"Flash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a flash, with a startled exclamation and an instinctive movement as if to shield herself from unbidden gaze. Her lips parted and her heart pounded like a hammer. Standing in the doorway was Randolph Shaw, his figure looming up like a monstrous, wavering genie ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... all the time, pressed and penetrated; so that, during a moment, just here, she might have given the little flare, have made the little pounce, of asking what then "one's" view had been. To the small flash of this eruption Fanny stood, for her minute, wittingly exposed; but she saw it as quickly cease to threaten—quite saw the Princess, even though in all her pain, refuse, in the interest of their strange and exalted ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... produced by the flash of lightning on the waves of the water were multiplied in proportion to the distance of the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... chief saw that he would come out of the race some thirty yards behind his foe, he seized his bow and quick as a flash had fitted an arrow for its deadly flight. But in that instant Cody had also acted, and a revolver had sprung from his belt and a report followed the touching of the trigger. A wild yell burst from the lips of the chief, and he clutched madly at the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... nuclear bomb or missile explodes, the main effects produced are intense light (flash), heat, blast, and radiation. How strong these effects are depends on the size and type of the weapon; how far away the explosion is; the weather conditions (sunny or rainy, windy or still); the terrain (whether the ground ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... on horseback let Virgie slide down and then dismounted like a flash, coming to her across the little space of lawn with his whole soul in his eyes. With his dear wife caught in his arms he could do nothing but kiss her and hold her as if he would never again let ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... race-track a steer was loosed, and a cowboy on a small lithe broncho rode after it at top speed. Round the head of this man the lariat whirled like a live snake. In a flash the noose was tight about the steer's horns, the brilliant little horse had overtaken the beast, and in an action when man and horse seemed to combine as one, the tightened rope was swung against the steer's legs. It was thrown ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... people, and because he cherished it he never flattered the mob, nor hung upon its neck, nor pandered to its passion, nor suffered its foaming hate or its exulting enthusiasm to touch the calm poise of his regnant soul. He moved in solitary majesty, and if from his smooth speech a lightning flash of satire or of scorn struck a cherished lie, or an honored character, or a dogma of the party creed, and the crowd burst into a furious tempest of dissent, he beat it into silence with uncompromising iteration. If it tried to drown his voice, he turned to the reporters, and over the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... For I have tested myself. When I went to bed that night after our talk, I rehearsed your argument point by point, and I knew you had it right. But when I woke up from a good night's sleep and my head was clear again, then it came over me in a flash that you might be mistaken after all. And I jumped out of bed and got hold of my brushes and paints—but it was no use! Every trace of illusion was gone—it was nothing but smears of paint, and I quaked at the thought ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... genius hath electric power, Which earth can never tame; Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower— Its flash is still the same. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... In the flash of a second, Stuart understood Manuel's plot. It was the Cuban who had provoked the negro to draw his weapon, counting on the boy's shooting his supposed enemy, as had been agreed upon. Then Manuel would drag him out of his hiding-place and kill him for an eavesdropper. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would know him in the private office ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... There was a flash, a swish, a crunching thud: the bound body bowed over the rice sacks,—two long blood-jets pumping from the shorn neck;—and the head rolled upon the sand. Heavily toward the stepping-stone it rolled: then, suddenly ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... For an instant a flash of lightning turned the peculiar windows into sheets of flame, then all was dark again. Harlan's answer was drowned by a crash of thunder and the turning of the heavy wheels ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... the ways of men! Her warnings regarding his dabbling in matters theatrical, for instance, and charities to unsuccessful playwrights.—And at that point Dominic Iglesias drew himself up short. For, in a flash, the truth came to him that Poppy St. John's hated "jackal of a husband" was none other than his fellow-lodger, de Courcy Smyth, whose shuffling footsteps he heard even now, nervelessly crossing and recrossing the floor of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... but if the people are coming from the Intendant's they will see the flash and perhaps hear the report, and it will let them know what ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... with all the scenery, produced but a feeble impression. The tragedies seemed to induce slumber. The little balls, or, more exactly, the little hops in the apartment of the Maid of Honor, Madame de la Rochefoucauld, were very dull. Sometimes little games were played there; they gave a flash of gaiety, but as soon as the Emperor appeared, every one assumed a serious, composed air. Might one not say once more what La Bruyre said when speaking of the court of Louis XIV.: "Who would believe that this eagerness for shows, that meals, hunts, ballets, tilting-matches, crowned ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... making straight for the centre of the Russian line. On they went, Grays and Enniskilleners, in serried array, while their cheers and shouts rent the air as they struck the Russian line with an impetus which carried them through the close-drawn ranks. For a moment there was a glittering flash of sword-blades and a sharp clash of steel, and then, in thinned numbers, the charging dragoons appeared in the rear of the line, heading with unchecked speed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the pony became more violent and it was impossible for Jack to hold the steed. The pony broke away and like a flash whirled around and disappeared once ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... when he met Colmor's grip and the keen flash of his eyes that he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind. And his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road by the admiring lad. Colmor's estimate of him must have been a monument built of Ann's eulogies. Jean's heart suffered misgivings. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... yelled back to me, and I stood looking at the broken end of the rest of the stick in my hand, then turned like a flash and whirled around and threw it as hard as I could straight toward another tree about twenty feet away. That broken stick hit the tree right in the center of its trunk, with a ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... an' goin' ter de neighbor's house. Dey make me stay dar in de house wid 'em ter tote dere brandy frum de cellar, an' ter make 'em some mint jelup. Well, on de secon' night dar come de wust storm I'se eber seed. De lightnin' flash, de thunder roll, an' de house shook an' rattle lak a earthquake ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... we have frequently followed a vortex for three days to the northward, (that is, seen the effects of its meridian passage,) at 700 miles distance, by the aurora, and even by the lightning, which proves plainly that the exterior layers of our atmosphere can reflect a flash of lightning, assisted by the horizontal refraction, otherwise the curvature of the earth would sink it ten ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... for such thoughts as these; the drunken huntsman is sounding his horn in our rear. Will, the whip, cap in hand, is bringing up the body of the pack. Squire Haycock holds the gate open for me to pass, Cousin John goes by me like a flash of lightning; White Stockings with a loose rein, submits to be kicked along at any pace I like to ask him. The fence at the end of the field is nothing; I shall go exactly where Frank did. My blood thrills with ecstasy in my veins: moment ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... woke, and saw what was going on. Mousie, however, had not been so stupid, while making his meal, as not to keep one eye open on his enemy. Quick as a flash he ran for the little crack that led under the cupboard, ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... drowned in tears, said his visit could be compared only to the flash of a comet's tail; no sooner seen than ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... parrots flash through the Australian forest. It would not be possible to tell of all of them. The smallest, which is known as the grass parrakeet, or "the love-bird," is about the size of a sparrow. I notice it in England ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... unity and distinguishes it from mere versified history and folklore. There are few ballads on which some shadow out of the World Invisible is not cast; few where ill-happed love is not a master-string of the minstrel's harp; few into which there does not come strife and the flash of cold steel. Natheless, a broad division into ballads Supernatural, Romantic, and Martial has reason as well as convenience to recommend it; and in a loose and general way such an arrangement should also indicate the comparative age, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... and, having heard Trevannion's invitation to cross the beam, were looking at "the new bloke" in mild wonder as to why he hesitated. A third was slowly trundling a wheelbarrow full of sand towards them. Trevannion took in these details in a flash—and realised their significance. Here was an easy chance of shaming Garstin before the gang, of convicting him of rank and unprofessional cowardice, of getting his own back again from the office-desk theoretician, yet—an uncontrollable impulse of generosity prevented his seizing it. He stepped ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... clicking sound, as the youth moved some gear wheel on his gun. Then there came a faint crackling noise, like some distant wireless apparatus beginning to flash a message ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... flash and thrill and scent and savour Pulse through rhythm to rapture, and control,— Who shall say how far along or finely?— The infinite tectonics ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... there was a sudden flash and a roar; the barricade was driven in, and Mark felt as if something soft, but of enormous power, drove him from his hold where he sat, so that he fell headlong into the boat, his fall being broken by his coming down upon the ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... out of drawing!" cried Margaret, with a flash of mischief. "Oh, if you are going to put false ideas into her head, Uncle John—" on which she was very properly told to choose her pictures, and not ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... a sudden roaring sound, Chester saw a million stars flash through the air; then he threw up his arms, made a move to step forward and ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... images of wood and stone, and all the time had comforted herself by imagining that God saw her heart, and knew that she did not really believe in any of these things, but only acted thus for safety's sake. Now, all at once, she knew not how, it came on her as by a flash of lightning that she was on the road that leadeth to destruction, and not content with that, was bearing her young nieces along with her. She loved those girls as if she had been their own mother. Grave, self-contained, and undemonstrative as she was, she would almost have given her life for ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... pretty and suggestive prelude, describing the musician, we read such passages as this, which suggest the theme as by a "faint auroral flash": ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... as to whether her hair was less abundant and beautiful than her sister's suddenly occurred to her, and like a flash in the darkness the wish shot through her soul that she could fling Arsinoe to the ground by the hair, with the hand which was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the other holiest buildings, and finally after being driven away from every other spot settled upon the temple of the Genius Populi and was not caught, and did not depart until late in the day. The chariot of Jupiter was demolished in the Roman hippodrome, and for many days a flash would rise over the sea toward Greece and dart up into the firmament. Many unfortunate accidents also were caused by storm: a trophy standing upon the Aventine fell, a statue of Victory was dislodged from the back wall of the theatre, and the wooden bridge was broken down completely. Many ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... One more flash of distinct inspiration came to Paul's aid in the very depths of his gloom. It was, in fact, a hazy recollection from English history of the ruse by which Edward I., when a prince, contrived to escape from ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... rifle, Baree sprang into the air. He felt the force of the bullet before he heard the report of the gun. It lifted him off his feet, and then sent him rolling over and over as if he had been struck a hideous blow with a club. For a flash he did not feel pain. Then it ran through him like a knife of fire, and with that pain the dog in him rose above the wolf, and he let out a wild outcry of puppyish yapping as he rolled and twisted on ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... something in the sternness of that low lady-like voice, and of that dark deep eye, that terrified Kate more than the brightest flash of lightning: and it was well for her that the habit of truth was too much fixed for falsehood or shuffling even to occur to her. She did not dare to do more than utter in a faint voice, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... suggestion, provocation. From the spongy lowland back of them came the pleading sweetness of a meadow-lark's cry. Nearer they could even hear an occasional leaf flutter and waver down. The quick thud of a falling nut was almost loud enough to earn its echo. Now and then they saw a lightning flash of vivid turquoise and ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Just then a sharp flash of lightning illumined the lake, followed by the muttering thunder. A few fitful flashes of lightning had before glared on the gloomy scene; but now it gleamed fiercely from the sombre clouds, and the heavy thunder rolled ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... have thrown around me, and the only inscription which it bears is, 'Live for others.' And another thought follows in rapid succession,—like a far-off echo it repeats the words of its predecessor, 'Live for others,' and then adds (while a vivid flash of the lightning of truth lights up the darkness of error), 'Live for God and for heaven.' A loud crash follows. Peals of thunder shake the atmosphere of my soul! Self has fallen: I will live for others, for ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Dominica flash floods are a constant threat; destructive hurricanes can be expected during the late ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... against the sky. No sound ahead, except the mother grouse making the sweetest music imaginable in calling her young ones together during a half minute. The coast must be clear,—but just as the boy was about to go boldly forward, a flash of light shone about him and his staring eyes discerned, not thirty feet away, the three watchers standing together. They had returned, probably by pre-arrangement and had met in the roadway. Now they were silently listening for the fourth fellow—himself. One chap, thinking that they were ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... nor care. Probably not. But this I know, that to be thought a man of consequence by his contemporaries, to be admitted into the society of his superiors in artificial rank, to excite the admiration of lords, to live in splendour and sensual luxury, have been the objects of his habitual wishes. A flash of lightning has turned at once the polarity of the compass needle: and so, perhaps, now and then, but as rarely, a violent motive may revolutionize a man's opinions and professions. But more frequently his honesty dies away imperceptibly ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the next morning there was a sad and heavy heart. The owner woke up, stared at the ceiling, then at the sun-baked bricks beyond his window. He saw not the glory of the sun and the heavens. To his eyes there was nothing poetic in the flash of the distant church-spires against the billowy cloudbanks. The gray doves, circling about the chimneys, did not inspire him, nor the twittering of the sparrows on the window ledge. There was nothing at all in the world but a long ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... the bright red glow of the embers of burning wood. In one corner of the low fender lay a loose little bundle of sticks, left there in case the fire might need relighting. The boy, noticing the bundle, took out one of the sticks and threw it experimentally into the grate. The flash of flame, as the stick caught fire, delighted him. He went on burning stick after stick. The new game kept him quiet: his mother was content to be on the watch, to see ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... was tame enough: perhaps they were purposely kept down, in order to preserve the importance of the principal figure. I imagine Salvator Rosa would have made a different disposition on the same subject: that amidst the darkness of a tempest, he would have illuminated the blasphemer with the flash of lightning by which he was destroyed: this would have thrown a dismal gleam upon his countenance, distorted by the horror of his situation as well as by the effects of the fire; and rendered the whole scene dreadfully picturesque. In the same palace, I saw the famous ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... had been too deeply absorbed with his own feelings to pay very strict attention to what Duffel was saying; but the words by any means now rose vividly up in his mind, and like a flash came the thought— ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... both envied and loved him. Roy warmly returned their affection, and his vessel never came into port that he did not, regularly at nine o'clock in the evening, flash out some message of greeting to his former comrades of the Wireless Patrol. It was always a one-sided conversation, however, because none of the boys in the Wireless Patrol owned a battery powerful enough to carry a message from Central City to New York. ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... him his existence, for one flash of the ax borne by the Master Woodsman of the World cleft the wicked King in twain and rid the earth of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... that took effect carried off the point of the pennant of Don Juan de Cardona, who in his swiftest vessel was hovering along the line, correcting trifling defects of position and order, like a sergeant drilling recruits. About noon a flash was seen to proceed from one of the galeases of the Christian fleet. The shot was aimed at the flag-ship of the Pacha, conspicuous in the centre of the line, and carrying the sacred green standard of the Prophet. Passing through the rigging of the vessel, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... of that caged lion, whose eyes, full of baffled power, now calmed by sadness and faded from excess of light, seemed to proffer a prayer for charity which the mouth dared not utter. Sometimes a lightning flash crossed that withered face, whose fires revived at the conception of a new experiment; then, as he looked about the parlor, Balthazar's eyes would fasten on the spot where his wife had died, a film of tears rolled like hot grains of sand across the ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... day and the next, blue-peter diving at the flash of the gun, and defiantly coming up and wailing ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... grey paper. If there was anything wrong here, perhaps the telegram would throw a light on it. Beatrice picked up the message and flattened it on her hand. Then she read it with a puzzled face. Suddenly a flash of illumination came upon her. Her ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... analysed. That is a perfectly fair parallel to the hereditary element in the human soul. There are many ways in which one can feel that there is wine in the soup, as in suddenly tasting a wine specially favoured; that corresponds to seeing suddenly flash on a young face the image of some ancestor you have known. But even then the taster cannot be certain he is not tasting one familiar wine among many unfamiliar ones—or seeing one known ancestor among a million unknown ancestors. Another way is to get drunk on the soup, which corresponds ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... them by the light of our own fires. It so happened, however, that the Indians did not rush in as we expected, but commenced a fire on us as we were. This we returned and continued to shoot as well as we could in the dark, guided only by the flash of the Indians' guns. When day broke, the Indians disappeared, but they had killed four of our men and wounded several. Whether we killed any of the Indians or not, we could not tell, for it is their custom to carry off their dead whenever they can. We buried ours ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as another flash came. "It's lightning, and maybe it'll set our boat on fire, and then we can't go to Cousin Tom's an' ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... his rubber-gloved hands, the old man quickly snipped the wire. There was a flash of sparks as the copper conductor was severed, and then the shower of sparks ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... the horse, proud and mincing, appearing in its grey steel as great as an elephant, stepped yet so daintily that all its weight of iron made no more sound than the rhythmic jingling of a sabre, and man and horse passed like a flash of shadow out ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... assurance, than I understood New virtue into me infus'd, and sight Kindled afresh, with vigour to sustain Excess of light, however pure. I look'd; And in the likeness of a river saw Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves Flash'd up effulgence, as they glided on 'Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring, Incredible how fair; and, from the tide, There ever and anon, outstarting, flew Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flow'rs Did set them, like to rubies chas'd in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... and happy manner of relating common occurrences in an uncommon way, enabled him to throw persons and things into very ridiculous attitudes. Handel's general look was somewhat heavy and sour, but when he did smile, it was his sire the sun, bursting out of a black cloud. There was a sudden flash of intelligence, wit, and good humour, beaming in his countenance, which I hardly ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... true. They were "clean run to seed." He went to get his cart. (He did not speak to Kitty.) His home came before his eyes like a photograph: fences down, gates gone, houses ruinous, fields barren. It came to him as if stamped on the retina by a lightning-flash. He had worked—worked hard. But it was no use. It was true: they were "clean run to seed." He helped his mother and Kitty into the cart silently—doggedly. Kitty smiled at him. It hurt him like a blow. He saw every worn place, every darn in her old dress, ...
— "Run To Seed" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... down into the darkness of the passage below. A muffled report came, a flash out of the blackness of the river tunnel, and a bullet passed through the end of the cabinet upon which his hand was resting, smashing an ivory statuette and shattering ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with something like contempt. But the flash gave way to a look of ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the bloody epoch when four million fetters would be at once melted off in the fires of war. They never saw such a vision as we see. Four millions, each a Caspar Hauser, long shut up in darkness, and suddenly led out into the full flash of noon, and each, we are told, too blind to walk, politically. No one foresaw such an event, and so no provision was made for it. The three-fifths rule gave the slaveholding States, over and above all their just representation, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... cashier now took to their heels and were soon out of sight. Every moment the boy expected to see a flash of fire in the gangway. Carson was now very near to Tunnel Six, and it seemed certain that the outlaws must ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... processes. The canoe meant travel, the meagreness of the outfits either rapid or short travel, the two steel traps travel beyond the sources of supply. Then inspection passed lightly over the girl and from her to the younger man. With a flash of illumination Sam Bolton saw how valuable in allaying suspicion this evidence of a peaceful errand might prove to be. Men did not bring their women on important missions involving ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... A flash of lightning, that blinded them for a time, was followed by a peal of thunder, so close, that the timbers of the ship trembled with the vibration of the air. A second hostile meeting of electricity took place, and the fluid darted down the side of the frigate's mainmast, passing through the quarter-deck ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that is vital in man; the warm coloring of her delicately rounded cheeks, so soft, so downy; the perfect undulations of her strong young figure—these things caught him anew, and again set raging the fire of a reckless, vicious passion. In a flash he had mounted to the sill of the window-opening, and dropped inside ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Let them tell the guilty sinner that the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ meets his case and can make the foulest clean; let them tell the slave-bound sinner that in a moment, in the flash of an eye glance, a risen Saviour can deliver him and set him free; let them tell the dying that death has lost its sting, and at death a convoy of heaven's host shall bear him away from his home in this mortal body to be at home in heaven with his ascended Lord; let them cry above every Christian ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... well as he could, and returned to the window. The darkness was now great, and the first growlings of the storm began to make themselves heard; a great cloud with silver fringes extended itself like a recumbent elephant from one side to the other of the river. A flash of lightning broke the immense cloud for a moment, and the prince fancied that he saw below him in the fosse the same figures he had imagined before. A horse neighed; there was no more doubt—he ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... an hour the storm became violent, one flash of lightning followed another, the thunder roared, and the wind grew to a gale. Yet after a heavy rain, in less than an hour, the sky cleared, but there was no moon, it being the day after the Ascension. Two o'clock stuck. I put my head out at the window, but perceive ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be surprised, Nicholas, my dear,' she said, 'I am sure I was. It came upon me like a flash of fire, and almost froze my blood. The bottom of his garden joins the bottom of ours, and of course I had several times seen him sitting among the scarlet-beans in his little arbour, or working at his little hot-beds. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... torches, and the perfect indifference of the assistants, for neither friends nor relatives attend, is certainly very solemn. The deep hoarse recitative of the psalm, the strange phantom-like appearance of the fraternities, the flash and glare of the torches which they carry, on the face of the dead; the dead body itself, in all the appalling nakedness of mortality, but still mocked with the tawdry images of this world, in the flowers and tinsel and gilding which surround it; the quick swinging motion with which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... others, and tearing up the ground in his immediate vicinity. This incident seemed to arouse in General Lee his fighting-blood. He turned his head over his right shoulder, his cheeks became flushed, and a sudden flash of the eye showed with what reluctance he retired before the fire directed upon him. No other course was left him, however, and he continued to ride slowly toward his inner line—a low earthwork in the suburbs of the city—where a small force was drawn up, ardent, hopeful, defiant, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the brain without any friction whatever. Both these results are unhealthy and injurious. A true natural and healthy act of sexual intercourse demands the excitement of brain, spinal cord, and every nerve in the body simultaneously, and resembles the lightning flash which restores the equilibrium of electric ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... true too!" she said, almost in surprise, "and mamma believed it would." And then, as by a flash, came back to her mind the time it was written; she remembered how when it was done her mother's head had sunk upon the open page; she seemed to see again the thin fingers tightly clasped; she had not understood it ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Tita, with a little flash of malice. She has been rubbed the wrong way a trifle too much for ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... loud man. "Here, misses. Get on the wheel. They'll never get ye if ye sit in the middle back to back." He jumped on to the wheel himself, and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the suggestion in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves under directions, dropping the megaphone. The wheel started, and the megaphone rattled across its smooth surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in, and hesitated; another ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... helm, and each man with his fellow, and the peaks of their head-pieces with crests of horse-hair touched as they bent their heads: so close they stood together. The murderous battle bristled with the long, flesh-rending spears they held, and the flash of bronze from polished helms and new-burnished breast-plates and gleaming shields blinded the eyes. Very hard of heart would he have been, who could then have seen that strife with joy and ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... God again for all his mercies. I am not proud; but my boy is the best boy in the whole neighborhood, and so smart! he reads in the biggest books; he does the most terrible long sums, almost like a flash of lightning—his schoolmaster is astonished at his quickness; his head is just as full as it can hold of learning, and his heart is just as full of love for his father and mother. (She falters, and the ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... I shine old Number One on any hexan work, one flash is all we'll take. See you at supper," and, leaving his superior at the door of the power room, Kromodeor wriggled away to his station upon the parallel horizontal ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... natural and sudden flash of indignation, which rushed through the veins of an ordinary man like Wildrake, was presently subdued, when confronted with the strong yet stifled emotion displayed by so powerful a character as Cromwell. As the cavalier looked on his dark and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... avenue on its way to the Capitol. Riding ahead is a squad of mounted police—big, brawny fellows, with glittering brass buttons. After them come the United States troops and naval forces, armed with their rifles and sabers that flash in the sunlight, and marching to the music of the famous Marine Band, while rumbling over the hard, smooth pavement of the avenue come the big cannons drawn by powerful horses. Then appears the chief marshal of the ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... and in the mainmast were Captain Ephraim Sayles and three more of his crew. At first glance they seemed lifeless; at first glance, indeed, they seemed nothing more than faded lengths of canvas. But an occasional lifting of a hand, a flash of a gray face, showed that they were men and that they still lived and hoped. Under them, over the deck raced the breakers, waist deep, each one a swift, excited trip-hammer. It was only the lumber that was holding the aged hull together. As it was, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... into a corner. I wish to save my mother—how it is to be done I don't know. And I wish to stop you getting the five thousand a year. I know how that is to be done," ended Miss Krill, with a cruel smile and a flash of her white, hungry-looking teeth; ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... youth continued his visits at night, according to custom [and retired in the morning]. One day in the season of spring, when the whole place was indeed charming, the clouds were gathering low, and the rain drizzling fell, the lightning also continued to flash [through the murky clouds], and the breeze played gently [through the trees]—in short, it was a delightful scene. When in the taks [177] the liquors of various colours, arranged in elegant phials, fell upon my sight; my heart ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... Then a dazzling flash fell from the cloud bank overhead and touched the grass. A stunning crash of thunder rolled across the sky, and the team plunged into a frantic gallop. Festing braced himself in a vain attempt to hold them, for the trail was half ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... Night with starred garments moved noiseless on high, When they felt a hot blast on the cool air draw nigh;— Did pinions infernal rejoicing sweep by? They beheld a wild flash o'er the firmament shine;— Came there aid from above,—a legation divine? There is fire on the mount, there is smoke in the air; The red flames shoot upward with bright, spectral glare; Men of Jacob, draw nigh, but like ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... other side was performing his half. Perfunctorily talking from group to group, conscious now and again of the lagging Clara or Harry, she could nevertheless keep a sly eye on the stranger's equal progress. The flash of jet, and the voluble, substantial shoulders of the lady so profusely introducing him, were an assurance of how that pilgrimage would terminate, since it was Ella Buller who was parading him. She even wondered before which of the florid pictures at the far, other end of the room, ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... heard afar the pant of the mysterious jinni. Before he or his companions descried the motor-boat, however, Gaston, rounding a sharp curve above the island of Umm-un-Nakhl, caught sight of the sweeps of the barge flashing in the moonlight. The unexpected view of that flash was not disagreeable to Gaston. For, as Gaston put it to himself, he was sad—despite the efforts of his friend, the telegraph operator at Ahwaz, to cheer him up. It is true that the operator, who was Irish and a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... become routine, we are shaking down. The very routine of life must every day flash a new attractiveness. We must be learning new things and discovering new joys in our daily routine or we become unhappy. If we go on doing just the same things in the same way day after day, thinking the same thoughts, our eyes glued to precedents—just ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... and hungry multitude within the town was indescribable. Night had fallen before the ships reached the boom. The lookout could no longer see and report their movements. Intense was the suspense. Minutes that seemed hours passed by. Then, in the distance, the flash of guns could be seen. The sound of artillery came from afar to the ears of the expectant citizens. But the hope which this excited went down when the shout of triumph rose from the besiegers as the Mountjoy grounded. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... War Correspondents interested me much. Beach Thomas, tall and dignified and grave; Philip Gibbs, short and bright and cheery: both very sympathetic to and appreciative of the Brigade. The other was a Dutch gentleman who told me with a flash of inspiration that I ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... perhaps a league distant, Jeremy saw two vague splotches of darkness. Then a sudden flame shot out from the smaller one, on the right. Seconds elapsed before his waiting ear heard the booming roar of the report. He looked for the bigger ship to answer in kind, but the next flash came from the right as before. This time he saw a bright sheet of fire go up from the vessel on the left, illuminating her spars and topsails. The sound of the cannon was drowned in an instant by a terrific explosion. Jeremy trembled on his rock. The ships were in darkness for a moment after ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly "Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them before ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... in my "signalling," but Prof., not yet asleep, spoke up saying he did not believe any Indians would bother us. Finishing the observations I put out the lantern, and settled in my blankets. At that instant there was the flash of a light through the trees and then it glowed steadily for a moment and went out. My nervous neighbour saw it too. "There," he cried, "an answer to your confounded signal!" Several saw it. "The evening star setting beyond the hill," they declared, derisively, but we two maintained ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When such a situation occurs, all has come to an end forever between certain beings. And yet those drops of rain were like a flash tearing through his brain. ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... in it grew blustering and gusty. Dark clouds came bundling up in the west; and now and then a growl of thunder or a flash of lightning told that a summer storm was at hand. Sam pulled over, therefore, under the lee of Manhattan Island, and coasting along came to a snug nook, just under a steep beetling rock, where he fastened his skiff to the root of a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... is told of a dinner party long ago where Judge Dunlop was a guest, when one of the other guests was making puns on the names of all those present. Judge Dunlop said, "You will not be able to make one on my name." Quick as a flash came back the rejoinder, "Just lop off the last syllable and ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Pascal, on the following day, helped Clotilde to make her preparations for her departure. Old Mme. Rougon was not to return until Sunday, to say good-by. When Martine was informed of the approaching separation, she stood still in dumb amazement, and a flash, quickly extinguished, lighted her eyes; and as they sent her out of the room, saying that they would not require her assistance in packing the trunks, she returned to the kitchen and busied herself in her usual occupations, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... one driven by carbonic-acid gas and three by steam-engines. One of the steam-driven models weighed thirty pounds, and on one occasion flew a distance of about three thousand feet. In 1913 an Englishman constructed a power plant weighing about two pounds which consisted of a flash boiler and single-acting engine. This unit employed benzolin, impure benzine, as fuel, and propelled a model plane ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... when she saw this streak of light flash out of the darkness of the loft door and disappear. Her eyes instinctively turned to look at Patsy in his place on the porch. Then a cry of horror burst from the crowd, silenced instantly as a piercing shriek ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... imperfection of the materials with which it has to act. Its sensitiveness approaches that of thought itself. I have a very small quantity of highest quality which I use on rare occasions and generally for experiments. A few days ago I caught with it this first flash of sunrise,—see, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... enthusiasts there were all of one mind, in a way; in close sympathy and quick to understand each other. A word, a look, a gesture expressed a thought. An allusion, a memory, an apt quotation suggested an idea which was clearly apprehended by ready listeners; and a flash of wit was instantly followed by a peal of mirth, echoed to ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... numbed but that, on occasion, they may be aroused into a life that still in part is real. Even now, when the touch-stone is applied—when the thrilling of some nerve of memory or of instinct brings the present into close association with the past—there will flash into view still quick particles of seemingly long-dead creeds or customs rooted in a deep antiquity: the faiths and usages which of old were cherished by the Kelto-Ligurians, Phoenicians, Grecians, Romans, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the Greek, which had been addressed to Buenos Ayres, to await arrival, and then I remembered in a flash, how Kara had told me he had sent George Gathercole to South America to report upon possible gold formations. I was determined to kill Kara, and determined to kill him in such a way that I myself would cover every trace ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Mrs. Alexander went on, "it must have been a flash of the distrust I have come to feel whenever I meet any of the people who knew Bartley when he was a boy. It is always as if they were talking of someone I had never met. Really, Professor Wilson, it would seem that he grew up among the strangest ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... opening in the leaves, the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or excrescence an a small branch. The hummingbird, unlike all others, does not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters it as quick as a flash, but as light as any feather. Two eggs are the complement. They are perfectly white, and so frail that only a woman's fingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In a week, the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... The clouds, still high, flew quickly over the sky, every now and again obscuring the sun and making everything of an even hue. Suddenly it would make its appearance again and brilliant patches of light would flash out once more through the branches, crossing and recrossing, a tangled pattern of light and shade. The roar of the trees seemed to be filled with a kind of festive joy, like to the violent joy with which passion breaks into a sad, troubled heart. It was just such a heart ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... after the dance?" he demanded. "It was here we sat, and you talked nonsense, and Rachel made little heaps of stones. I, on the other hand, had the whole meaning of life revealed to me in a flash." He paused for a second, and drew his lips together in a tight little purse. "Love," he said. "It seems to me to explain everything. So, on the whole, I'm very glad that you two are going to be married." He then turned round abruptly, without looking at them, and walked back to ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... murmured, with an answering flash of the eyes. "I am not sure," she went on, "that I care about these large parties, although I always like to come when Sir Frederick asks me. He is ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a sudden they found themselves on the highest pinnacle—the one of military fame—with Gates, Lee, Wayne, Greene and many other distinguished generals at their feet, the other of social prestige the observed of all observers! For a time Arnold's caprices had been looked upon as only the flash and outbreak of that fiery mind which had directed his military genius. He attacked religion; yet in religious circles his name was mentioned with fondness. He lampooned Congress; yet he was ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... and disaster are the price we pay for ignorance. Great victories have been won by knowledge. Galveston's sea-wall dared and defeated the hurricane, the levees of the Mississippi have held captive many a flood, and our myriad spears of defence have snatched at the power of the lightning flash and hurled it harmlessly to ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... although I had known that the daylight was growing and what was around me, I had scarce seen the things I had before noted so keenly; but now in a flash I saw all—the east crimson with sunrise through the white window on my right hand; the richly-carved stalls and gilded screen work, the pictures on the walls, the loveliness of the faultless colour of the mosaic window lights, the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... then, filled with hate, The blessed maiden with haste to fetch 35 To his bed of rest, laden with jewels, Adorned with rings. They quickly performed, The attendant thanes, what their lord them bade, Mailed-warriors' prince; like a flash they stepped Into the guest-room, where they Judith 40 Wise-minded found, and quickly then The warriors-with-shields began to lead The glorious maid to the lofty tent Where the mighty himself always[3] rested By night within, to the Saviour hateful, 45 Holofernes. There was an all-golden ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... his genealogies, his small ambition, his gout, his years, and be a boy again an hour or two in thought, and blood, and early fire. He made the women's bosoms pant and swell, and seem to aspire to be the nests and cradles of heroes, and their eyes flash and glisten, and their cheeks flush and grow pale by turns; and the four little papered walls that confined them seemed to fall without noise, and they were away in thought out of a carpeted temple of wax, small ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... enormous gates To which the world has given the name of Death; And note the least among yon knot of lights, And recognize your native orb, the earth! For we are spirits threading fields of space, Whose gleaming flowers are but the countless stars! But now, dear love, adieu—a flash from heaven— A sudden glory in the silent air— A rustle as of wings, proclaim the approach Of holier guides to take thee into keep. Behold them gliding down the azure hill Making the blue ambrosial with their light. Our paths are here divided. I must go Through other ways, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... on the spot, and now there was shattered my boyish contempt for all that was weak and gentle, however beautiful. The ideas which composed my mind rattled and tumbled about like the bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope, and in a flash they formed a softer and more harmonious design. The world was something more to me than a happy hunting-ground, life more than an exciting adventure. The world was the home of Gladys Todd; life was to win her love; happiness was to sit at ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... and smells at the other floors, but she won't get off until I stop at the right one. Sometimes she has to ride up and down three or four times before any one wants the sixteenth. Eh, Susan?" he added in caressing tones; but Susan was watching the floors flash past and paid no attention until, arrived at the top, she ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... see, and swift to take aim. He was cool of nerve, and so steady of aim that he rarely missed. It was summer, and he wore no shoes. He walked so lightly that he scarcely rustled a leaf. The partridges did not see him till he was close upon them, and then, before they could rise from their cover flash!—bang!—and ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... forest, but the woods were still enveloped in the obscurity of night; all was sombre and silent, though in the distance the feeble light was still glimmering over the tree tops. All at once it appeared for an instant to flash more brightly, as if offering a welcome to him who had no ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... past my eyes; there was a dreadful pressure on my brain, and a roaring as if of thunder in my ears. Yet, even in that dread moment, thoughts of eternity, of my sins, and of meeting with my God, flashed into my mind, for thought is quicker than the lightning flash. ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... confused with the medley of leaping lights and shadows; the ear was dazed with the clamour and uproar of cracking rifles, screaming bullets, and shattering bombs, the oaths and yells, the shouted orders, the groans and outcries of the wounded. Then from overhead came a savage rush and shriek, a flash of light that showed vivid even amidst the confusion of light, a harder, more vicious crash than all the other crashing reports, and the shrapnel ripped down along the line of the German trench that erupted struggling, hurrying ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the papers before me. Such a fantastic collection of words, lines, and epithets I had never before seen, or even in dreams imagined. In truth, they were like the work of dreams: they were Kubla Khan, only more so. Here and there was radiance like the flash of a diamond, but each poem, almost each verse and line, was marred by some fault or lack which seemed wilful perversity, like the work of an evil sprite. It was like a case of jeweller's wares set before you, with each ring ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... to the point was the duel that decided possession of the Orange Chief's fourth. The spectators had settled themselves for an interesting engagement of at least average duration when they were brought almost standing by a brilliant flash of rapid swordplay that was over ere one could catch his breath. They saw the Black Chief step quickly back, his point upon the ground, while his opponent, his sword slipping from his fingers, clutched his breast, sank to his knees ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quarree, it would be a comfort indeed. We would beguile our lingering hours with talking over our youthful exploits, our hunts on Peter's Mountain, with a long train of et cetera in addition, and feel, by recollection at least, a momentary flash of youth. Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently successful life, I find in no portion of it happier moments than those were. I think the old hulk in which you are, is near her wreck, and that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... his memorial dome in the gardens of University College. Here one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head in some confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he saw, deeply concealed in his bosom and disguised with a host of spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan |
