tongs quotes

Of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, scrannel- pipiest, tongs and boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliest of, that eternityof nothing wasthe deadliest.

-John Ruskin
  Of Wagner's Die Meistersinger. Letter to Mrs Burne-Jones, 30 Jun.