"In a flash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impermeable? And then, doffing one's own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment some one's—any one's—to be a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd pipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no—we must choose. Never was there a harsher necessity! or one which entails greater pain, more certain disaster; for wherever I seat myself, I die in exile: Whittaker in his lodging-house; Lady ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... whip me.' Then once more heroic, 'As in a flash Ginevra and I saw that there was only one way to save you. I must go to his chambers, and force him to ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... felt unequal to the occasion. He knew in a flash what arms portended among these foreign devils. But it was too late to do much to forestall it. One speeder load was gone, and the second was emptying fast. He might frighten the silent porters away and perhaps ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... speaker, this. When the mind is at rest its surface is alive with vivid images which have settled on it like sea birds on a rock, but the moment any one of these detects an approach on our part, in order that we may examine it carefully, its wings are spread, and in a flash it is gone. When, however, we use a simile in order to describe something which is obviously our main concern (say the color of a Mediterranean bay), the thing which we are anxious to describe acts as a kind of stalking-horse, which enables ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... out. In a moment a bright gleam passed over her face and she began to answer the question slowly. Feeling more confident, she went on explaining the matter, and suddenly went wrong. She caught herself at once and in a flash corrected it and gave the ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... in which every day was tedious, and when they were gone it was as if they had gone in a flash. But now Mr. Polly had good looks no more, he was as I have described him in the beginning of this story, thirty-seven and fattish in a not very healthy way, dull and yellowish about the complexion, and with discontented wrinklings round his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... "for a fat young buck, But never a touch I had of luck; And still I wandered and wandered on Till all the best of the day was gone; When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame Full over the ridge a green head came, A green head flapped with a snarling lip, And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip. I own I didn't stand long at bay, But I cast my arrows and bow away, And I cast my coat, and I changed my ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... of crushing their foes by arrow fire, a Babylonian's war club had dashed upon his helmet. The stout bronze had saved him from wound, but under the stroke strength and consciousness had left him in a flash. The moment after he fell, the soldier beside him had perished by a javelin, and falling above the Athenian made his body a ghastly shield against the surge and trampling of the battle. Glaucon lay scathless but senseless ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... in the eye with his honest, clear gaze that showed no sowing of wild oats, no dissipation or desire to get away from friendly espionage. He decided in a flash of a thought that this man should never know the blow his beautiful, haughty wife had dealt him. It was true, all she had said, and he, Michael, would give the real reason why ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... of primitive poetry running through the entire Irish race, a fleeting lyrical emotion which expresses itself in a flash, usually in connection with love of country and kindred across the sea. I had a touching illustration of it the other morning. The despot who reigns over our kitchen was gathering a mess of dandelions on the rear lawn. It was one of those blue and gold days which seem especially to belong New England. ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Nature. "Reddy Fox, Old Man Coyote, Hooty the Owl and various members of the Hawk family have to be watched for by him. But they do not worry him much. You see he moves so quickly, dodging out of sight in a flash, that whoever catches him must be quick indeed. Then, too, he is almost always close to good cover. He delights in old stone walls, stone piles, brush-grown fences, piles of rubbish and barns and old buildings, the places that Mice delight ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... relish the stares which would follow them, but he could see no way out of the difficulty. They went into the room and seated themselves, Montague wondering in a flash whether Mr. Gamble's arms would be long enough to reach to the table in ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... eaten in silence; then Quonab smoked for an hour, both staring into the fire. A barred owl hooted and laughed over their heads, causing the dog to jump up and bark at the sound that ordinarily he would have heeded not at all. Then silence was restored, and the red man's hidden train of thought was in a flash revealed. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... from his lips in a hoarse cry that echoed through the hushed chapel, and silenced the voice of the priest? He never knew. But a faint color swept into her cheeks. Her eyelids trembled. In a flash the rose-garden at La Glorieuse was before him; he saw the turquoise sky, and heard the mellow chorus of the field gang; the smell of damask-roses was in the air; her little hand was in his ... he saw her coming swiftly towards him across the dusk of the old ballroom; her limpid innocent eyes were ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... all at once there was silence in the wilderness, and nothing to be seen save the hunters and the still, brown figures among the rocks and bushes. To Paul it was wonderful, this melting away of the battle, and this disappearance of the foe, all in a flash. He rubbed his eyes, and could scarcely believe that it was real. But there were the still, brown figures, and by a tree near him lay another still figure, in hunting shirt and leggings, with his face upturned to the sky. One of the hunters had been ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dismay. But Mrs. Thaddeus was thoroughly of her husband's mind. What he had been, as she knew from his letters, and what she found him now, passed through her mind in a flash. She was modest enough, but not squeamish; and the honest face of "Cobbler" Horn was one which no woman, under the circumstances, need have hesitated to kiss. So, in a moment, to the amusement of the crowd, to the huge delight ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... to be supposed that by such observant eyes as Gwenda's, the Garthowen car, with the waiting Ann and the old man hovering about, had escaped unnoticed. Nay! To her quick perception the whole event revealed itself in a flash of intuition. They were waiting there for Will. He had disappointed and wounded his old father, but at the same moment she saw that the slight had been unintentional; for as the carriage dashed by the waiting car, she saw in Will's face a look of surprise and distress, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... upon the mob of anxiously listening people who were crowding round the two men, and galvanised them into sudden, breathless activity; hitherto they had only vaguely realised that what had happened might possibly mean danger to them; now, in a flash, it dawned upon them, one and all, that they were the victims of a ghastly disaster, and that death was actually staring them in the face! And therewith a mad, unreasoning panic took possession of them, and with one accord they made a rush for ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... In a flash Mortimer Sprague electrified not only his assailants, but all the stage passengers, by producing a couple of revolvers, which he pointed at the two road agents, and in a stern voice, wholly unlike the affected tones in which he had hitherto spoken, said: "Get out of ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... in, appeared a few minutes later along the empty lane carrying his tackle and an apparently empty gunny sack, and trudged unheedingly past the automobile and its occupant. As he went by, Barney had a sudden sense of recognition. Then, in a flash, his mind jumped ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... he had said. Seth's remark had, in his own way of thinking, "struck him all of a heap." He realized in a flash where his blundering had led him. He had run past himself in his enthusiasm, and given Ma's little scheme away, and, for the moment, the enormity of his offence robbed him of the power of speech. However, he pulled himself together ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... felt the pressure of the knees, understood the command, and ablaze with rage, charged like a cyclone for the other horse. In a flash he crashed into the animal, hurling him sidelong to the earth and rolling him completely over from the terrific ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... this somehow, cabby!" He heard familiar tones, saw the speaker, Sir Charles, and, by his side—yes, through the curtain of fog, so near he could almost reach out and touch her, he saw as in a flash, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... And then, in a flash, it seemed, her brain responded to her despairing cry. There was still a way—a desperate one—but still a way—if there was time! She darted inside the garret, locked the door, found the matches and candle, and, running silently to the rear wall, pushed up the board in the ceiling. In frantic haste ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... splendid piece of painting," said Stephanie cordially, and turned quietly to a portfolio of drawings at her elbow. She had let her fleeting glance rest on Neville for a second; had divined in a flash that he was enduring and not courting their examination of this picture; that, somehow, her accidental discovery of it had displeased him—was ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... father she had been assured that negotiations would be dropped. This man, the meaning of the decoration of the rooms with gay Autumn blossoms of yellow and purple; this was to be her betrothal and she had not been told. In a flash, it was revealed to her that it was a result of her refusal to do homage to the gods that morning. Very well, she would suffer the consequences bravely. But, in the house to which she was to go, she would never bow down to the ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... Manson hesitated, then, in a flash, saw through the breed's assumption of indifference. Clark had been looking for iron for more than a year. All St. Marys knew that. Now, glancing covertly at the angular projectings of the bulging sack, the constable jumped to his conclusion. Fisette had found it and was on his ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... with which one thinks of some one once loved but long since dead; and now this place, idleness in this soft place, had thrown her back to the wretched state she had climbed so carefully out of years ago. Why, if Frederick did come she would only bore him. Hadn't she seen in a flash quite soon after getting to San Salvatore that that was really what kept him away from her? And why should she suppose that now, after such a long estrangement, she would be able not to bore him, be able to do anything ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... hand. But suddenly she stood up, tense and quaking. Her dilated eyes were fixed upon a point in space, from which an overwhelming impression had rushed in upon her—a flood of distant emotion, a sort of voiceless cry, in a flash traversing half the earth and ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... landed, light as a dancing master, despite his bulk, had stooped, turned in a flash with his right hand clamped about the right wrist of Russell, bowing his back, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... upon the balcony—and in a flash he comprehended everything. These idiotic, fighting gluttons of gulls had actually pointed out to him the object of his search. It was Lady Cressage who stood in the doorway, there just below him—and her companion, the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... she grew confused, alarmed, and extremely ashamed. Her mood had changed in a flash. It seemed to her that she was in presence of a disgraceful disaster, which she herself had brought about by wicked and irresponsible temerity. She was like a child who, having naughtily trifled with danger, stands aghast at the calamity which his perverseness has caused. She was positively affrighted. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... great wave, men and horses rolling in the road. Through the smoke one saw the grey-haired leader —dismounted, his uniform torn, his hat gone, but still brandishing his sword and calling his orders to his men, his face as one caught in a flash of sunlight, steady and fearless. His words I could not hear, but one saw the American cavalry, still unbroken, dismount, throw themselves behind their horses, and fire with steady aim into the mass of the Mexicans. We could see the Mexicans in front of where ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... down; and by the time we had done that we should be miles away from the spot where the skipper had gone overboard, without any certain, definite knowledge as to the precise direction in which to look for him. Therefore, all these circumstances coming to my mind in a flash, I jumped to the wheel and helped Chips to put it hard up again, luckily managing to get the little hooker before the wind once more with no further damage than the loss of a studdingsail-boom and the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... overcoat which made him even bigger. From the first moment, Jimmie watched this man as a fascinated rabbit watches a snake. The little Socialist had had so much to do with policemen and detectives in his hunted life that he knew in a flash ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... and felt instinctively for the revolver in his hip pocket, but in a flash the muzzle of the Jap's gun was pointed straight at him and mechanically he obeyed the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death. As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity. He seemed to remember it all,—the white woods, and earth, and moonlight, and the thrill of battle. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... chosen well his part,—Mercutio,—that graceful frolic of fancy, which less requires sustained intellectual power than the exaltation of animal spirits,—that brief sunburst of life, that brilliant bubble of character, which reflects, for a moment, a world of beauty and sparkle, and dies in a flash of wit, yet leaves on the mind a want, a tender regret, which follow one through all the storm ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... already he had begun to pant and falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride, clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as his ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a sort of feeling that you get when you look at a man; either you're his master or you aren't. You see it in a flash." ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... within her secret heart there was rapidly developing a respect for this man, who with such calm assurance won his own way. He was strong, forceful, brave,—Homeric virtues of real worth in that hard life which she knew best. All this swept across her mind in a flash of revelation while she stood alone, her eyes endeavoring vainly to peer into the gloom. Then, suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... higher and overflowed again; and then it broke loose in a crash like imminent thunder—the cloudburst had conquered the Gorge. It went through it and over it, spreading out on its sloping sides; and when the worst crush seemed over it washed higher yet and came through with an all-devouring surge. In a flash the whole creekbed was a mass of mud and driftwood, which swashed about and swayed drunkenly on; and, as great tree-boles came battering through, the jamb broke abruptly and spewed out a sea ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... person in the world who could cure his daughter should be her husband and his heir. When Pedro told his companions the news, they at once decided to go to that kingdom. They seated themselves on the carpet, and were transported in a flash to the king's palace. After they had been led into the room of the sick princess, Pablo took his tube and blew through one end of it into her nose. She immediately opened her eyes, sat up, and began to talk. Then, as she wanted to dress, the three ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... wish - Hullo! you've done it now, my boy!' And, in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of golden carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side, and poured a flood of mixed water and goldfish into the Baby's lap and into the ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... More and more often, when he first wakened in the morning or when he stepped into a warm place after being chilled on the deck, he felt a sudden painful delight at being nearer another shore. Sometimes when he was most despondent, when he thought himself worn out with this struggle, in a flash he was free of it and leaped into an overwhelming consciousness of himself. On the instant he felt that marvelous return of the impetuousness, the intense excitement, ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... in a flash. Dink made a dive for him but Polly grabbed her skirt and the moment's delay gave Peter a good start. Dink turned, gave Polly a wicked slap on her cheek, jerked her skirt from her grasp and flew down the walk after Peter. ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... was the most expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the pale, the thin: "Well, I think people have a right to their own bodies, even when they're dead." Coming from a daughter of Nicholas, a Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling remark—showing in a flash what a lot of water had run under bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in '86, just when the proprietorship of Soames over his wife's body was acquiring the uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia, of course, spoke like a child, and had no experience; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... out of breath. In a flash, Austin realized, first, that she had been lonely and neglected in the midst of the good times that all the others had been having; realized, too, that he had never before seen her so full of vitality and enthusiasm; and then, that, without being even conscious of it, she ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... impress on the blotter on this desk one morning about ten days after the tragedy, and at once recognized it as my father's writing. In a flash I understood the situation; my father himself had returned, had been in these rooms, and had had an interview with his brother! I knew of the marked resemblance between them, and at once questioned, How had that interview ended? Who was the murdered man? Who was the murderer? That ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... was friendly and frank. Sarah stretched out her hand to meet that of Nan and in a flash a handcuff snapped over her wrist. With a cry she drew back, but a dextrous twist of her opponent's free hand prisoned her other wrist and she at once realized that ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... the cry from Clarissa's lips, and drove the mad merriment from her face. Not, indeed, because she was forced to behold the former genius of the woods and wilds bound and shattered, but because she recognized as in a flash of lightning that that hand could not have wielded a murderous knife, that such a deed did not touch the circle of his being, even if he may have been capable of the act, and that all was in vain, an incomprehensible intoxication and madness, an impenetrable ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... silent, and therefore doubly powerful and critical. She felt all the unfairness of the claim which her mother tacitly made to her time and sympathy, and what Mrs. Hilbery took, Katharine thought bitterly, she wasted. Then, in a flash, she remembered that she had still to tell her about Cyril's misbehavior. Her anger immediately dissipated itself; it broke like some wave that has gathered itself high above the rest; the waters were resumed into the sea again, and Katharine felt ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... of the Shetlands. When the ladies at length rose to leave the dining-room his brain was in a whirl and he had little doubt that his temperature was up to 104. Nevertheless his mind was still active, was indeed preternaturally acute for the moment, and he saw in a flash the impossibility of leaving Madame Sagittarius alone with his grandmother and Lady Julia. As they got up from their seats he therefore took out ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... out at the yellow evening light that coated the hedges, trees, and church tower, a brougham rolled round the corner of the lane, and came in full view. It reflected the rays of the sun in a flash from its polished panels as it turned the angle, the spokes of the wheels bristling in the same light like bayonets. The vehicle came nearer, and arrived opposite Owen's door, when the driver pulled the rein and gave a shout, and the panting and ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Algernon knew himself to be accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a flash, with never a "thank ye" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hands, instinctively, and at that moment each arm was at once caught and held up for a second or two. It was all done in a flash. Jack knew that some boisterous fellow had jammed his hat over his eyes, and that others had hustled him a little; but he had not been hurt, and he did not feel like quarreling, just then. He pushed along through the throng, and was getting out to ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... where I was. Everything seemed to be aching and throbbing at once. I tried to move, but I felt as if I was clamped to the bed. "This is terrible," I thought, "I must be having a nightmare." Then I saw the cradle covering my legs. "What could it be?" I wondered, and then in a flash the scenes of that morning (or was it a week ago?) came back to me. I wondered if my back was all right and felt carefully down the side. No, there was no bandage, and I sighed with relief, though it ached like fury. I could feel ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... in a flash, the whole of his past life unrolled itself before his consciousness. He saw himself a toddling baby, a growing child, a schoolboy, a happy young rascal chasing sheep; then came a period of pain, a gradual convalescence, a joyful life in the country ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of those last words seemed to burn their way right into her heart. In a flash of revelation the whole thing became clear to her. She saw how bitterly she had failed the man she loved in that mad moment when she had thrown up everything and gone ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... glimpse of you in a flash of lightning that I shall never forget, Captain Cook. You were standing by the wheel, tightening your hat on your head; your feet were firm on the rolling deck, and you were searching the thickest ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... hardly to hear. "I'd seen photographs of the valley, but I'd quite forgotten, until suddenly it began to look familiar. Then, all in a flash, I remembered." ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... many whom he had met on the other side. But as the boy shook hands with him and said: "I guess you do not remember me, Mr. Bok," there was something in the eyes into which he looked that startled him. And then, in a flash, the circumstances under which he had last seen ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... hand fell to his side. He could not speak for a moment, the shock was so great, and in silence he recalled, saw as in a flash of lightning, all the ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... stockings, all at once to Ethel's ears came the deep tones of an organ, and turning with a low cry of surprise she looked over the bustling throngs of women to an organ loft above, where a girl was singing a solo in a high sweet soprano voice. In a flash to Ethel's mind there came a vivid picture of the old yellow church at home. And with a queer expression looking about her at the crowds, she exclaimed, "How funny!" She was again reminded of church when one afternoon in a large darkened chamber ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... the street lights come twinkling out, and she did not turn on the light of the sitting room chandelier. Did he love her at all; or if he did, did he know what this waiting all day meant to a woman? Then, it came to her in a flash, his wistful look in the morning behind the forced gayety, his reference to the last ride, to keeping resolutions. Was that resolution for the sake of his work at all; or for her? Of course, Matthews had told him in the Desert; and with the thought, the weight that had oppressed her rolled ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... In a flash he saw what she thought, and one of those strange shades in his character made him come to a resolve. Not until she should lie willingly in his arms—herself given by love—should he tell her her belief ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... home. My father! who never tolerated anything but respect from all of us, who were accustomed to despotic government, I can assure you, was allowing Tom!—well, you were with him on the steamer," she broke off abruptly. The placid look was gone again in a flash. ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... welding them together but beating them down. Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising against them? Was it true that the Army was marching on Petrograd? Then this clear-eyed young soldier had spoken, and in a flash they knew it for the truth.... This was the voice of the soldiers-the stirring millions of uniformed workers and peasants were men like them, and their thoughts and ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... conception of the unity of all life. When Goethe in a flash of insight saw the structure of the entire tree in a single leaf, and of the complete skeleton of the animal in the skull of a sheep, he gave the mind of man a new assurance of the unity that pervades the whole creation. And when ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... there is a field of intense disturbance which will start a flow of electrons in any copper that is introduced into it. On account of the speed given to the coil of wire its atoms enter suddenly this magnetic field, and they give off crowds of electrons in a flash. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... keek-cloy,' he writes in his simple, heroic style, 'and was so eager on my prey, that I pulled out the pocket along with the money, and nearly upset the gentleman.' A steady brain saved him from the consequence of an o'erbuoyant enthusiasm. The notes were passed to Barney in a flash, and when the sportsman turned upon his assailant, Haggart's hands ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... in a flash. Sargent rolled on the grass, laughing until the tears trickled down his cheeks, while Dell's chagrin left him standing like ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... was tired and would go away; Baijal urged her not to go but to come with her children and live in his house along with his other wife. She would not agree and he tried to force her and shut the door of the house; but she and her children rose to the roof in a flash of light and disappeared over the top of the house wall and passed away from the village in a flame of fire. At this Baijal was so frightened that from that time he gave her up and never ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... The man whom he had taken to be the hunter was bending over him, and, dark though it was, he distinctly saw the gleam of a knife in his hand. His first feeling, passing in a flash, was one of vague wonderment that anybody should menace him in such a manner, and then he saw the lowering face of Garay. He had been a fool to forget him. With a convulsive and powerful effort he threw his body to one side, and, when ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... materials for exposition and illustration have to be collected; the mind has first to make each subject its own and then to shape it into a form suitable for popular effect. A sermon may sometimes, indeed, come in a flash, and perhaps there is something of sudden discovery in the very best work; but even then time is required to work out the thought and enrich it with subsidiary thinking; and there are many discourses which are of no value without extensive investigation ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... took it out and settled himself in his chair to read! Tom shot a glance at Becky. He had seen a hunted and helpless rabbit look as she did, with a gun levelled at its head. Instantly he forgot his quarrel with her. Quick—something must be done! done in a flash, too! But the very imminence of the emergency paralyzed his invention. Good!—he had an inspiration! He would run and snatch the book, spring through the door and fly. But his resolution shook for one little instant, and the chance was lost—the master opened the volume. If Tom only had the wasted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... What was an hour? Those sixty golden minutes would be gone in a flash. Yet it would be an hour of life, of deep emotion, face to face with this monster, strange relic of a forgotten world, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... lost my finest horse. As I had ridden him on the 5th and wished him to rest, I gave him to my servant to hold by the bridle; and when he left him one moment to attend to his own, the horse was stolen in a flash by a dragoon, who instantly sold him to a dismounted captain, telling him he was a captured horse. I recognized him in the ranks, and claimed him, proving by my saddle-bags and their contents that he was not a horse taken ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... In a flash was the thing done, yet to the wretched man who saw himself upon the threshold of Eternity, and who—like a true son of the Church—had a wholesome fear of hell, it seemed an hour whilst, with livid cheeks and eyes starting from his head, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... the whole thing from his mind—a feat which had hitherto proved beyond his powers—when Fate, in an unusually kindly mood, enabled him to do so in a flash by presenting to his jaundiced gaze what, on consideration, he decided was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. 'When a man's afraid,' shrewdly sings the bard, 'a beautiful maid is a cheering sight to see'. In the present ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Italy is interesting. The ruins of Rome, the statues of the Vatican, the great churches, all pass before us but in a flash, as we are expressed by them on our ideal locomotive. Observe: next to snow and ice, stone is best rendered in the stereograph. Statues are given absolutely well, except where there is much foreshortening to be done, as in this of the Torso, where you see the thigh ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... had believed themselves to have seen had been a dream, an imagination of their overwrought minds. It could not be otherwise. The door had been locked, entrance was impossible; yet doubt held them powerless. The moments were making years of themselves. To each came in a flash a review of every earthly incident they had experienced, every wicked deed, every unholy aspiration. Quimby gritted his teeth. It was the first sound which had followed that thud and, slight as it was, it released them somewhat from their awful tension. Jake felt that ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... assassin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the Duchess realised in a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the assassin's in the mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted fashion, so that the man should be uncertain ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... desecration. What the document contained she did not yet know, except that it was evidence that fixed upon the men named guilt for some past deed in which Weir had suffered and which would bring them to account. But something more than protest was needed, she saw in a flash, to deflect the man from his purpose and save the sheets ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... bear, there is but one means of escape—speed. In a flash, McTavish knew that he could outstrip the clumsy animal, for the latter would constantly break through the thin crust of the snow. But, in the same flash, he realized what escape would mean. His pack ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... was the woman he had seen on board; not Natalie Coolidge at all. There had been a mistake of some kind; but if so, why had these people given him this sort of reception aboard? These thoughts swept his mind in a flash, as the woman peered forward to see his features more clearly. For a moment she said nothing, and Joe broke ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... partner in the "Mixed Doubles," but that was all on account of her exuberant health, spirits, general comeliness of face and form, and exquisite skill in tennis. But this day a new and eager longing was eating at his heart; a strange, dull pang seemed to seize upon it as he noted in a flash that the seat that was to have been his was occupied by an officer many years his senior, a man he knew only by sight and an enviable reputation, a man whose soldierly, clear-cut face never turned an instant, for his eyes were fixed upon a lovely picture on the opposite seat—Amy Lawrence bending ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... horribly frightened, and all this that has taken so long to describe seemed to pass in a flash—almost as I started from gazing down the well to ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... a gasp in the anguish of homesickness the words brought upon him. In a flash of what was like a luminous pang, he saw it all as it looked the night he left it in the white landscape under the high, bare wintry sky. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said, with ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Marcel. An unseen log had lurched against the pirogue, upsetting it and throwing its occupant into the water. He sank, but rose in a flash and reached out, swimming, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... when behind, on the right, was heard the sound of heavy cannonading. General Bonaparte was himself at once. No movement is considered more difficult than that by which an army marching in columns wheels when attacked on its flank, so as in turn to outflank the assailants. In a flash, and apparently without a thought, the Emperor issued minute orders for this intricate manoeuver, and his generals accomplished it with a masterly dexterity. Napoleon then galloped forward toward Luetzen to carry the guard behind the center as a reserve, and Ney dashed into the thickest of the fight ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... ever since that spring night on the shore he had been thinking of the sea and longing with all his might to cross it and see foreign lands for himself. Only that had seemed impossible, and something he must surely wait till he was grown up to do. But now, in a flash, as his fingers closed on Wild Thyme's hair, he knew that he could indeed do that, and anything else he really set ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... come. It must have been a wonderful tableau when those two men faced each other across M. Delcasse's big desk. As Mr. Herrick stated that the American Embassy was positively to remain in Paris, M. Delcasse's expression of calm dignity vanished in a flash. He stepped around his desk and shook Mr. Herrick eagerly by the hand. He said there were many precious memorials and many rare objects which might have their habitation in one spot like Paris, but which nevertheless belonged to all civilized humanity, and that no diplomat ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... Dumas at random finds that he is not only Homeric naturally, but that he really knows his Homer. What did he nor know? His rapidity in reading must have been as remarkable as his pace with the pen. As M. Blaze de Bury says: "Instinct, experience, memory were all his; he sees at a glance, he compares in a flash, he understands without conscious effort, he forgets nothing that he has read." The past and present are photographed imperishably on his brain, he knows the manners of all ages and all countries, the names of all the arms that men have used, all ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... asleep) might afford him the one and only escape from pursuit and capture. And yet (thinks I) what manner of man (or rather devil) should this be who, clad in my doublet, could make away with three lusty fellows and no one the wiser? Hereupon (and all in a flash) I seemed to see again the great black ship drifting down on us in the river and the man who rowed the skiff with the misshapen bundle in the stern-sheets—the bundle that had ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... thee downstairs," she whispered, "something that Emily Warren gathered for thee," and she was gone in a flash. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... my son. I am not one of them. It came to a point when I must either expire or go. I decided not to expire. These things are done all in a flash. I was walking in the garden. It was last Sunday afternoon—I remember now: a sodden November day. Imagine a sodden November Sunday afternoon English country-town garden. Joanna was at a children's service. Ah, mon Dieu! The desolation of that Sunday afternoon! The death, my son, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... anticipation he was looking forward to the time when we too would know all that there was to know of the joy of flight. Higher and higher it mounted, now and then catching the sun on its silver wings in a flash of light, growing smaller and smaller, until it vanished in a golden haze, far to the north. It was then four o'clock. In an hour's time the pilot would be circling down over his ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... is a pair of shoes for Debby—oh Debby, Debby, how dare you!" Audrey's face and voice and manner changed in a flash from sweet graciousness to hot anger. "Just look at the mess you have made, and your heel is on the brim of my best hat. Oh, how clumsy ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... softened. Her whole bosom heaved. I felt in a flash she was not wholly indifferent to me. Strange tremors in the air seemed to play about us. But she waved me aside once more. "Don't press me," she said, in a very low voice. "Let me go my own way. It is hard enough already, this task I have undertaken, without YOUR making ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... thought them very pretty; he had seen then that they were very gentle and respectful to Robert; he saw now from the smile that accompanied the bow, that he was a person they delighted to honour. They were driving quickly: they were past in a flash of time; and as he replaced his hat upon his head, he thought that he really was a very good-looking fellow, very well proportioned, and straight in the legs. He wondered if his clothes were just the thing; they had not been worn much, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... satisfied that no one was near, spun on his heels, whipped a tool from his dungaree overalls, and reached up to the wires which ran under the deck beams overhead. In spite of my aching joints and sore feet I was out in a flash and had my bayonet up against his chest. He didn't move till my point was through his clothes and into his flesh. I just shoved till he gave ground, and so, step by step, I pushed him with the point of my bayonet till he was under the lights. His arms had come down, ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... crossed her face. He saw that, in her absorption with the case and the two sisters, she had clean forgotten all about him. But in a flash she ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... moment and at the next was off again. On the sixth the Federals got home against his rear guard. It began to waver, and Ashby ordered the infantry to charge. As he gave the order his horse fell dead. In a flash he was up, waving his sword and shouting: "Charge, for God's sake, charge!" The Confederate line swept forward gallantly. But, just as it left the wood, Ashby was shot through the heart. His men avenged him. Yet none could fill his place as a born ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... Dick!" he thought, as if in a flash. "We were always quarrelling, and he was horribly jealous of me; but I liked him, and I'd do anything to save him. But he'll never know, for the brutes will kill him in his sleep. Poor Billy Titely the same. But Tom May must be ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... house. I stayed longer than I intended—you know how 'tis when there's children hangin' round—and when I come out, you may call me mate to a mud-scow if there warn't a feller with his head and shoulders clear inside the back of my cart. I can't tell you how, but some way of it, it come over me in a flash who the feller was. I don't know as ever I moved quicker in my life. I had him by the scruff of his neck and the slack of his pants, and out of that and standin' on his head in a snow-drift before he could have winked more ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... I can save you—listen! He will run behind you all the way until you are within a short distance of the goal. Then he will pass you by in a flash, for his name is ZigZag Fire! (lightning). Here is my medicine.' So speaking, he gave me a rabbit skin and the gum of a certain plant. 'When you come near the goal, rub yourself with the gum, and throw the rabbit skin between you. He cannot ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... away from the table, and faced him as he stood blowing kisses with one little hand, while the other lay on his heart. In a flash he struck a new gesture; he folded ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... hand-springs and do all sorts of stunts the minute I turn my back. So I never know for sure why I want to do a thing. For that matter, I don't know why I named you Ann. I had to give you a name—I thought you might prefer my not using yours—so all in a flash I had to make one up—and Ann was what came. I love that name. It never would have come if something in you hadn't called it. The Ann in you has had a hard time." She was speaking uncertainly, timidly, as if on ground where words had broken no paths. "Oh, I'm not so much the outsider I ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... turned round in a flash. Ah, this time he would find out who the mysterious unknown was—the unknown, who wished to influence by word written and word spoken, the course of these investigations ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... in a flash what the Burgomaster gull had screamed to him when he was a little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled backward in the water, for he knew that he had found ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... moment the two girls stared at each other—interrogating, blaming, excusing—what was it? Anyway, it was over in a flash. The next second Caroline felt it was all imagination, for Laura came forward as frankly as usual, though her kind eyes were a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose |
