"Flash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... till now they had had their sports, tastes, joys, sorrows in common, not a secret from each other since they could remember. At least, this was true of John; was he to find it no longer true of Carlen? He would know, and that right speedily. As by a flash of lightning he thought he saw his father's scheme,—if Carlen were to wed this man, this strong and tireless worker, this unknown, mysterious worker, who wanted only shelter and home and cared not for money, what an invaluable hand would be gained on the farm! John groaned as he thought ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... which already began to loom up vague and indistinct. In those unfrequented waters the chance was one in a thousand that it could be anything else than a Russian patrol. The captain was still anxiously gazing through the glasses, when a flash of flame left the stranger's side, followed by the loud report of a cannon. The worst fears were confirmed. It was a patrol, evidently firing across the bows of the Mary Thomas in order to make ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... process by which a man comes to that serene, triumphant trust that the battle is won even whilst it is raging around him. The previous portion of the psalm falls into two parts, on which I need only make this one remark, that in both we have first of all an obvious disquieting fact, and then a flash of victorious confidence. Let me just read a word or two to you. The Psalmist begins in a very minor key. 'Be merciful unto me, O God! for man would swallow me up'—that is Achish and his Philistines. 'He fighting daily oppresseth me; mine enemies daily would swallow me up.' He reiterates the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... once the osprey, which had been uttering a low sort of whistle, folded its wings and darted down, swift as a flash, at an angle of about forty-five degrees. With a resounding smack, and in a cloud of white spray, it disappeared from view beneath the surface of the water; but instantly, with a vast flapping, it rose and fought to get wing-hold on the ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... his net from the now still paws. Some definite place he must reach. The compulsion to move on in that sudden flash shook him, raised the dull ache still troubling his temples into a punishing throb. Going down on his knees, Rynch once more turned to the stream water; this time after splashing it onto his face, he ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... and soaring roofs and curved walls beautiful with many-colored pictures; and the pleasure, that was almost pain, swelled at his heart till it seemed as if it must burst his breast. Then he saw the poor bare-headed woman kneel down, and in a flash he understood that she was praying—ay, and in the men's quarter—and that this was no Temple, but one of those forbidden places called churches, into which the abhorred deserters went who were spoken of on that marble slab in the Ghetto. And, while ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... great beginnings. A faint haze like a veil at the edges of the sky and a freshness of the air made the world magical to these two who rode high above weald and sea. Stella looked downwards to the silver flash of the broad water west ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... that faith might strengthen fear and love embolden, On the creeds of priests a scourge of sunbeams fell: And its flash made bare the deeps of heaven, beholden Not of men that cry, Lord, Lord, from church or cell.[2] Hope as young as dawn from night obscure and olden Rose again, such power abides in truth's one spell: Night, if dawn it be that touches her, grows golden; ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I'm glad to explain," replied the woman, raising her eyelids an instant to flash a glance of approval at her prisoner. "I have already said that I was obliged to annoy you in order to reach your father. The dear father is an elusive person, you know, and is determined to avoid paying the money he ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... when the fresh breeze which blows an hour before the sun revived me; yet I did not immediately recover my senses, for I thought my head had been cut off and fancied that I was in purgatory. With time, little by little, my faculties returned, and I perceived that I was outside the castle, and in a flash remembered all my adventures. I was aware of the wound in my head before I knew my leg was broken; for I put my hands up, and withdrew them covered with blood. Then I searched the spot well, and judged and ascertained that I had sustained no injury of consequence ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... term except under stress of the most poignant emotion. To be "darling" one was compelled to be very ill, very sad, angelically repentant, or in an extremity of fear, and Darsie, who this morning was not afflicted in any one of these three ways, realised in a flash the awful significance of the term. She sat white and silent, too dazed for speech, and to do them justice Clemence and Lavender looked almost as perturbed as herself, relief on their own account being eclipsed for the moment by a realisation of the loss which the holiday party was about ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... purpose?" he demanded of himself, as if in a cruel flash of inner illumination. "Even if I knew that what I am writing, what I am going to write, would be considered incomparably fine; even if I could really succeed in annihilating Voltaire, and in making my renown greater than his—would I not gladly ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... could only sit there, looking into the barrel of the deadly weapon, and praying for some diversion which might be the means of saving his life. It came presently in a strange and totally unexpected fashion. Upon the tense, nerve-breaking silence, a voice suddenly intruded like a flash of light in a dark place. It was a sweet and girlish voice, singing some simple ballad, with a natural pathos which rendered the song singularly touching and attractive. As the voice came nearer the cripple's expression changed entirely; ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... magnificent," he declared. "Watch his face now that he is speaking. Not a muscle moves, not a flash in his eyes, yet one has the fancy that he is saying ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... We knew the ranges fairly well, and though, as we could not see our sights, the shooting was rather guesswork, we soon put a stop to this manoeuvre by firing a small volley from three or four rifles at each flash on the hill-side. So the night ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... separate identity, the knowledge is of a different mode, though the term is the same. At the lumbar ganglion I know that I am I, in distinction from a whole universe, which is not as I am. This is the first tremendous flash of knowledge of singleness and separate identity. I am I, not because I am at one with all the universe, but because I am other than all the universe. It is my distinction from all the rest of things which makes me myself. Because I am set utterly apart and distinguished from all that is the ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... wearisome, how lifeless are secret approaches! You would not have many errands to God, if you thought no body looked upon you. And for spirituality, it is a mystery in all men's practice. Who directeth his duty to God's glory? If you get some flash of liberty, you have your desire; but who misseth God's presence in duties, which a world will approve? Who go mourning as without the sun, even when you have the sunshine of ordinances, and walk in ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... meet everywhere—who never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught lions of the season—Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the princess was more surprised than ever. In a flash she remembered that it was a year to the very day since she had promised to marry Prince Ricky of the Tuft, and was taken aback by the recollection. The reason she had forgotten was that when she made the promise she was still without ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... turning my head, saw that both he and Ump were on the ground, looking down at the road below. Jud stood with his broad shoulders bent forward, and Ump squatted, peering down under the palm of his hand. I rode back just in time to catch the flash of wheels sweeping into the wood from one of the bare turns of the road. Yet even in that swift glimpse, I thought I knew who was below, and so I did not ask, but waited until they should come into the open space again farther down. I sat with the bridle rein ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... flash of a dimple. He did. Remember, she was very young and, being fanciful enough to find the witch in the face of her rooming house, the waves at Coney Island, peanut cluttered as they were apt to be, told her ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... herself. Yes, with a groan she had to give in to her own unquenched passion for him. And he came to her then—ah, terrible, ah, wonderful, sometimes she wondered how either of them could live after the terror of the passion that swept between them. It was to her as if pure lightning, flash after flash, went through every fibre of her, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... other things which took up some of my thoughts. At the same time it happened, after I had laid my scheme for the setting up my tent, and making the cave, that a storm of rain falling from a thick dark cloud, a sudden flash of lightning happened, and after that a great clap of thunder, as is naturally the effect of it. I was not so much surprised with the lightning, as I was with a thought which darted into my mind as swift as the lightning itself; O my powder! my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... the swift little flash of anger revealed an inner glimpse to her of her unaltered desire to know this man; of her interest in him—of something about him that attracted her but defied analysis—-or had defied it until, pursuing it too far one day, she had ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... get down to principles, as it were. It requires a purely occidental intellect to master the problem before me. This cow has a strong disinclination to be milked. Why? What is the motive of her conduct? If I could only answer that!' All at once it came to me,—came like a flash. The reason was plain. 'This cow is a mother. The maternal instinct in her case is beautifully developed. Her reasoning faculties less so. She has a calf. To her mind, we are trying to rob her beloved offspring of its nourishment. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... wherever the quick glittering scales appeared. For a few seconds, rods would be cast thick and fast, as if employed in beating the water, and captured fish glanced bright to the sun; and then the take would cease, and the play rise elsewhere, and oars would flash out amain, as the little fleet again dashed into the heart of the shoal. As the Kyle widened, the force of the current diminished, and sail and helm again became things of positive importance. The wind blew a-head, steady though not strong; and the Betsey, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... old dad; I begin to believe that you have had no education. Of course the Hays have got the land, but we have the view and the joy of it. This is the only place where one can say to a stranger, 'Behold Drumtochty,' and he will see it at a flash ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... lady Nevada's great mining camps: a couple of seats in front of Elinor Glyn and her escort two men began to quarrel, presumably over a game of cards. The fight grew until each pulled a six-shooter. There was a shot and a flash, and one man fell: dead, apparently, while the other stood over him, wild eyed, his smoking ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... performers appeared weak, a holy wrath would seize upon Gustave. Then he flung a firm, incisive, accentuated note into the midst of the choir, vivid as a spark bursting from a fire covered with ashes. He would accompany it with a glance which seemed to flash from his father's eye; at such moments, he resembled him; but this transformation never lasted more than a second; the fictitious power disappeared as all which was Gustave Delsarte was doomed ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... twenty-six," he said. "I remember that at twenty-six I was rather determined on making the Supreme bench. You can see for yourself how far I missed it. I do not say that we never realize our ambitions," he added quickly as he saw a flash light up the young man's eyes; "I merely wish to show that in my case they were rather extravagant." He grimaced, continuing with a smile: "You are a college man, ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... camp in a quiescent state would have thought him to be possessed of much energy, for he was slow and deliberate in his movements, and withal had a lazy look about his eyes. But the sight of a bear or moose-deer had the effect of waking him up in a way that caused his dark eyes to flash and his large frame to move with ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... was an uncommonly cool hand! Any way, his retreat to the wooded cover of the hill had been prompt. Once arrived in the thick plantation on the crest, he had thrown himself down exhausted. But as he sat panting there, on the fringe of the wood, he had fancied voices and the flash of a light in the hollow beneath him. These slight signs of movement, however, had quickly disappeared. Darkness and silence resumed possession of the farm, and he had had no difficulty in finding his way unmolested through the trees to the ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Almost with the flash of an intuition the idea came to Mildred: General Alexis was contemplating a retreat. He must have decided that, alone and with only a limited number of regiments at his command, he would be unable to hold out against the enemy for an unlimited time. Therefore it might be wiser to draw them ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... whom painters and sculptors take, as the Republic did in former days, for their figures of Liberty. She charmed the young men of the valley of the Avonne with her voluminous bosom, her muscular legs, and a waist as robust as it was flexible; with her plump arms, her eyes that could flash and sparkle, and her jaunty air; with the masses of hair twisted in coils around her head, her masculine forehead and her red lips curling with that same ferocious smile which Eugene Delacroix and David (of Angers) caught and represented ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... was only a moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree, Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his head on the root of the tree and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... I entered these doors, a most lovely being shot across my path. It was but an instant; a quick light, a momentary flash, and all was gone! But it was enough! I saw her! I never shall forget her. Who is she? That sweet girl has impressed her image on ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... toward him was ample reward for his casual display of Celtic wit, his knowledge of botany. And suddenly she saw his first real smile—a flash of beautiful white teeth and a wrinkling of the skin around the merry eyes. It came and went like a flicker of lightning; the somber man was an insouciant ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the channel being bounded by sandstone cliffs 100 to 200 feet high. The general aspect of the country was wretched in the extreme, as little besides a few small gum-trees and triodia clothed the rugged surface of the red sandstone. The weather continues fine, with only an occasional cloud or flash of lightning in the early part of the night. The temperature is increasing, being 104 degrees at 1.0 p.m. Some catfish and a small tortoise were caught in ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... teacher, Frank Norris, a college student, and Jack London a boy in short trousers. Miller dominated the coast landscape. The mountains, the streams, the pines were his. A dozen times as I passed some splendid peak I quoted his lines. "Sierras! Eternal tents of snow that flash o'er battlements ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... it grew blustering and gusty. Dark clouds came bundling up in the west; and now and then a growl of thunder or a flash of lightning told that a summer storm was at hand. Sam pulled over, therefore, under the lee of Manhattan Island, and coasting along came to a snug nook, just under a steep beetling rock, where he fastened his skiff to the root of a tree that shot out from a cleft and spread ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... rise to hisses and groans; nay, an irreverent Rascality presses towards him in floods, with such hissing vehemence, that the Captain of the Guards has to give order, "Haut les armes (Handle arms)!"—at which thunder-word, indeed, and the flash of the clear iron, the Rascal-flood recoils, through all avenues, fast enough. (Montgaillard, i. 369. Besenval, &c.) New features these. Indeed, as good M. de Malesherbes pertinently remarks, "it is a quite new kind of contest this with the Parlement:" ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... touching scenes in the history of exploration now took place. One sees the little English crews far away on that desolate shore, the ships lying at anchor in the harbour, the block prepared, the altar raised beside it, the two old friends, Drake and Doughty, kneeling side by side, then the flash of the sword and Drake holding up the head of his friend with the words, "Lo, this ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... in the gardens of University College. Here one leafy afternoon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his head in some confusion at the thought of the profane handicraftsman who might claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he saw, deeply concealed in his bosom and disguised with a host of spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that he spent three ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... startled me. I sprang up, and there was the old man. He was but a few feet from me. He had a pistol. I saw it gleam in the dim light. I couldn't stand discovery, and I must protect myself against being shot. I knew that in the semi-darkness he did not recognize me. All this came with a flash. I sprang upon him. With one hand I caught the pistol, with the other I clutched his throat. I would choke him senseless and run back to my room. He threw up one hand, threw back his head and freed his throat. We were under the gas jet. My hand ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... of our minds when great resolves have to be made. The man who has trained himself day in and day out, in regard to the insignificances of daily life, to let act follow resolve as the thunder peal succeeds the lightning flash, is the man who, if he is moved to make a great resolve about his religion, or about his conduct, will be most likely to carry it out. Get the magical influence of habit on your side, and you will have done much to conquer the evil of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... proportion: Siegfried's love, of which his ring is the symbol, for Walhalla's and the world's peace! "Ha! do you know what the ring is to me? How should you grasp it, unfeeling maid? More than the joys of Walhalla, more than the glory of the Immortals, is to me this ring; one look at its clear gold, one flash of its noble lustre, I prize more than the eternally enduring joy of all the gods, for it is Siegfried's love which beams at me from the ring! Oh, might I tell you the bliss.... And that bliss is safeguarded by the ring. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... that the sinking of the Roland had left him with a gloomy heritage, a black compact cloud-mass brooding menacingly in the spaces of his soul. With all his will, he had to overcome a shudder when something like a flash of lightning darted from the cloud and illuminated the horror he had witnessed, as if it were still ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... said the admiral. "What's bred in the bone don't so easily get out of the flesh; and once or twice, when Master Varney has been talking, I have seen those odd looking eyes of his flash up for a moment, as if he were quite ready to begin his old capers again, and alarm the whole ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... desisted in my "signalling," but Prof., not yet asleep, spoke up saying he did not believe any Indians would bother us. Finishing the observations I put out the lantern, and settled in my blankets. At that instant there was the flash of a light through the trees and then it glowed steadily for a moment and went out. My nervous neighbour saw it too. "There," he cried, "an answer to your confounded signal!" Several saw it. "The evening star setting beyond the ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... compassed me, and the perils of hell have found me" (Ps. cxiv. 3). Not only had the Almighty apparently withdrawn His gifts, but, hardest of all to bear, He had concealed Himself. Now and again a ray of heavenly consolation beamed on her afflicted soul, but, like the lightning's flash on the angry sky, it illumined for a moment, only to be followed by deeper darkness. To her internal agonies were added external trials of various kinds, including most painful contradictions and humiliations. ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... realise the extent of my happiness; I only knew that deep in my heart I was conscious of some great cause for joy. Then my eyes, still dim with sleep, discovered that I was in my brother's bedroom, and in a flash the joyful truth was revealed to me. I sat up and hastily examined my body to make sure that the rash had not disappeared, and then my spirit sang a song of thanksgiving of which the refrain was, "I have the measles!" ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... wondering eyes of the sick man lingered longest and to her they returned when their survey of the rest of the room was done. Suddenly, impelled by the steadiness of his gaze, she lifted her own dark, soft eyes and let them rest for a moment upon his. She started—then was up and across the floor in a flash, carrying the cat upon ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... cowardly arm to take the life of a gallant gentleman; and that, when he knows not how or whence, in the height of the ardour and enthusiasm that fire and animate brave hearts, there should come some random bullet, discharged perhaps by one who fled in terror at the flash when he fired off his accursed machine, which in an instant puts an end to the projects and cuts off the life of one who deserved to live for ages to come. And thus when I reflect on this, I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I repent of having adopted this profession of knight-errant ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Another day you shall know how much I love you, Le Gardeur! Why will not men content themselves with knowing we love them, without stripping our favors of all grace by making them duties, and in the end destroying our love by marrying us?" A flash of her natural archness came over her face ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... top, Safe out of fortune's shot; and sits aloft, Secure of thunder's crack or lightning's flash; Advanc'd above pale envy's threatening reach. As when the golden sun salutes the morn, And, having gilt the ocean with his beams, Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach, And overlooks the highest-peering hill; So Tamora: Upon her wit doth earthly ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... at invasion proved a mere flash in the pan. No support awaited him and his deluded followers, and in two weeks' time he found it judicious to surrender once more to the naval authorities of the United States; this time to Commodore Paulding, who took him to New York with his followers, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the jungle stood frozen in a brilliant blue flash, followed by the sharp report of a blaster. Then another. Alan whirled, startled. The planet's double moon had risen and he could see a robot rolling slowly across the clearing in his general direction, blasting indiscriminately at whatever mind impulses came within ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... then with a flash as though lifting the veil of a confidence, added: "You know, neither Warner nor I have lived here much this year. He has been in New York most of the time and I have been at the settlement, as I already ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... in a moment. There was a low, deep-toned bark, a white streak of something advancing in a hurtling flash, and then, as the great Borzoi discovered the visitor to be a friend, she dropped into a welcoming march, waving ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... I see her afar in the distance? Not yet. Too early! Too early! She could not forget! When I cross the old bridge where the brook overflowed, She will flash full in sight at ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as hungry as Longlegs, and he had come even nearer to catching Grandfather Frog. He is even quicker tempered than Longlegs. He had whirled like a flash on Jerry Muskrat, but Jerry had just laughed in the most provoking manner and ducked under water. This had made old Whitetail angrier than ever, and then to be called bad names—robber and thief! It was more than any self-respecting Hawk could ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... easily have denied it, as it was before daylight when I went through, and I quite as often went the other way. But the picture of Charley Allen kneeling in the barn, came to my mind like a flash, and before I had time to listen ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads; Grandma in her kerchief and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,— When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... there was a flash, and a roar. All eyes were directed on the lugger, which the captain was watching through his glass. There was a shout from the men. The ball had passed through the great foresail, a couple ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... creature that met us, would rely upon us for quartering.[1] All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw—not discursively or by effort—but as by one flash of horrid intuition. ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... A flash. Bang! and the man fell dead in his tracks; while Tom gave the other Greek sentry a wipe over the head with a cutlass, which also sent him to ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... morning of a mighty day, a day of crisis' for the destinies, not of Athens alone, but of humanity, when the Persian fleet, after rowing all night up and down the channel between Salamis and the shore, beheld the face of Phoebus flash from behind Pentelicus and flood the Acropolis of Athens with fire. The Peiraeius recalls a crisis in the world's drama whereof the great actors were unconscious: fair winds and sunny waves bore light hearts to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... dignified and gay. Stand, as the ordinary tourist does on his first day, in the flowering square before the Louvre; in the foreground are the fountains and bright tulip-bordered paths of the Tuileries—here a glint of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, shining through the trees; in the center the round lake where the children sail their boats. Beyond spreads the wide sweep of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk of terrible significance, its larger fountains throwing brilliant jets of spray; and then the trailing, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... report which, as we hear it, succeeds the lightning flash in stormy weather. It is really produced simultaneously with the lightning and is supposed to arise from disturbance of the air by the discharge. The rolling noise has been attributed to successive reflections between clouds and earth, and to series of discharges ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... their own city! 'Twas a haystack six miles square, and it blazed for two days. The buildings crashed like slates, and showers of melted iron and lead rained down upon us, which was naturally horrible. I may say to you plainly, it was like a flash of lightning on our disasters. The Emperor said, 'We have done enough; my soldiers shall rest here.' So we rested awhile, just to get the breath into our bodies and the flesh on our bones, for we were really tired. We took possession of the golden ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Edred saw the sudden flash that came into Julian's eyes. He was in an agony lest the boy should betray his father's destination, which to the astute mind of the monk might betray much more than his brother himself knew; but as he heard Julian's words he drew his breath ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... shake hands on the same page of W. Somerset Maugham's "The Trembling of a Leaf"; Norwegian, Frenchman, and Spaniard are among us, as before; Bercovici's gypsies from the Roumanian Danube, now collected in "Ghitza," flash colourful and foreign from the Dobrudja Mountains and the Black Sea. In one remarkable piece of melodrama, "Rra Boloi," by the Englishman Crosbie Garstin (Adventure), and the African witch doctor of the Chwene Kopjes enters ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... declaration to be interpreted? People in general construed it into a design to maintain party distinctions, and encourage the whigs to the full exertion of their influence in the elections; into a renunciation of the tories; and as the first flash of that vengeance which afterwards was seen to burst upon the heads of the late ministry. When the earl of Strafford returned from Holland, all his papers were seized by an order from the secretary's office. Mr. Prior was recalled from France, and promised to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... $103,000,000; with a water-front, of pier, dock, basin, canal, already exceeding 25 miles, and not as yet half developed, at which lies shipping from all the world, more largely than at the piers of New York; and, finally, with what to most modern communities appears to flash as a costly but brilliant diamond necklace, a public debt, beginning now to diminish, it is true, but still ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... shock as she struck the Henrietta, and then, as she glided alongside, a dozen grapnels were thrown by men on her yards. The instant they had done so, the men disappeared, sliding down the ropes and running aft to their boat. Before the last leaped in he stooped. A flash of fire ran along the deck, there was a series of sharp explosions, and then a bright flame sprang up from the hatchways, ran up the shrouds and ropes, that had been soaked with oil and tar, and ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... absorbed in thought, the face should take on deep lines, the eyes appear as if seeing something beyond the vision of other men, and the shoulders stoop, as though they too were bearing a weight. But in a moment all would be changed. The deep eyes could flash, or twinkle merrily with humor, or look out from under overhanging brows as they did upon the Five Points children in kindliest gentleness. In public speaking, his tall body rose to its full height, his head was thrown back, his face seemed transfigured with the fire ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... over the dead town of Poperinghe, where flash after flash of bursting shrapnel proclaimed a Boche aeroplane. They saw him dive at a balloon—falling like a hawk; then suddenly he righted and came on towards the next. From the first sausage two black streaks shot out, to steady after ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... audacious than a sweltering, winter-swathed madcap, who has impishly essayed some fine morning to tiptoe down street in her soft, sloozily, green, silk-stockinged feet, the whole hob-nailed population reels back aghast and agrin before the most innocent flash of the rogue's green-veiled toes. And then, suddenly snatching off its own cumbersome winter foot-habits, goes chasing madly after her, in its own ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... place? But no! you are ignorant of all that; it was not for that you brought me hither! Speak, lady, speak! Where is Antonio? What have I done to merit your displeasure? Oh, mercy! mercy! Bend not those terrible glances upon me! Your eyes flash fire! You are not Nisida—you are an evil spirit! ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Presently came another flash of lightning and then he saw the boat far ahead of him. No one but Peter Polk had witnessed his fall from the deck and nobody appeared to be coming ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... mud. Jim only had seen where it had fallen, and he would not deign even to point it out to a beggar. Nor would he stoop to give a reason in such a case, but would answer all remonstrances with a curl of his lip and a flash of his dark eyes. Even at school he was the same, with such a sense of his own dignity, that other folk had to think of it too. He might say, as he did say, that a right angle was a proper sort of angle, or put Panama in Sicily, but old Joshua ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the street, even when he is asleep; but if you would give to him a great truth or virtue, if you would make him a noble character, you must wait upon the man's growth, and be content if after many years you see only a flash of what you would give him appearing. Step by step, through all the gradations, we travel, and if faithful to truth, Christ will make in us a perfect manhood, and of us a perfect society. His gift is so great, vital and complex, that He can not ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... here that I meant to kill no one? Have I not, in every page, shown that I am one for peace and have no desire for bloodshed? I think I have. Yet, when the Theif apeared on the verandah and turned a pocket flash on the leather bag, which I percieved was one belonging to the Familey, I felt indeed like shooting him, although ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... They came on up the glade and appeared to be talking earnestly. In another moment Madeline recognized Stewart. She had no greater feeling of surprise than had at first been hers. But for the next moment she scarcely thought at all—merely watched the couple approaching. In a flash came back her former curiosity as to Stewart's strange absences from camp, and then with the return of her doubt of him the recognition of the woman. The small, dark head, the brown face, the big eyes—Madeline now saw distinctly—belonged ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... arms and almost carried her to the carriage. Then, in a flash, he tore a hundred-rouble note out of his pocket and held ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with a flash in her blue eyes, which were so dark, and large-pupilled, and heavily lashed, that they looked almost black. She ground ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... grows by leaps and bounds, by throes and throbs. A flash! and a glory stands revealed for which you have been groping blindly through the years. Well did Thorwaldsen call the day of his arrival in Rome the day of his birth! For the first time the world seemed to unfold before him. On the voyage thither, the captain of the "Thetis" had offered to prepare ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... before me now her beautiful pale face bending over poor Hassan as she applied leeches to his chest, which a new maid refused to do, saying, with a toss of her head, 'Lor! my lady, I couldn't touch either of 'em!' The flash of scorn with which she regarded the girl softened into deep affection and pity when she looked down on ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... consciousness by the flash of a dazzling light upon my closed eyelids, accompanied by the crash of a terrific clap of thunder. Opening my eyes I discovered that the room was in opaque darkness— showing that I must have been allowed to sleep at least eight hours; but even ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... no fear, no maiden fear; My heart is firm to the deed, I shed no tear, no coward tear; I've strength in time of need. Hear ye the crash, the horrid crash? Their mast over the side is gone; Yet on we dash, 'mid lightning flash, Safe through the ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... left no doubt in my mind. I found the very cliff face under which I had been decoyed and was able to clear up one point. A man above could easily have struck at me with some implement, say, six feet long. I shut my eyes and pictured that curved mystery, and then in a flash I had it: a scythe blade tied to a pole! If I could find a scythe blade fastened to a pole, or a blade and pole separate, I should not be far off the end of my quest. The next moment I smiled at my own optimism when I realised what a house to house hunt that would ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... spectacles. Mrs. Muir was not one to quail easily, but she had been at fault, and she realized how her small sin of omission was leading up to consequences more momentous than anything which had happened in this house for seventeen years. In a flash she remembered, too, that it was just seventeen years ago this month of August since the first wearer of the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... never the collie heart,—is wont to flash back, in moments of mortal stress, to the ancestral wolf. Never in his own life had Sunnybank Lad set eyes on a wildcat. But, in the primal forests, wolf and bob-cat had perforce met and clashed, a thousand times. There they had begun and had waged the eternal cat-and-dog ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... only words we could hear. The snow had ceased; but dark clouds seemed gathering around us, when, without warning, a flash of forked lightning darted across our path, ploughing up the ground before us, and followed by a peal of thunder which seemed to rend the mountain tops. Flash succeeded flash in every direction, the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... victory, but reckoning without his host. For, recovering himself with a twist of the body which brought them still closer together, the poacher locked his leg behind Tom's in a crook which brought the wrestlings of his boyhood into his head with a flash, as they tottered for another moment, and then losing balance, went headlong over with a heavy plunge and splash into the deep back ditch, locked ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in the looking-glass, at once a ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... demonstrate. Dorothea had promptly and intentionally fallen in love with the son of her next-door neighbor. Amiel—fresh from his first year in college— was a tall, broad-shouldered youth, with kindly brown eyes and a flash of white teeth when he smiled. In contrast to the small boys and the sober-going fathers of families in which the summer colony abounded, he shone, as Dorothea's favorite novelists would have expressed it, "like ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... according to my companion's description, to the desecration of your house and home by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the "Inferno," too, pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its flash, and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the passionate warmth with ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... ahead of the rest because Larkin had bought an unfair advantage—a copy of the Primary Report. There were seven of them, all varying in appearance, but with one thing in common; in the eyes of each glowed the greed for Empire. They came down in a flash of orange tail-fire and they looked ...
— The Terrible Answer • Arthur G. Hill
... offering no resistance. When the giant woodsman returned after hastening their departure, he was faced by the young man, still defiant. Connick cocked his head humorously and looked down on the engineer. Under all the big man's apparent fierceness there had been a flash of rough jocoseness in his tones at times. Parker saw plainly that he and his followers viewed the whole thing as a "lark," and entertained little respect for ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... flash, the recollection of the May Bazaar came back to him, and the episode of Galeazzo offering Elena a sum of money if she would dry her beautiful hands, all wet with champagne, on his beard. He hurried through the garden and out into ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... 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 ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... her hand and turned away: He caught it, crying, "Daisy, stay! Let not a flash of passion-pride Two ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... flashed up brightly, and everything about them seemed to have plunged in darkness. It is thus that in the flash of lightning all other lights are instantly darkened and the heavy yellow flame casts ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... sprang up to the partition, placed her hands on it, with the fingers projecting through the meshes, and attempted to seize Tiny's fingers with her teeth. But the latter was too quick for her, and withdrawing her hands, like a flash seized in her teeth the middle finger of Gertie's left hand. She then bit it severely and with all her might, at the same time pulling and twisting violently, often placing the entire weight of her ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... this most important fact, any one who for a moment finds cause of disagreement with any one of his family, or has his vanity wounded, or for a sentimental flash of the moment, or for a selfish desire to utilize the Divine power for gross purposes—at once rushes into contemplation and dashes himself to pieces on the rock dividing the known from the unknown. Wallowing in the mire of exotericism, he knows not what it is to live in the world and yet be ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... all lie there, visible to the furthest horizon. There is no fact more certain than the extraordinary swiftness and completeness with which, in certain circumstances of life, and often very near the close of it, the whole panorama of the past may rise again before a man, as if one lightning flash showed all the dreary desolation that lay behind him. There have been men recovered from drowning and the like, who have told us that, as in an instant, there seemed unrolled before their startled eyes the whole ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... wolves in the forest, and these would soon visit the scene of carnage. To bear Wisner from the field would avail nothing. For a moment the War Chief debated what he should do. Then, turning the attention of the wounded man in another direction, he poised his hatchet. In a flash it had smitten the skull of the dying magistrate and his misery was at an end. In this act as in others Brant showed that his contact with civilization had not freed him from the basic instincts of his savage nature. Few white men could have performed such a deed even on the field of ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... herself a little longer. She longed to talk more to Kester and Mollie, but she found it impossible to draw them into the conversation. They sat quite silent, only every now and then Audrey's quick eyes saw an intelligent look flash between them—a sort of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... looked at one another and smiled, as age and experience smile at the artlessness of youth. It was an interchange of mutual understanding, a flash of closer intimacy, and as such lifted the young man ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... blue and silver; the mullet, in pink and gold; the mackerel, with its blending of all hues,—gorgeous as the tail of the peacock, and defying the art of the painter to transfer them to his canvas; the plaice, with its olive green coat, spotted with vivid orange, which must flash like sparks of flame glittering in the depths of the dark waters; the cod, and the siller haddies, all freckled with brown, and silver, and gold; the snake-like eel, stretching its slimy length along the cool stone pavement, among moving heaps of tawny crabs—those ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... It was because he had a family! Sammy looked down at the three little Chucks sitting on the doorstep, trying to sit up the way Johnny Chuck sat, and they looked so funny that Sammy forgot himself and laughed right out loud. In a flash the three little Chucks and Polly Chuck had disappeared inside the house, while Johnny Chuck looked up angrily. He knew that his secret was ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... flash cracks of the Household," said Tim Varnet, as sharp a little Leg as ever "got on" a dark thing, and "went halves" with a jock who consented to rope a favorite at the Ducal. "Them swells, ye see, they give any money for ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... grabbed at the bar and got hold of it at the expense of a broken finger. They strained and tugged. The slippery cadmium finally eluded both of them, bounded over the railing into the pit, struck a nomplate far below and was witheringly consumed in a flash of blue flame. ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... be these very hills,—flooded by this same cold, steely sunshine. In the midst stands a stalwart form, in quaint but regal attire. Hot blood deepens the colour of his sun-bronzed cheek; an iron purpose gleams in his earnest eyes, like the flash of a drawn sword; a circlet of gold binds the massive brow, and from beneath it stream to below his waist thick masses of hair, of that dusky red which glows like the heart of a furnace in the sunlight, but deepens earth-brown ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... next morning there was a sad and heavy heart. The owner woke up, stared at the ceiling, then at the sun-baked bricks beyond his window. He saw not the glory of the sun and the heavens. To his eyes there was nothing poetic in the flash of the distant church-spires against the billowy cloudbanks. The gray doves, circling about the chimneys, did not inspire him, nor the twittering of the sparrows on the window ledge. There was nothing ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... saints. Would that Armstrong could here be portrayed as he appeared in life. The outer man spoke well the inner. To look upon, he was a thoroughbred; of soldierly bearing, alert, vivid, noble; with the twinkle of mirth, the flash of resistless purpose,—a man to love, to revere, to follow. As a sort of mental portrait-sketch, we may glean a few of his sayings. It was as true of him as of Luther that his words were half-battles. They were flashed out ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... namely, the true faith and obedience; but every orthodox Mussulman firmly holds it as a physical fact to be surmounted in the last day.18 Mohammed leading the way, the faithful and righteous will traverse it with ease and as quickly as a flash of lightning. The thin edge broadens beneath their steps, the surrounding support of convoying angels' wings hides the fire lake below from their sight, and they are swiftly enveloped in paradise. But as the infidel with his evil ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... silence as of death reigned in the mine; then there was a sharp cracking explosion, followed—or rather, prolonged—by another like thunder, and, while a flash of fire seemed to surround them, filling the air, firing their clothes, and scorching their limbs, the whole mine shook with a deep continuous roaring. The men knew that the danger was at an end, threw off the covering from their heads, and struck out ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... our childhood's once delightful hours Ne'er come again— Their sunny glens, their blooming bowers, And primrose plain! With other days, Ambitious rays May flash upon our mind; But give me back the morn of life, With fond thoughts twined; As it sweetly broke on bower and hill, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... at his girl's place where they were out in the front yard stewing lard for the white folks. They knew he didn't belong on that plantation, so they asked him to show his pass. Adam didn't have one with him, and he told them so. They made a dive for him, and then, quick as a flash, he turned over that pot of boiling lard, and while they were getting the hot grease off of them he got away and came back to his cabin. If they had caught Adam, he would have needed some of that spilt grease ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... wave follows wave over the face of the sea, so ran from mouth to mouth the words, "Of Ibycus! Him whom we all lament, with some murderer's hand laid low! What have the cranes to do with him?" And louder grew the swell of voices, while like a lightning's flash the thought sped through every heart, "Observe the power of the Eumenides! The pious poet shall be avenged! The murderer has informed against himself. Seize the man who uttered that cry and the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... for you as if she's dying." It had determined in Kate the flash of justesse he could perhaps most, on consideration, have admired, since her retort touched the truth. There before him was the fact of how Milly to-night impressed him, and his companion, with her eyes in his own and pursuing his ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... that the saucers come from Mars. Pointing out that Mars was in a good position to see our surface on July 16, 1945, he believes that the flash of the first A-bomb, at Alamogordo Base, a point not far from White Sands, was caught ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... however, was changed in an instant to a look of fear and rage. Their craft, with too much sail on, broached to on the crest of a great wave. This one great sea changed the aspect of affairs suddenly as the flash of a gun. Three minutes later the same wave overtook the Spray and shook her in every timber. At the same moment the sheet-strop parted, and away went the main-boom, broken short at the rigging. Impulsively I sprang to the jib-halyards and down-haul, and instantly downed the jib. The ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... woman, Maria. As Buck recognized her he rose quietly and moved swiftly toward the door. But if he had hoped to catch her unawares, he was disappointed. He had scarcely taken a step when, through the telltale mirror, he saw her straighten like a flash and move back with catlike swiftness toward the passage leading to the kitchen. When he reached the living-room she stood there calm and casual, with quite the air of one entering for ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... wormwood on the border-strips[75] smells! I glanced at the blue mass ... and confusion ensued in my soul. "Well, be quick, then, be quick!" I thought. "Flash out, ye golden serpent! Rumble, ye thunder! Move on, advance, discharge thy water, thou evil thunder-cloud; put an end to this ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... reassure him, reason with him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the old cry came back, "The ship's going down!" There was something panic and catching in the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole parishful of people came no more to land, into how many houses would the newspaper carry woe, and what a great part ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... When snowy clouds flash silver-gilt, Then feel I that thou art on high! When fire o'er all the west is spilt, Flames at ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... bungalow, they determined to prevent the man from breaking into the place. That this seemed his intention was almost certain to the boys, for they saw him approach one of the low windows, stop under it, and flash his ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the train ran through a swarm of locusts miles long. It was a beautiful sight. The creatures flash like red snowflakes in the sun; the air glitters with their gauzy wings. But it is also terrible. An earthquake or a volcanic eruption is hardly more destructive and hardly more irresistible. The swarms may be combated when the insect walks along the ground, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... heathen Dane Is wasting Hampshire's coast again— From ravaged church and plundered farm Flash the dread beacons of alarm— Fly, helpless peasants, fly! Ytene's green banks and forest shades, Her heathery slopes and gorse-clad glades Re-echo to the cry— Where is the King, whose strong right hand Hath oft from danger freed the land? Nor fleet nor covenant avails To ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the girls, one to the other, "their coats are blacker than our hair! Their nostrils pulse like a heart on fire! Their eyes flash like water in the sun! Ay! the handsome stranger, will he roll us in the dust? Ay! our golden horses, with the tails and manes of silver—how beautiful is the contrast with the vaqueros in their black and silver, their ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Undher the starlight I beheld Love-o'-Women settin' on a rock wid his belt and helmet off. He shouted wanst or twice, an' thin I heard him say: 'They should ha' got the range long ago. Maybe they'll fire at the flash.' Thin he fired again, an' that dhrew a fresh volley, and the long slugs that they chew in their teeth came floppin' among the rocks like tree-toads av a hot night. 'That's better,' sez Love-o'-Women. 'Oh Lord, how long, how long!' ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... altogether a vile thing... rotten to the core of it! And I said I would smash it, as a child smashes a toy; I would toss it about... as your brother the poet tosses his metaphors. But then I saw you, and in a flash all that was changed. You were beautiful... you were interesting. You were something in the world worth winning... something I had not known about before. But you stood upon the pinnacle of Privilege... you gathered the clouds about your head. How ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... of God and sense of sin, comes to the sinner like a flash of lightning, not for short continuance, but for suddenness, and so for surprisal; so that the sinner is struck, taken and captivated to his own amazement, with what so unexpectedly is come upon him. It is said of Paul at his conversion, that when conviction of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... feelings of the bad husband about the good wife, for instance, are about as subtle and entangled as any matter on this earth; and Browning really had something to say about them. But he said it in some of the plainest and most unmistakable words in all literature; as lucid as a flash of lightning. "Pompilia, will you let them murder me?" Or again, he did really want to say that death and such moral terrors were best taken in a military spirit; he could not have said it more simply than: "I was ever a fighter; ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... near me at the moment," said Harry, "there was a flash of triumph in his face as he turned towards me. The sailor actually looked bewildered for an instant, but he soon appeared very well satisfied. As for myself, I honestly declare that I expected such ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... very vividly to myself the good cousins, and particularly Gretchen: I saw them arrested, tried, punished, disgraced; and then it went through my soul like a flash of lightning, that the cousins, though they always observed integrity towards me, might have engaged in such bad affairs, at least the oldest, who never quite pleased me, who came home later and later, and had little to tell of a cheerful sort. Still I kept back ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... woman was a true Scotchwoman—staunch to her principles, proud of her birth, energetic, and determined. Her energy might have died away like a flash in the pan had it not been for her determination. She carried through everything that she attempted; and great personal charms accelerated her influence in that state of society in which, as in the French capital, women had, at that period, an astonishing though transient degree ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson |
