cities are too orderly and uneventful and cramped for us, and we want something—something to whizz. Then we say: "Let us make a funicular. Let us make a funicular more than we have ever done. Let us make one to reach up to the table." We dispute whether it isn't a mountain railway we are after. The bare name is refreshing; it takes ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... fine day in June— Suppose her sitting, Busily knitting, And humming she didn't quite know what tune; For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz, Which, unless the sound of the circulation, Or of Thoughts in the process of fabrication, By a Spinning-Jennyish operation, It's hard to say what buzzing it is. However, except that ghost of a sound, She ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... hand with a whizz, and Billings stepped out to meet it. Just what happened no one saw clearly for a moment, it all came to pass so quickly. Then an Irish yell from Murty O'Toole woke the echoes, even as the bowler's hand flashed up above his head—and the big stockman ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... putting his pencil back in his pocket. "I've just written your names out neatly on little bits of paper, and now they're all wasted. You'll have to stick them on yourselves so that the spectators will know who you are as you whizz past." He handed his bits of paper round and went in for ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... more vigorous argument. The praefect was appealed to against the recalcitrant. Then the harsh unimpassioned voice with its curious intonation in the pronouncing of the Latin words, would give a brief order and the lictor's flail would whizz in the air and descend with a short sharp whistling sound on obstinately bowed shoulder or unwilling hand, and the auctioneer ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... forty times: Combien ces six saucisses-ci? C'est six sous, ces six saucisses-ci. Six sous ces six saucisses-ci? Six sous ceux-ci! Six sous ceux-la; six sous ces six saucissons-ci! in order to learn not to whizz the s. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... I have, whilst awake, been looking over Aunt Janet's books, of which I brought a wheen down here. Gee whizz! No wonder the old dear is superstitious, when she is filled up to the back teeth with that sort of stuff! There may be some truth in some of those yarns; those who wrote them may believe in them, or some of them, at all events. But as to coherence or logic, or any sort of reasonable ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... jump out, and then the car goes rolling on for another fifty miles or so through beech woods full of rabbits and open meadows with deer in them. Finally, just as you think you are going on for ever, you whizz round a corner, and there's the house. You don't get a glimpse of it till then, because the trees are ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... Dick heard and saw an ugly brickbat whizz by his head. It came out of the dark alley that the sophomore was passing at that moment. And now came another, aimed straight for ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... completely lost my heart to a girl who—well, she's an actress. She's second from the left in the front row chorus of "Whizz-Bang" at the Hilarity Theatre; I tell you ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... infernal nuisance. The beastly trenches had their good points after all. There you were not called upon to think of anything; the less you thought, the better for your job; you just ate your bully-beef and drank your tea and cursed whizz-bangs and killed a rat or two, and thanked God you ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... want to know how that film took. We hustled it back to London, and it went with a whizz. One hundred and twenty-six picture houses produced "STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST." The daily illustrated papers ran it front page. The only criticism of it that I heard was another movie man, who ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... untethered and Robin upon its back in a flash; then the lad heard the whizz of an arrow past him. He bent his head down close to the neck of his jennet and whispered a word into its ear. The little mare, shaking herself suddenly to a gallop, understood; and now began a ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... the fireworks all began to go off together. Pop! crack! fizz! bang! whizz! went the elegant wheels and the crackers, the grasshoppers, the Roman candles and the snakes, while the smoke rushed ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... of the world. Whenever you get hold of a novel that preaches and preaches and preaches, and can't give a poor ticket-of-leave man or the decentest sort of a villain credit for one good trait—Gee, Whizz! how tiresome they are—lose it, you young scamp, at once, if you respect yourself. If you are pushed you can say that Bill Jones took it away from you and threw it in the creek. The great Victor Hugo and the authors of that noble drama "The Two Orphans," ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... at last, but it falls very flat; Such a very big "bag," such a very small "cat"! Popularity Budget? It can't be called that! The Budget that was to have been such "good biz," And have caused the Election to go with a "whizz," Fizzles out in—reducing the duty on Fizz! Ah, JOKIM, my joker, you've hardly the knack Of holding the Bag, so we'll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... epic. There is nothing in them that we can compare to the exquisite idyll of Nausicaa or to the Titanic humour of the episode in the Cyclops' cave. Penelope has not the glamour of Circe, and the song of the Sirens may sound sweeter than the whizz of the arrows of Odysseus as he stands on the threshold of his hall. Yet, for sheer intensity of passionate power, for concentration of intellectual interest and for masterly dramatic construction, these latter books are quite unequalled. Indeed, they show very clearly how it was that, as Greek art ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... insure the mules," I said, "I will the driver." My calculation was to send a bullet so near to Brigham that he could hear it whizz, but not to touch him. It was not so dangerous as the shot I had fired over Sam Fox, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... fitting arrows, etcetera, had been acquired by that time. The hunters were ready in a couple of seconds. The deer, recovering, wheeled about; but before they could take the first bound, "burr, twang, and whizz," sounded in their ears. The stone struck an antler of the stag, the arrow pierced his flank, the bolt quivered in his heart, and the monarch of the woods, leaping wildly into the air, fell ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... inspect one troop after another in the closest manner, with the captain of each company at his side, that he might receive from him accurate account upon the minutest particulars. Sometimes a cannon-ball from the fortress would whizz over the heads of the men; then Alba would stand still and cast a keen glance over the soldiers before him. But when he saw that not an eyelash moved, a smile of satisfaction passed over ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... I," said Warner, who overheard him, "and so are all who are left in this regiment. If they see the flash of water nothing can hold them back, not even Bragg's whole army. How those skirmishers hang on to us! Whizz-z! there went their ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his way among the shell-holes, seeking as much protection, for the line, as circumstances will permit. The signallers follow in his footsteps, staggering along under the weight of a large reel of wire. All goes well until they reach the summit of a ridge, when, suddenly, a barrage from a "whizz bang" battery is placed right down on top of the party. There is nothing for it but to remain crouched in a friendly shell-hole, which affords a little protection, until the storm blows over or to risk the chances of being hit in the open. The journey is then resumed, ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... her an' sandwich in some work besides," Mrs. Slawson explained cheerfully. "An' Ma's a whizz at settin' by bedsides helpin' patients get up their appetites. Says she, 'Now drink this nice glass o' egg-nog, Francie, me child,' she says. 'An' if you'll drink it, I'll take one just like it meself.' An' true for you, she does. The ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... rifle. A crack and a whizz in the air. The noble creature gave one mighty bound and fell dead. The ball had entered his broad forehead and ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... The whizz of a motor-car rapidly approaching them became a sort of roar, and out of it a voice shouted: "How are you?" A hand was seen to rise in salute. It was Mr. Purcey driving his A.i. Damyer back to Wimbledon. Before him in the sunlight a little shadow fled; behind ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... also adopted the "silent death," and half a dozen of the German aerial darts were given me for souvenirs. They are of steel, about three inches long, with one end pointed and the other flanged, so as to give a rotary motion as they whizz through the air. They look more murderous than they really are, for I was told by one of the aviator officers that they were not very effective. The Germans, methodical in everything, wanted no doubt ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Kirsty, and by standing on her tiptoes could have looked right down into the barrel. She was approaching it with that intent—those eyes were about to overshadow us with their baleful light. Already her apron hid all other vision from my one eye, when a whizz, a dull blow, and a shriek from Mrs. Mitchell came to my ears together. The next moment, the field of my vision was open, and I saw Mrs. Mitchell holding her head with both hands, and the face of Turkey grinning round the ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... artificial bird was singing its best, and the emperor lay in bed listening to it, something inside the bird sounded "whizz." Then a spring cracked. "Whir-r-r-r" went all the wheels, running round, and then the music stopped. The emperor immediately sprang out of bed, and called for his physician; but what could he do? Then ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and even here, I was "under fire." More frequently than was agreeable, a shot would come ploughing up the ground and raising clouds of dust, or a shell whizz above us. Upon these occasions those around would cry out, "Lie down, mother, lie down!" and with very undignified and unladylike haste I had to embrace the earth, and remain there until the same voices would laughingly assure me that the danger was over, or one, more thoughtful than the rest, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... troubled though, for, big as he was, he jumped aside, avoided the bar with the greatest ease, and almost at the same moment there was a whizz and a cut like lightning delivered by Uncle Dick ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... whizz sound like that of a bullet as it cuts the air, and she quickly gave the warning: "Honk! honk! Danger, danger!" All descended in dizzy spirals, but as the great Falcon swooped toward them with upraised wing, the ducklings scattered wildly hither and thither. The old ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... are always ice or gunpowder. You sit in the great leathern armchair, as quiet as a rocket hangs upon the frame in a rejoicing-night till the match be fired, and then, whizz! you are in the third heaven, beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or brain.—When you have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across the room, will you tell me your determination, for time presses? Will you aid me in this ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!" Jeemses Rivers! won't some one ever shet that howl o' his? That-air yellin' drives me wild! Cain't none of ye stop the child? Want jer Daddy? "Naw." Gee whizz! "Want to ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... there was a burst of flame, a crash, and a vicious whizz as the powerful projectile leaped from its stand and sped out to sea, in grand defiance of the opposing gale, with its light ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bully. "I know a little place where the water falls down over the rocks, and I'm going to fasten a wooden wheel there, and it will whizz around ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... of the shells from field guns is exactly like that of a rocket going up. When the shell is coming towards you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip. It gives you a second or two to get under cover and then crack-whizz as the shrapnel whizzes out. The heavy shells from the monitors, etc., make a noise more like a landslide of pebbles down a beach, only blurred as if echoed. Bobbety's "silk dress swishing through the air" does his imagination credit, ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... back because of the heat. She had never really taken so much pains over an examination before, and had never found herself so well prepared. Quite to her surprise her brains felt clear and collected, and her mental car seemed to whizz along so fast it quite exceeded the speed limit. No other girl in the form wrote so many sheets as she did or answered such a large proportion of the questions. At the end of the week, tired, nervy, and decidedly cross, she nevertheless felt some satisfaction over the papers she had ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... significant remark he leaned forward in the saddle, bringing his switch down with a whizz behind him. The pony gave three rabbit leaps and then settled down to his drumming little trot. As they advanced the line overhead dropped gradually. Finally the Maestro had to swerve the horse aside to save his helmet. He pulled up ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... want to go home, I want to go home, I don't want to go to the trenches no more Where sausages and whizz-bangs are galore. Take me over the sea, where the Allemand can't get at me, Oh, my, I don't want to die, I ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... But the whizz of the flight had already begun and the scooter's nose was set toward Twin Coves, her sail skimming swiftly with the ring of the steel against the ice over the ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... that long cobbled road. The day was exceedingly warm, the stones sun-baked, and after the first mile or so I saw Huberson looking nervously at his fore wheel. His anxiety was well founded, for half a minute later, whizz!—I ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... before he was aware of the treacherous ground plunged into a swamp bordering one of the creeks. He stood for a few moments in mud and water to his waist, but he knew that he had passed from the range of the Union fire. Twigs and bark no longer fell around him and that most unpleasant whizz of bullets was gone. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... left the shelter of the trench, and were hurrying, nearly doubled, across a field, when a German observer spotted us. The next minute "whizz-bangs" started falling around us like rain. No matter which way I turned, the tarnation things seemed to follow and burst with a deafening crash. At last, I reached the crossing, and was making my way down ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... "Gee Whizz!" he exclaimed. "If I've got to be run down by a taxi let it be on Broadway, not on a rube trail. Thank the Lord it wasn't a hay cart, because it'd have got ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... Light Brigade," CHARLIE? Well, mugs will keep spouting it still; But wot is it to me and my mates, treadles loose, and a-chargin' down 'ill? Dash, dust-clouds, wheel-whizz, whistles, squeakers, our 'owls, women's shrieks, and men's swears! Oh, I tell yer it's 'Ades let loose, or all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... they pounded hard, Whizz! went the screaming shell— Of reeking tube and iron shard There was ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... ten miles to north and south of us, other flares light up the countryside. At the same instant there breaks out the boom of our heavy guns, the sharp staccato of sixty-pounders, the dull roar of howitzers, and the ear-splitting clamour of whizz-bangs—a bedlam of noise. Shells whistle and whine overhead; they cannot be distinguished one from another, but merge into ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... scarcely ever a day of rest. However that may be, this Sunday was the worst day I had for some time. After sending over a few small howitzer shells, the German field-guns sent periodical showers of shells, 'whizz-bangs' we called them, on to the support ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... for writing many. She has a whizz to her swiftly cynical arrow that entitles her to a place in ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... fajfilo. Whistle fajfi. Whist visto. Whit porcieto. White blanka. White of egg albumeno. Whiten blankigi. Whiting merlango. Whitish dubeblanka. Whither kien. Whitsuntide Pentekosto. Whizz sibli. Who kiu. Whoever kiu ajn. Whole tuta. Whole tuto. Wholesale pogrande. Wholesome saniga. Whom kiun. Whooping cough koklusxo. Whosoever kiu ajn. Whose kies. Why kial. Wick mecxo—ajxo. Wicked malvirta, malbona. Wickedness malvirteco, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... to wait so long that at length he grew drowsy, and in order to keep awake he was just pricking himself with the branch of a neighbouring thorn-bush, when birr! whizz! a great bird dashed out of the hole and made off into the ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. "One, another! Again! It has hit...." He stopped and looked at the ranks. "No, it has gone over. But this one has hit!" And again he started trying to reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many had been hit—a large crowd had gathered near ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of disappointment anew, and then the scattering fire of bullets. Two or three pattered on the stream, but they did not hear the whizz of the others, and in an instant they were safely up the ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things and live in a small world; the second study small things and live in a large world. It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Mr. Walkingshaw, warming to his narrative, "I am literally racing backwards. It is like a drive over a road one has passed along before, only in the opposite direction and much faster. I simply whizz past the old milestones. Now, a man who is behaving like that has no business to marry an already mature lady, who is growing older at the rate of, say one, while he is growing younger at the rate of, say ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... replies Blaikie. "But they pulled our legs badly the first time. They started off with three 'whizz-bangs'"—a whizz-bang is a particularly offensive form of shell which bursts two or three times over, like a Chinese cracker—"so we all took cover and lay low. The consequence was that Minnie was able to send her little contribution along unobserved. The filthy thing fell short of the trench, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... of men with their skull-roofs, skull-roofs of men with their middle, middle of men with their thighs, thighs of men with their knees, knees of men with their calves, calves of men with their feet, feet of men with their toes, toes of men with their nails. I would make their necks whizz (?) —— as a bee would move to and fro on a day of ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... portion of the door had been gnawed out—walked into the house. Nobody missed him for the time, the rest being occupied with the barrels of paraffin, and the first intimation they had of his separation from them was the report of his gun and the whizz of his bullet. "Bang, bang," both barrels, and his first bullet it seems went through the cask of sulphur, smashed out a stave from the further side, and filled the air with yellow dust. Redwood had kept his gun in hand and let ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... strata of another planet, and inspected for fossils and other evidences of its long history, was what he probably meant. Seeing Gimp in the Archie had set off another scientific reverie in his head. He was a whizz in any book subject. Maybe he had the brains to be a great investigator of the past, in the Belt or on Mars, if his mind didn't crack first, which seemed sure to happen if he left Earth ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... sprang at Velasco, surrounding him, there came suddenly a swift whizz through the air, a singing as of a hornet, and the heavy lash struck them, across the face, the eyes, the shoulders, stinging and sharp, leaving cruel welts as it struck. The driver screamed out, half blinded. The gendarmes started back. Petrokoff fell on his knees and cowered behind a ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... ken what some of your friends were obliged to do yon time for a sowp of brose, or a bit of bannock. G—d, I carried a cutler's wheel for several weeks, partly for need, and partly for disguise—there I went bizz—bizz—whizz—zizz, at every auld wife's door; and if ever you want your shears sharpened, Mrs. Crosbie, I am the lad to do it for you, if my wheel was but ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... married man myself, so have had no experience of how it feels to have one's wife whizz off silently into the unknown; but I should imagine that it must be something like taking a full swing with a brassey and missing the ball. Something, I take it, of the same sense of mingled shock, chagrin, and the feeling that nobody loves one, which attacks a man in such circumstances, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... did from their bodies fly,— They fled to bliss or woe! And every soul, it passed me by, Like the whizz ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... say, "He can do me no harm; however, I may as well have a swim." I took aim at the throat of this supercilious brute, and, as soon as my hand steadied, the very pulsation of my finger pulled the trigger. Bang! went the gun! whizz! flew the bullet; and my excited ear could catch the thud with which it plunged into the scaly leather of his neck. His waddle became a plunge, the waves closed over him, and the sun shone on the calm water, as I reached the brink of the shore, that was ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... over the front line, which was at present a railway embankment, crawled into No Man's Land, and set to work. Immediately the Boche snipers spotted them and bullets began to whistle over their heads. Luckily, no one was hit, but a couple of "whizz bangs" dropped uncomfortably close. The men dropped for cover. Only Johnson stood still, his figure black against the white snow gleaming in ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... breast-plates and hack'd helmets ring, And o'er their heads unheeded javelins sing. Above the rest, two towering chiefs appear, There great Idomeneus, AEneas here. Like gods of war, dispensing fate, they stood, And burn'd to drench the ground with mutual blood. The Trojan weapon whizz'd along in air; The Cretan saw, and shunn'd the brazen spear: Sent from an arm so strong, the missive wood Stuck deep in earth, and quiver'd where it stood. But OEnomas received the Cretan's stroke; ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... very wonderful to young Robin when he saw Little John or one of the other men let fly an arrow with a twang of the bow-string and a sharp whizz of the wings through the air, to quiver in a mark eighty or a hundred yards away, or to pierce some flying wild goose or duck passing in a flock high in air; but by degrees that which had seemed so marvellous soon ceased to astonish him, and at ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... ground Around and around In the turret stair He clambers, to where The wheelwork is, With its tick, click, whizz, Reposefully measuring Each day to its end That mortal men spend In sorrowing and pleasuring Nightly thus does he climb ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... including professional "funny men," trick cyclists, conjurers, and singers of all kinds. So by the summer of '15 most of the divisions had their dramatic entertainments: "The Follies," "The Bow Bells," "The Jocks," "The Pip-Squeaks," "The Whizz-Bangs," "The Diamonds," "The Brass Hats," "The Verey Lights," and many others with ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... to greet us before we heard a B-A-N-G!—an awful sound! It was as if someone suddenly had picked up the whole Haynes Hardware store—at Emporia—tinware, farm implements, stoves, nails and shelf-goods, and had switched it with an awful whizz through the air and landed it upon the sheet-iron roof of Wichita's Civic Forum, which seats six thousand! We looked at each other in surprise, but each realized that he must be casual to support the other; so we said nothing to the Ambulance boys, and they, being used to such things, ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... it stood upright, but there it hesitated. The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down, and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watched it as long as we could distinguish its ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... lost no time. Shots began to whizz overhead and to splash the water around us. But the boat was painted gray; as we increased the distance we must have looked like a moving patch of darker water with a puzzling wake behind us. The sea was still. The stars were ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the army itself and few signs of transportation on a bleak, snowy day. At the outskirts of every village, at every bridge, and at intervals along the road, Territorial sentries stopped the car. Having an officer along was not sufficient to let you whizz by important posts. He must show his pass. Every sentry was a reminder of the hopelessness of being a correspondent these days without ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... regiment, a gallant gentleman who positively refused to die. His wife had been with him for two weeks, a little toy woman with nerves worn to a frazzle, who masked her terror with a brave, set smile. The Colonel had had his leg smashed by a whizz-bang when leading his troops into action. Septic poisoning had set in and the leg had been amputated. It had been found necessary to operate several times owing to the poison spreading, with the result that, being far from a young man, his strength was exhausted. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... in June - Suppose her sitting, Busily knitting, And humming she didn't quite know what tune; For nothing she heard but a sort of whizz, Which, unless the sound of circulation, Or of thoughts in the process of fabrication, By a spinning-jennyish operation, It's hard to say what buzzing it is. However, except that ghost of a sound, She sat in a silence most profound - The ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... shelter of the curtain, and presently saw the big red automobile whizz by. Doctor Jack, hatless and laughing, was at the wheel. Beside ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... sheen. Around us on every side was the forest, in a greater or less depth, and from it came the many nocturnal sounds—sounds with which I was pretty familiar, but which, upon this occasion, had a more strange and oppressive effect than usual. Boom, whizz, croak, shriek, yell, and moan, mingled with the distant rush of the great river, ever speeding onward towards the sea. At times I could just distinguish the edge of the forest; then there would be the dark plantation spread ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... nervous, and that was what happened to the Colonel. Continually there came distant cries of "/Mark! mark over!/" followed by the apparition of half-a-dozen brown balls showing clearly against the grey autumn sky and sweeping down towards him like lightning. /Whizz/ in front, overhead and behind; bang, bang; bang again with the second gun, and they were away—vanished, gone, leaving nothing but ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... were disturbed by the noise of a big motor car, approaching the house from a distance, and heralding its advance with a steadily rising whizz and a series of most unearthly toots. Motor cars often passed the house and ran down the Boulevard St. Antoine at frightful speed, for the beautiful road is generally clear; but something, perhaps a small meteor again, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Pallas threw, And, having thrown, his shining fauchion drew The steel just graz'd along the shoulder joint, And mark'd it slightly with the glancing point, Fierce Turnus first to nearer distance drew, And pois'd his pointed spear, before he threw: Then, as the winged weapon whizz'd along, "See now," said he, "whose arm is better strung." The spear kept on the fatal course, unstay'd By plates of ir'n, which o'er the shield were laid: Thro' folded brass and tough bull hides it pass'd, His corslet pierc'd, and reach'd his heart at ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... towards his comrade with a comical look of dismay upon his countenance after a very narrow escape from death, a bullet having passed through his cap, when whizz! whizz! whirr! half-a-dozen more bullets ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... With a whizz and a flash one went past me, skimmed the cider press, and rushed across the hay; then the other. I fell to the floor and the next thing I knew the doors were shut, and I was back at my place. I just went down in a heap and leaned against the wall and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Crack! Whizz-zz! Chug! The weapon was discharged promptly. Jack, still in flight, heard the bullet whistle by him. Then it struck the sand, fifty feet ahead, throwing up a ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... hooks up Boomerang to a mountain wagon, an' sends him 'round an' 'round an' 'round at a pace that'd make your eyes stick out so far you could see your sins. Old Boomerang is shore some eevanescent! When that Turner person shakes the reins an' yells 'Skoot!' you could hear him whizz. On sech occasions he's nothin' short of a four-laigged meteor, an' looks forty feet long ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... shell-shock to the sanitary squad, and they might just as well have been in the actual trenches, for in the gathering up of rubbish around the camp cartridges would frequently be thrown with it into the fire and explosions would ensue like the firing of a machine-gun, and bullets would whizz in all directions. Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them of those who preferred being ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... with his head. Where his bump of amativeness should stick out like a walnut there is a discouraging depression which alarms him greatly, and worries the reader not a little. But finally he sees Trilby again, and, the wheel in his head, which has stuck fast for five years, begins to whizz around like the internal economy of an alarm clock—or a sky terrier with a clothespin on ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann |
