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Flickering   /flˈɪkərɪŋ/   Listen
Flickering

adjective
1.
Shining unsteadily.  Synonym: aflicker.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flickering" Quotes from Famous Books



... European archeologists are often guilty of the most ridiculous anachronisms. That, in fine, they have been hitherto furnishing History with an arithmetical mean, while ignorant, in nearly every case, of its first term! Nevertheless, the Asiatic student is invited to verify and correct his dates by the flickering light of this chronological will-o-the-wisp. Nay, nay. Surely "An English F.T.S." would never expect us in matters demanding the minutest exactness to trust to such Western beacons! And he will, perhaps, permit us to hold to our own views, since we know ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... movement leant forward and sideways to peer, bringing my face near to the boat's rail. In the same instant, I found myself looking down into a white demoniac face, human save that the mouth and nose had greatly the appearance of a beak. The thing was gripping at the side of the boat with two flickering hands—gripping the bare, smooth outer surface, in a way that woke in my mind a sudden memory of the great devilfish which had clung to the side of the wreck we had passed in the previous dawn. I saw the face come up towards me, and one misshapen ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... has witnessed a Manbo dance at night by the flare of fire and torch will not forget the scene. Squatted around in the semidarkness are the russet figures of the merry, primitive spectators, lit up by the flickering glare of the unsteady light, the children usually naked, and the men having frequently bared the upper parts of their bodies. In the center circles the dancer with his wealth of ornaments, advancing, retreating, and posturing. The drum booms, the gong clangs, and the dancer pounds the floor ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... up the spy-glass which I use in the study of birds, and have drawn Georgiana's face nearer to me, holding it there till she turns away. I have noted the traces of pain, and once the tears which she could not keep back and was too proud to heed. Then I have sat before my flickering embers, with I know not what all but ungovernable yearning to be over there in the shadowy room with her, and, whether she would or not, to fold my arms around her, and, drawing her face against mine, whisper: "What is it Georgiana? And ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen

... not in words but in actions. He crossed the room to the duke's desk and spread out his treasures under the flickering candlelight. The duke, with a cry of terror, sprang toward the secret drawer. His first thought was that the shoes and cloak, upon which only his eyes ever rested now, had been stolen. He straightened. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... With his fire-gold, flickering hair, In his blinding armor stand, And the scales were in his hand: Mighty were they, and full well They could poise both heaven and hell. 'Angel,' asked I humbly then, 'Weighest thou the souls of men? That thine office is, I know.' 'Nay,' he answered me, 'not so; But I weigh ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into the moonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presently returned with as many as ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... suns shone in brilliant points of light; no atmosphere here to dim them or cause a flickering. A bright point vanished as she looked—another!—and he knew abruptly that he was seeing a circle of blackness that moved slowly ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... sunshine was faint and flickering; the low, guttural notes of a rain-crow broke suddenly ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... John Jay's fright, he decided to remain. Had it not been for his protecting presence in the house, Mammy was so affected by the boy's story that she would have barred every opening. Then, cowering around one little flickering candle, they would have fed each other's superstitious fears until bedtime. George knew this, and so he stayed to reassure them by his matter-of-fact explanations, and his cheerful common sense. While he could not convince them that they had been ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which were those of truth, virtue, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... there he perceived a flickering light approaching him. The light was evidently that of an ordinary hand-lantern, and from the swinging motion it was easy to divine that it was being carried by some ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... from above like a shower of porphyry. For an instant they dared not step out, but stood inside the drift, waiting for what might happen and staring at each other with set faces exposed in the still flickering light. They had said nothing up to this time, being under too great stress to offer other than ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... half-past twelve, in a steep slope on his right, looming up black against the sky, he recognized Box Hill. Passing this at a moderate pace, which allowed them to take a good look-out, they saw in a minute or two a small red flame flickering in the midst of a dark expanse. Every second it grew larger as they approached; Smith did not doubt it was the bonfire which he had asked his friend Barracombe to kindle. Dropping to the ground within a few feet of the fire, which turned out to be of considerable dimensions, he ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... of the younger and fairer denizen of that sequestered abode) remained pensive and preoccupied; and when at her usual hour she had ascended to her chamber, instead of retiring to rest, she took up a tale of the troubadours, and read; nor did she lay down the volume till the sudden flickering of the candle in the socket and the simultaneous tolling from the distant belfry of the church of the village of Saint Laurent warned her that it was midnight. Then, feeling oppressed, alike with the heaviness of the atmosphere of her room, and a strange weight at her ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... on mats and carpets, was a large assembly, engaged in a rough but merry banquet. A fire blazed at their side, its red and uncertain flame mingling with the white and steady moonbeam, and throwing a flickering light over their ferocious countenances, their glistening armour, ample drapery, and ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcase of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs protruding through the skin, raven-torn; and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, surrounded on three sides by a chimney-like hollowness of polished ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... Krech, startled. He fumbled in his pocket, produced a match and struck it. "Mind if I light the lamp?" But the flickering flame of the match showed him a face so white and drawn that he caught his breath in sudden realization of the truth. He abandoned his idea of lighting the lamp and fumbled his way to a chair near the foot of the bed. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... drawn back, and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... effort. The result was that painters who under favourable circumstances might have done some meritorious work, became mere journeymen contented with the soulless insincerity of cheap effects. Giulio Romano alone, by dint of robust energy and lurid fire of fancy flickering amid the smoke of his coarser nature, achieved a triumph in this line of labour. His Palazzo del Te will always remain the monument of a specific moment in Renaissance history, since it is adequate to the intellectual conditions of a race demoralised ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... meet Mr. Twist before the steamer?" exclaimed the lady, the last of her smiles flickering out. "Not before the steamer, didn't you. Just a steamship acquaintance. Parents never ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... intoned the prayers for the dying. It was some time before the bishop found words with which to respond. He turned affrighted glances in supplication to his judges one after the other, but, not one face met his with even the consolation of mere pity. The torches, flickering in the wind, lent them, on the contrary, a savage and terrible expression. Then at last he mingled his voice with the voices that ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... I believe in the lofty destinies of America, and the events of the hour render the realisation of that destiny urgently necessary. In the Old World, civilisation is imperilled. America must cherish the flickering flame. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... dress. The girl had laid her head on her pillow again, looking up at the little pink silk rosette in the middle of the canopy, and she was sure that it had a much less sad look now than it had worn in the small hours by the flickering night light. This seemed quite natural to Ortensia, for the familiar little objects in a girl's own room have a different expression for every hour of her life, to sympathise with each joy and sorrow, great or small, and with every hope, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... passed through, and thrust the door behind him, then stood a moment looking round the vast apartment. If he was too late to avoid the springs of the baited trap, it was here that they should snap upon him. Yet all was still. A single lamp on a table in the middle of the vast chamber shed a feeble, flickering light, yet sufficient to assure him that no one waited here. He sighed relief, wrapped his cloak about him, and set out swiftly ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... ominously. It was quite dark—a premature darkness caused by the clouds that hung right across the sky. There seemed to be nobody on the move but himself; the street at Rodchurch was absolutely empty, the tobacconist's shop at the corner being alone awake and feebly busy, the oil lamps flickering in the puffs ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... and a tramp of feet on the stair without. Someone reeled staggering across the room, came a-scrabbling at the open casement and, as I leapt up, the door burst open and Joel Bym appeared flourishing a naked hanger and with Godby behind bearing a lanthorn, whose flickering light showed Adam, knife in hand, where he leaned panting against the wall, a smear of blood across his pallid face and with shirt and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... scratched at his collar as though it irritated him. Finally he slipped his fingers under the collar. "Suthin' got ketched in here," he said, unbuckling the strap. Tied inside the collar was a folded piece of paper. Sundown was about to throw it away when he reconsidered and unfolded it. In the flickering light of the fire he spread ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... Fred, screaming and terrified, began to recriminate. The pallid figure of the child on the table gave a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, to the sordid miseries of which the night air, coming in with a rush, chilling the group in their indoor dresses, and flickering the flame of the candles, added one other point of dismal accumulation. The child had dropped from his swing on the door, and was stunned with the fall. Both father and mother thought him dead in the excitement of the moment; but the ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... dally with the mooted question of the difference between realism and romanticism—in the perplexing mazes of which many a fine little talent has been snuffed out like a flickering taper in a gust of wind—there are a score or more volumes that you will find in any large library, in which the whole matter is thrashed out unsatisfactorily. However, if you wish to spend a half-hour profitably and pleasantly, read Robert Louis Stevenson's short chapter, A Note on Realism, to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... a low bush or two, a line of railings, a stone-paved street, and on the other side a long row of uniform yellow brick houses. The apartment itself was a modest chamber, containing a minimum of rented furniture and a flickering gas-stove. By a small caseful of medical treatises and a conspicuous stethoscope, the least experienced could see that ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... and now the storm seemed to gather apace, the lightning-flashes following each other so rapidly that very soon the booming rumble of the thunder became continuous, as did the blaze of the sheet-lightning, which was now flickering among the clouds in half a dozen places at once, bringing out into powerful relief their titanic masses, weirdly changing shapes, and varied hues, and converting the erstwhile Cimmerian darkness into a quivering, supernatural light, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... along the thoroughfares, the children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious fear mingled with contempt, "It's the idiot girl!"—Idiot—how much more of heaven's light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of Maine, with a little river running down to a bay winged with sailboats. There had been neighbors—quiet-spoken folk with something more real about them than most of today's rootless world knew. And there had been many visitors—men and women with minds like flickering sword-blades. ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... moment the flickering rays of the candle fell upon the window. Willie drew back the curtain. Snow was tightly banked up against ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... in the great palace all was confusion. Lights flashed from turret to guard-room, casting flickering shadows in the long passages, and gleaming on the gay liveries of the guard as it stood to arms in the gallery where Olympia and Armand had held hurried conversation. Below, the narrow postern opened hastily, and through the swaying and excited crowd pressed the Captain Destouches and his escort ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... the room for long after this. He came in from time to time to see if he were wanted. But there was very little for anyone to do. The flame of life was flickering to its close, and the practised eye of the physician knew that in another hour or two all ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... than a spectre. But once before the door, with Lefever close at hand, he pounded the cracked panels till the windows shook. Some time elapsed before there was any response. The pounding continued till a flickering light appeared at a window. There was an ill-natured colloquy, a delay, more impatience, and at length the ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... enter into these strange schemes, and exulted with vulgar glee at the thought of thus at length getting hold of the rascal. As Edward eyed him in the dusky glare of the hut, and saw his face with its brown and yellow features unsteadily lit by the flickering flames, he thought that this disgusting and to him hateful monster had never lookt so hideous before: a secret shudder crept over him when he thought of Rose, and that this was the confident and bosom friend ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... feather twisted around the reed, the missile spun far outward over the canyon, and dived through the vast reach of space, as if it were endowed with life and determined to seek out and pierce the intruders. The black eyes of the three warriors followed the arrow until it was only a flickering speck, far below them; but, before that moment arrived, they saw that it was speeding wide of the mark. When at last, the sharp point struck the flinty rock, and the missile doubled over upon itself and dropped harmlessly to the bottom of the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... approached Dick, spear in hand, she saw, gasping with terror, that the ropes were alive, and that they were flickering and rippling over his back. One of them bound his left arm to his side, but his ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... light of a flickering candle, Mr. D. Webster Opp partook of a frugal breakfast. The luxurious habits of the Moore household had made breakfast a movable feast depending upon the time of Aunt Tish's arrival, and in establishing the ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... Hagar could not shake off the strange feeling, and as she sat half dozing in her chair, with the dim lamplight flickering over her dark face, she fancied that the October wind, sighing so mournfully through the locust trees beneath the window, and then dying away in the distance, bore upon its wing, "'Lead us not into temptation.' Hagar, you have much need ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... staying on the hill tops during a storm). We passed all night on our airy perch among the rocks, half wet and the wind blowing strong. It was a darkish and cloudy night, rather cold. Watched the light die out of the stormy sky; the lightning flickering away to leeward; wet gleams from the plain where the water shone here and there; moaning and sighing of wind through rock and branch. We were relieved by Lancers in the morning and jogged back to Thornhill, where our little camp is, and I am writing this in the shade of ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... frigid outward barrier. But Arthur had been his father's pride and glory through life, and his name the last which John Pendennis had tried to articulate whilst he lay with his wife's hand clasping his own cold and clammy palm, as the flickering spirit went out into the darkness of death, and life and the world ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... story, and still more those who share the dangers, of a campaign feel that every incident is surrounded with a host of possibilities, any one of which, had it become real, would have changed the whole course of events. The influence of Fortune is powerfully and continually exerted. In the flickering light of conflict the outlines of solid fact throw on every side the vague shadows of possibility. We live in a world of 'ifs.' 'What happened,' is singular; 'what might have happened,' legion. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... flickering flame of the wick in an iron oil-lamp that rested in a niche of the wall exaggerating to ferocity the frown that topped ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... room was crowded when I reached it, and lit by three flickering candles. I felt I was back in the eighteenth century. There lay my poor uncle amidst indescribably tumbled bedclothes, weary of life beyond measure, weary and rambling, and the little clergyman trying to hold his hand ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... upon the hearth and the single candle flickering upon the mantel shelf, she sat in the lonely house and sipped her tea. Her well-worn black gown clung closely to her figure, and the white chiffon veil, thrown back, did not wholly hide her abundant hair. The horror of one night had ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... started across lots when he made a discovery that aroused his curiosity a little. There was a queer sort of light flickering beyond him. He quickly realized that some person must be walking the same way as he was, and carrying one of those useful little hand-electric torches, which he seemed to be moving this way and that in an ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... with her, and gave a start of surprise as he looked towards the machines. The great body of fire had died down now, but the beams of the machines stood up red and glowing, while a light flickering flame played ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... threatening hills, where the threat became a blow, and the blow was multiplied a million times. Gaunt, fighting men sought to appease the craving of starvation by the boiled carcasses of old horses; in caves and dug-outs, feeble women, with undying courage, kept alive the flickering fires of life in their children; and they smiled to cheer the tireless, emaciated warriors who went out to meet death, or with a superior yet careful courage stayed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... descended to 2475 feet, climbed again up to 6020 feet at Gangoli Hat, and re-descended by a steep incline to 2500 feet. The intense heat prevented me from walking at my usual pace, and I did not, therefore, reach my destination before sundown. Walking on in the dark, we saw the distant flickering forest fires crawling here and there like incandescent snakes along or up the mountain-side: these are caused by the igniting of the grass, shrubs, and undergrowth by the natives, the flames not unfrequently spreading and playing havoc among the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... kneel beside grand'mA"re's chair and looked again into the forest. The buds on the sweeping willows said "Yes"; the pale-green winding gauze through the tall trees whispered a promise. She stood up and held out her arms; she had faith in the forest; she believed what it said. Through a patch of flickering sunlight she thought she saw three forms moving toward the cottage. It was only the viburnum bushes dipping and swaying in the March wind, against the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... himself here, to avoid being watched, and when the huge nave was closed, and all the attendants had left, he rushed forward and flung himself at full length upon the tombstone which covers the vast royal vault. By the flickering light of the lamps, he mourned the passing hence of so accomplished a woman, murdered in the flower of her youth. He called her by name, telling her once more of his deep and fervent love. Next day, he wandered about in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... faced each other in silence, the flickering glare of the firelight painting grotesque expressions on their set faces. David's greater bulk loomed unnaturally large in the uncertain light, while every trained muscle of Sanderson's athletic body ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... the floor. It threw into ghastly relief the sprawled form of Dago Jim. Outside, from along the passageway, came a confused jangle of commotion—whispering voices, shuffling feet, the swish of Chinese garments. And the room itself began to spring into weird, flickering shadows, that mounted and crept up the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... roared hoarsely; and next morning, over an angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering masts waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, when the two Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did not exist, set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and bobbing in the ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... the greeting that came from one of the newcomers, as they came into the flickering light of the street lamp, near which Frank Sheldon and Bart Raymond were standing. "This is a dandy night to be ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... believe you try to be," sprang to his lips, but its utterance was prevented by a glance at her face, which by the flickering lamplight ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... night. A neighboring church clock slowly struck the hour. The flickering light of the two candles showed fitful phantom shadows in the lofty room. These were the ancestors of Charles, standing back dimly ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... head thoughtfully. 'I've lived too long in another sort of world; now I am coming to grips with real life, real men and women. There's a new set of rules to grasp. Well,' and he straightened his thin body and a flickering smile played over his lips, 'I can learn. As Barbee says of stud poker: "You've got to set tight and keep your trap shut and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... the very spirit and animated atmosphere of the street scenes of Naples; Campriani and Pratello are landscapists of note; Esposito, too, despite his Spanish name, is a Neapolitan marine painter whose work is often most arresting in its power to catch the flickering sunshine over blue water that bathes the rocks rising out of the sea,—these isles of the sirens from which float the ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... whirling, eddying smoke, another search along under the wall, and presently in the flickering light the rescuing pair came upon a barrier of barley-sacks, burning in places from huge flakes of fire falling from the blazing rafters of the overhanging shed, and behind this, senseless, suffocated, helplessly bound, two other forms. ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... by men who had themselves fought in the most stubborn of modern wars and who had seen what Irish regiments could do in the citizen levies of Federals and Confederates. It was spontaneous, and it was strong; the measure of its strength is given not by the few flickering outbreaks easily suppressed, but by the terror which it inspired, and by the change which it wrought in the spirit of the people. Moore when he took the step, extraordinary for a man in his position, of enrolling himself in that sworn and secret conspiracy can hardly have failed ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... a heap of filthy straw in one corner constituted its sole furnishing. Through a grating in the door came the flickering light of a lamp burning in the corridor, while outer air was admitted by a small iron-barred opening in one of the side walls some six feet above the floor. The place reeked with dampness, and, in spite of these openings, its air was foul and stifling. A few minutes after Ridge ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... will never forget him. Even those who are most virulent against Napoleon's memory, feel their wrath melt when they think of his son; and when at the Church of the Capuchins, in Vienna, a monk lights with a flickering torch the dark tomb of the great captain's son, who lies by the side of his grandfather, Francis II., who was at once his protector and his jailer, deep thoughts arise as one considers the vanity of political calculations, the emptiness of glory, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... corners had not yet been lighted. In front of one of those old-fashioned houses which belong to a former Paris a heavy iron lantern swung, creaking in the wind, and, battling with the darkness, shed flickering rays of light on the child who, with a faded red cotton shawl wrapped about her, was cowering in the deep doorway of the house. From time to time there would emerge from the whirling snowflakes the dark form of a man ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... buccaneer" was not living up to the full measure of his reputation in the dare-devil field, as Lidgerwood was not slow to observe. His replies to Miss Brewster and the others were not always coherent, and his face, seen in the flickering firelight, was almost ghastly. True, the talk was low-toned and fragmentary; desultory enough to require little of any member of the group sitting around the smouldering fire on the spur embankment. Death, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... a man strayed in the bogs. Mazed with fear he struggled on toward the flickering light that looked like help and safety. And when the poor Moon saw that he was coming nigher and nigher to the deep hole, farther and farther from the path, she was so mad and so sorry that she struggled and ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... slightly and the crumpled ball rolled into the blaze of the fire. She watched the flickering flame leap up, and die down, then she turned to her ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... He looked below. He saw two flickering lights, rather far apart. Mr. Whitford observed them ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... in his hands, it occurred to P. Sybarite to wonder if he did not, in it, hold a valuable clue to this riddle of identity. Promptly he took the hat indoors to find out, investigating it most thoroughly by the flickering, bluish glare of the lonely gas-jet ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... called. "I got ter walk." Turning his back upon temptation, he waddled forward into the flickering heat waves. ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... this, and instinctively drew nearer my side so that our heads almost touched over the flickering flame from whose heat and light we sought courage. She seemed to feel grateful for this contact, and the next minute, flinging all her scruples to the wind, she began a relation of events which more or less ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... the hills in their terrible ire, And speed by the woodlands and water; They look down the hills at the flickering fire, All eager and thirsty for slaughter. Lo! the stormy moon glares like a torch from the vale, And a voice in the belah grows wild in its wail, As the cries of the Wanneroos swell with the gale— Oh! rouse ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... The passage lay straight for perhaps three hundred yards. There it turned abruptly; and the corner thus formed was one blaze of flickering but brilliant light which flowed ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... and fires, which were lighted everywhere, gave a little protection against the biting cold. It was a beautiful sight—the wide plain, with its numberless, blazing, flickering fires, surrounded by groups of cheerful soldiers, their fresh faces glowing with the light of the flames. In the distance the moon rose grand and full, illuminating the scene with its silver rays, and blending its pale shimmer ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... the foot of the mountain was a river, white and cold and still; and beyond it was a smooth and barren plain, lying silent and lonely in the pale moonlight. But in the distance was seen a circle of flickering flames, ever changing,—now growing brighter, now fading away, and now shining with a dull, cold light, like the glimmer of the glow-worm or the fox-fire. And as Siegfried gazed upon the scene, he saw the dim outline of some hideous monster moving hither and thither, and seeming all the more ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... guests affirmed that Colonel Joliffe's black puritanical scowl threw a shadow round about him, although, in spite of his sombre influence, their gayety continued to blaze higher, like—an ominous comparison—the flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her. She seemed to pay no heed. Silent and straight she stood there on the steps of ice, her figure in dark relief against the background of flickering lights. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... think that The Lady Mother, in spite of the wild improbability of the plot and the poorness of much of the comic parts, is our author's best work. In such lines as the following (IV., 1) there is a little flickering of pathos:— ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... long fulness draping to the floor, and in the centre of the polished top of the table rested a tall, silver candlestick with lighted taper. Upon the hearthstone there shot up a cheerful blaze, for the night was damp and chilly, and the flickering light sent Mistress Penwick's hair first amber, then bronze. Her face was still and white, and her eyes flashed wide and boldly. Her heart beat high and her ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktmee [72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight, With a flickering torch in his hand, to decoy to his den the unwary. His tongue could they not understand, but his torn hands all shriveled with famine, He stretched to the hunters and said: "He feedeth his chosen with manna; And ye are the angels of God, sent to save me from death ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... longing on the woman's face as the light of the flickering lantern fell on it would haunt ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... bell, which was a small one, by the handle, and started down the corridor, a scowl on his face, as the boys could see by a flickering gaslight, as they were hidden ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... many a tale had the pair so gone through. I can see them over "Manfrone; or the One-handed Monk," the room dark, the street silent, the hour ten, the tall, red, lurid candlewick waggling down, the flame flickering pale upon Miss Caroline's pale face as she read out, and lighting up honest Becky's goggling eyes, who sat silent, her work in her lap; she had not done a stitch of it for an hour. As the trapdoor slowly opens, and the scowling ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Latin exorcism against the intrusion of evil spirits into the body, commanding those only of a heavenly and benign influence to attend. He lighted a taper compounded of many strange ingredients emitting a fragrant odour, and as the smoke curled heavily about him, flickering and indistinct, he looked like some necromancer about to perform ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... alive enough," said I. "I wonder if you are. It looks to me much more like living, to make beds and boil puddings and stitch shirts, than to sit on a sofa in a satin gown, flickering a fan and ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... the colonnade now reached, Pollux awaited his daughter;—the first point of danger was happily passed. Pollux now pointed to a broad, covered passage to the right, lighted by lamps, of which some had already burnt out, and others were flickering. Zarah saw at the further end forms of men dimly visible. The guards, weary with the long night-watch, were apparently sleeping; for they appeared to be half sitting, half reclining on the pavement, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... Transport Farm. Sure enough there was a terrific bombardment for half an hour. It was the first of the kind that I had seen, and I believe that at least 500 guns of all calibres were collected for the occasion. The whole of the landscape seemed to be alight, every hedge flickering with flame; whilst away towards the 'Bluff' there was a sullen red glare where our shells were bursting. Nothing further happened that night. But at dawn next morning the 3rd Division attacked the 'Bluff' without bombardment ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... returned in the course of an hour, bringing with them the articles already signed by Coulon-Villiers, and awaiting only Colonel Washington's ratification. Vanbraam read them aloud by the light of a flickering candle, and we listened in silence until he had finished. They were better than we could have hoped, providing that we should march out at daybreak with all the honors of war, drums beating, flags flying, and match lighted for our cannon; that we should take with us our baggage, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... The flickering weird light of the distant street lamps, the noise and confusion, the odors and curses filled him anew with a desire to flee, but he would not let himself turn back. Never had Michael turned from anything that was his duty from fear or ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... all that she could do to hold herself erect and come back into the more open cave. Jarrold and Benny and the men after them came to a dead halt and stared at her. In the flickering half-light she ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... folded arms glaring down at the bound and manacled figure on the floor, to the smoke-stained rafters of this peasant cottage and the dancing shadows on the roof, to that terrible hour of waiting when he sat bound to a post with a candle flickering and spluttering lower and lower to the little heap of gunpowder that would start the trail toward the clumsy infernal machine under his chair. He remembered the day well because it was Candlemas day, and this was the anniversary. He remembered other ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... voices. The lynx made several convulsive bounds, wrenching desperately to free his imprisoned limb; then, recognizing the inevitable, he crouched again, shuddering but dangerous, his tufted ears flattened upon his back, his eyes flickering green, every tooth and claw bared for the last battle. But the carcajou merely stiffened up her fur, in a rage at the prospective interruption of her hunting. She knew well that the dreadful, melancholy cry was the voice of the wolf-pack. ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... they who watch by sick-beds find relief Unwittingly from the great stress of grief And anxious care in fantasies outwrought From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why They scarcely know or ask,—so, thou and I, Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... wooden shovel Abraham was able to work his sums by the flickering firelight. If he had no pencil, he could use charcoal, and probably did so. When it was covered with figures he would take a drawing-knife, shave it off clean, and begin again. Under these various disadvantages, and by the help of such troublesome expedients, Abraham Lincoln ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... light was flickering far back in the darkness, and they went up to it. It was a lamp burning in a shell on the pedestal of a statue which wore the cap of the Kabiri. Its long blue robe was strewn with diamond discs, and its heels were fastened to the ground by chains which sank beneath the pavement. Matho suppressed ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... her mouth hung open and her eyes were dilated. She gasped for breath, pointed towards the visitors' house, and then sank senseless to the ground. The missionary returned to the dining-room, seized a candle, and walked quickly down the shrubbery path, the flame of the candle hardly flickering in the breathless night air. There was the body, a huddled mass, lying on its face, with the arms stretched out at right angles, and the palms of the bands turned upwards. A trickle of blood ran down the slope for a few inches, and then formed a pool. The poor old man stood for ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... body down into the opening. He saw the flame flickering over the surface of the sphere as the ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham

... be thou art the last To fade before my watchful gaze; So short the part that each one plays, A flickering flame, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... of a prolonged sojourn in bed, Larry used to find himself looking forward to the conversations between Nurse Brennan and Mrs. Mangan that arose at tea-time, and followed, stimulated by the early darkness of January, in the firelight; the southern voices rising and falling like the flickering flames, becoming soon self-engrossed, and forgetful of the silent listener in the bed. Sometimes sleep would lap him in slow, stealthy peace, and the voices would die away, or come intermittently, as the sound of a band marching through a town ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... when they were so hideous by day. Even the railway bridge at Charing Cross seemed to be beautiful in the dusk, and when a train rumbled across it, sending up clouds of lit smoke from the funnel of the engine and making flickering lights as the carriages rolled past the iron bars of the bridge-side, it seemed to him to be a very wonderful and appealing spectacle. His fidgettiness fell from him as he contemplated the swift river ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... late now: nothing could be gained by crushing the flickering vitality from that aged, pinkish husk. It was, Gordon dimly realized, a greater power than that contained by a single individual, by Valentine Simmons, that had beaten him. It was a stupendous and materialistic force against the metallic sweep of which he had cast himself in vain—it ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Eld, with wonder of delicate transition and change of key, that one could almost fancy the music of its exquisite organ had been at work informing the building, half melting the sutures, wearing the sharpness, and blending the angles, until in some parts there was but the gentle flickering of the original conception left, all its self-assertion vanished under the file of the air and the gnawing of the worm. True, the hand of the restorer had been busy, but it had wrought lovingly and gently, and wherein it had erred, the same influences ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... old original pioneers, I think. I disremember exactly what he is celebrated for, but I believe it was flying a—oh, yes! flying a kite, that's it. The publisher mentioned it. He was out one day flying a kite, you know, like boys do nowadays, and while she was flickering up in the sky, and he was giving her more string, an apple fell off a tree and hit him on the head, and then he discovered the attraction of gravitation, I think they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or me'd a been ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... chance of taking a good look at his new friend. The old tar was certainly well worth looking at. Tall, broad-shouldered, active, with his brown hard face framed in iron-gray hair and beard—a pleasant twinkle in the keen blue eyes that looked out from beneath his bushy brows, and a kindly smile flickering over his rugged features ever and anon, like sunshine upon a bare moor—he looked the very model of one of those sturdy old sea-dogs who held their own against England's stoutest "hearts of oak" in the old days ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... ante-room opening into the drawing-room and looking on the courtyard, and gazed thence at those three pictures, as if it were all a delirament, till out of them Effie stepped in person, and danced, trilling to herself, through the groups, flashing, sparkling, flickering, and disappeared. Oh, but Mrs. Strathsay's eyes gleamed in a proud ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... one, and as the sun was sinking in the sky Commodore Dewey, peering through his glass, caught the faint outlines of Corregidor Island, and dimly beyond the flickering haze revealed the Spanish fleet in the calm bay. The Commodore had been in that part of the world before, and while waiting at Hong Kong had gathered all the knowledge possible of the defences of Manila. He knew the fort was powerfully fortified ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... Captain's married sister, who had come from town for the dance, and her husband. The husband's an earl—Lord Knaresbrook; rather old; but Lady Knaresbrook is young, frightfully pretty, and knows it. She flirted fascinatingly at dinner with Sir Lionel; not as Mrs. Senter flirts, flickering her eyelashes, saying smart things as if to amuse him alone, and hang everyone else!—but just looking at him, with gorgeous, starry eyes; asking a question now and then, and listening with all her soul. I'm not sure it isn't an equally effective way, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness, but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... The flickering, fitful light of the torches stuck in the ground behind them played upon two white faces from which had fled the zeal and fervor of the moment before, leaving ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... But the firelight flickering in the hall caught ever an answering gleam from the old Wolf's eyes as he lay there gray, shaggy, and watchful. From time to time his bony fingers plucked restlessly at his beard, and now and again his lips stretched back over yellow teeth in an evil ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... stood near that bed so that the circle of light scarcely reached the pillow of the deathbed, from which the sallow countenance of the sick woman stood out like a figure of Christ imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... into the stiffening limbs, and the brain shall be stunned and the thoughts stifled, there shall come to the tongue a name, a name not mentioned aloud for years—there shall come a name; and as the last flickering rays of life flare up to go out on earth forever, the tongue will speak this name that was long, long ago burned into the soul by the passion of a love that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... wildernesses of unbroken firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,—diminished to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out, leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,—for, often as I had seen the sun set in the mountains ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... time he found himself in front of Marylebone Church. The silent roadway looked like a long riband of polished silver, flecked here and there by the dark arabesques of waving shadows. Far into the distance curved the line of flickering gas-lamps, and outside a little walled-in house stood a solitary hansom, the driver asleep inside. He walked hastily in the direction of Portland Place, now and then looking round, as though he feared that he was being followed. At the corner of Rich Street stood two men, reading a small ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... year, she watched with an anguish of spirit that paled her cheek, and stole away the brightness from her eye, the slow, but sure progress of the destroyer. Alas! how did hope fail—fail—fail, until it lived in her bosom but a faint, feeble, flickering ray. At last she ventured to remonstrate, and met with anger and repulse. When this subsided, and her husband began to reflect more deeply upon his course, he was humbled in spirit, and sought to heal the wound his ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... completing a History of the Thirty Years' War, as the grand consummation of his historical labors,—for which all his other volumes seemed to him to have been but the preludes and overtures, —might still be accomplished. But such hopes, faint and flickering from his first attack, had well-nigh died away. They were like Prescott's hopes of completing his 'Philip the Second,' or like Macaulay's hopes of finishing his brilliant ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering. The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the further extremity of some long vista through the forest. The sportive sunlight—feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... abroad, unless perhaps Sweden: for every one of them (except Sweden and ourselves) has suffered, from time to time, invading armies, and the unspeakable horrors of war. In some of them the light of the Gospel has been quenched utterly, and in others it lingers like a candle flickering down into the socket. By horrible persecutions, and murder, and war, and pillage, have those nations been tormented from time to time; and who are we, that we should escape? Certainly from no righteousness of our own. Some may say, It is our great wealth which has made us strong. My friends, ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... went down, and its flickering flame no longer illuminated the room. The soft light of the lamp did not extend very far, and the screen, which was tall and dark, threw the sofa on which Nan lay into deep shadow. The rug completely covered the lower ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... reigning in the abbey church of Scone. The sun shining in that full flood of glory we sometimes find in the infant spring, illumined as with golden lustre the long, narrow casements, falling thence in flickering brilliance on the pavement floor, its rays sometimes arrested, to revolve in heightened lustre from the glittering sword or the suit of half-mail of one or other of the noble knights assembled there. The rich plate of the abbey, all ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... they descended a few steps. The passage grew narrower; the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and presently they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and Dick, looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... turned upon William Leadbury, swaying back and forward with one hand clinging to the big chair, as if ready to swoon. A sickly, cringing grin played over his face, suddenly come all a-yellow, and his long tongue was flickering over his pale lips. But all at once his muscles sprang tense and a malignant anger tightened his quivering features and turning ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto always found empty, seemed ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the cold became so keen that I rose and went to the side of a flickering fire. Here excessive misery was for a moment hardening the hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners were quarreling for a position nearest the embers, each angrily claiming that he had brought the fagots that were burning! Two ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... cheerless, forsaken life, and recalled to her halting memory the long past days when her husband told her tales of hunting and fishing as she sat, a young and pretty girl, at her spinning wheel in the light of the flickering "tallow-dip." ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... planted at each end. It was balmy, and we sat in our shirts, the bosoms open for the breeze, the count with his gorgeous Japanese god shining upon his ivory breast, and the round glass in his eye. The tattooed skeleton upon his forearm was uncanny in the flickering light, the black shadows of the eyes seeming to open and close as ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien



Words linked to "Flickering" :   unsteady, aflicker



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