"Flicker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mixed with snow driven against the glass, and occasionally the howl of the wind, which penetrated the chimney and scattered the ashes. A single candle placed behind the curtains lighted this dismal scene, and the irregular flicker of its flame cast weird reflections and dancing shadows an the walls of the alcove. There came a lull in the wind, the rain ceased, and during this instant of calm someone knocked, at first gently, and then sharply, at the outer door. Derues dropped the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... if she had been a queen. A sense of authority and importance began to impress itself upon her as she sat at the head of her own table in her own dining-hall, with all the Vandykes and Holbeins and Gainsboroughs gazing placidly down upon her from their gilded frames, and the flicker of many wax candles in old silver sconces glancing upon the shields, helmets, rusty pikes and crossed swords that decorated the panelling of the walls between ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... chance at last of feeding. For the man on the cliff, the despairing watchman, weary of fastening his eyes upon the sea, through constant fog and drizzle, at length had discovered the well-known flicker, the glassy flaw, and the hovering of gulls, and had run along Weighing Lane so fast, to tell his good news in the village, that down he fell and broke his leg, exactly opposite the tailor's shop. And this ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... There was a flicker of matches as they were applied to the fuses, and then a splutter of sparks. An instant later it seemed as if the whole heavens had been ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... swollen faces and their noses in a hopeless state, and after looking at them a moment as if she had slowly come up from some vast depth and distance and were gradually recognizing them, she had whispered with a flicker of the old encouraging smile that had comforted every hurt and bruise they had ever had, "Don't cry ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the loud and prolonged "O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick" of the flicker makes us lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful black crescent on their breasts. When we hear ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... winter sojourn. The teacher and pupils may now learn to recognize the birds, because there are only a few, and these are easily seen, as the robin, blue-bird, junco, meadow-lark, goldfinch, bronzed grackle, sapsucker, blue jay, downy woodpecker, and flicker. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... so completely on the trustworthiness of the latter as on that of the former. To refute this charge Mr. Bell had insisted that both he and Watson carefully write out whatever they heard that the two records might afterward be compared and verified. 'That is,' Mr. Bell had added with the flicker of a smile, 'if we succeed in talking at all!' Well, they did succeed, as you have heard. At first they held only a stilted dialogue and conscientiously jotted it down; but afterward their exuberance got ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... in honor of the cat-headed deity of the Pagans, Mrs. Greyson?" Rangely asked, as she paused near his chair, watching a burner which seemed disposed to flicker. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... heart to see whether it was still beating. He was alive! Beckoning to two of his comrades, Molly commanded them to carry him to the shade of a near-by tree. And soon she had the satisfaction of seeing a faint smile flicker over his face as she bent above him. At that moment her keen ears heard ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... is being said—inaudible, indeed, and not to be seen, at the furthest end of that dense, underground crowd, but testified to by the lighting of a thousand tapers, and by the strong desire for some flicker of the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... weapons, and Eddring noticed that of the two Mrs. Ellison seemed the more frightened. The younger one was pale, but her eye did not flicker or falter. She looked straight at each man, at Bowles and Buckner, both impassive, at Calvin Blount, now beginning to flush under his fighting choler; yes, and at last at him, John Eddring, pale and serious, but steady as the door-jamb against which ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... to be tall and broad. He was stooping forward over the mirror. His back was turned to me, but in the glass I saw the reflection of a huge head and face illumined fitfully by the flicker of the night-light. The spectral gray of very early morning stealing in round the edges of the curtains lent an additional horror to the picture, for it fell upon the hair that was tawny and mane-like, hanging about a face whose swollen, rugose ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... to bear my misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could command, when half—a—dozen cockroaches flew flicker ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... road was reached, a fast pace was set and maintained for miles. At the Ehrenstein barrier no question was asked, and Carmichael's one hope was shattered. At the Jugendheit barrier the carriage stopped. There were voices. Carmichael saw the flicker of a lantern. His captors got out. Presently there appeared at the door an old man dressed as a mountaineer. In his ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... went north to meet Harald, and of our parting I will not say more. I could not then tell that I should not see him again, and that was well: but I know that when I saw the last flicker of his sails against the sky, I felt more lonely even than at the graveside ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... His face was smooth, his jaw somewhat heavy, his eyes exceedingly keen, and he carried with him an indefinable air of authority. He observed, also, that the voice had in it something peculiarly clear and incisive. With a little thrill and a sudden flicker of the flame of hope, he pointed down the street that led to ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... gazing at her in a heartbroken sort of way. Is it the end? Is it all really over? There had been a faint flicker of the dying candle—a tiny glare—and now for all time is it ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... granite storehouses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighbouring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of the houses, and down ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... was still a girl, and a girl of strong imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and tried to think connectedly of all ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the morning Helena lay in the deliciously cool water, while small waves ran up the beach full and clear and foamless, continuing perfectly in their flicker the rhythm of the night's passion. Nothing, she felt, had ever been so delightful as this cool water running over her. She lay and looked out on the shining sea. All things, it seemed, were made of sunshine more or less soiled. The cliffs rose out of the shining waves ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... pool of paraffine on the scullery floor, and instantly a nest of snaky, wavering blue flame became agog for prey. He went up the stairs three steps at a time with one eager blue flicker in pursuit of him. He seized the lamp at the top. "Now!" he said and flung it smashing. The chimney broke, but the glass receiver stood the shock and rolled to the bottom, a potential bomb. Old Rumbold would hear that and wonder what it was!... He'd ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... though the origin of the conviction be of God, and though the voice in my heart be not only my voice, but God's voice there, it will obey those same laws which make human thoughts and emotions vary, and fluctuate, flicker and flame up again, burn bright and burn low, according to a thousand circumstances. The witness of the Spirit, if it were yonder in heaven, would shine like a perpetual star; the witness of the Spirit, here in the heart on earth, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... unless very carefully used, will prove unsatisfactory. The dynamo feels every variation in speed, and this is reflected in the lights. There is nothing quite so annoying as flickering lights. Usually this can be traced to the belt connections. Leather lacing forms a knot which causes the lights to flicker at each revolution of the belt. The endless belt does away with this trouble. Most dynamos are provided with sliding bases, by which the machine can be moved one way or another a few inches, to take up slack in the belt. To take advantage of this, the belt must be run in a horizontal ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... their hearts the lightning quivered like a blood of fire. The shadow of their wings fell upon the mountain and the plains, and beneath their wings was silence. Slowly the sun sank, and the shapes of cloud gathered together like a host at the word of its captain, and the flicker of the lightning was as the flash of the spears of a host. I looked, and my heart grew afraid. The lightning died away, the silence deepened and deepened till I could hear it, no leaf moved, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... mademoiselle!" A flicker of irony was observable in the tone and, with exaggerated zeal, he ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... cup the soul lights up, Inspirations flicker; Nectar lifts the soul on high With its heavenly ichor: To my lips a sounder taste Hath the tavern's liquor Than the wine a village clerk Waters for ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... with one foot in the grave, whose whole feeble mind, whose pride, whose final flicker of hope was concentrated in his boy, must be told that the lad had been ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... so cool, so careless, so morrowless. I cannot see the faces of that luxurious society, but there I imagine is the local albino, and a certain blind man, who resorts thither much by day, and makes a strange kind of jest of his own, with a flicker of humor upon his sightless face, and a faith that others less unkindly treated by nature will be able to see the point apparently not always discernible to himself. Late at night I have a fancy that the darkness puts him on an equality with other wits, and that ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... again, or showed another flicker of the clear and normal intelligence that she had shown in the night. But she still breathed, and the long, wet day dragged slowly, in the big, mournful old house, until late in the unnatural afternoon. People—all sorts of people—were ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... demurr'd at this first notice to Quit; and though death had threaten'd an ejection, His youth and constitution bore him through, And sent the doctors in a new direction. But still his state was delicate: the hue Of health but flicker'd with a faint reflection Along his wasted cheek, and seem'd to gravel The faculty—who said that he ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... gave a flicker and went out, turned off at the main. Kennedy lit a candle and made his way to his dormitory. There now faced him the more than unpleasant task of introducing himself to its inmates. He knew from experience the disconcerting ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... gloomy silence, but when she returned she looked as if all the life had gone out of her. She played in Camille Maupin's play, and contributed not a little to the success of that illustrious literary hermaphrodite; but the creation of this character was the last flicker of a bright, dying lamp. On the twentieth night, when Lucien had so far recovered that he had regained his appetite and could walk abroad, and talked of getting to work again, Coralie broke down; a secret trouble was weighing upon her. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... lamp o' life is burnin' with a clear and steady light, An' it never seems ter flicker, but it's allers shinin' bright; Tho' it sheds its rays unbroken for a thousand happy days— Father Time is ever turnin' down the wick that feeds yer blaze. So it clearly is yer duty ef you've got a thing ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... walked to the window, and gazed out at the first lights that began to flicker in the windows of the Capitol across ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... with whom he consorted had shrunk away from him in horror, and left him to a sinister old age with the barmaid wife whom he had married in some drunken frolic. As he looked at the young man still leaning back in the leather chair, there seemed for the instant to flicker up behind him some vague presentiment of that foul old dandy with his dangling seals, many-wreathed scarf, and dark satyric face. What was he now? An armful of bones in a mouldy box. But his deeds— ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Rembrandt, drawing with masterly power before he could read." The same authority says, in reference to the fact that some of these prodigies do not become famous in their after years, and that their genius often seems to flicker out, leaving them as ordinary children: "That is easily understood. They come on earth with remarkable powers acquired in an anterior existence, but they have done nothing to develop their aptitudes; ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... other who was talking. They were not asking it again as much and this was the way of arranging that there was not to be all there was of future. They took a walk together and they came oftener and they were not hidden by the light that made a flicker. They ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... late when the flicker of a candle came up stairs, and a pale lady, with a sweet sad face, appeared, bringing a pair of red and a pair of blue mittens for her Dolly and Polly. Poor Mrs. Blake did have a hard time, for she stood all day in a great store that she might earn bread ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... hurriedly set about gathering fuel for a fire, but having brought wood, the fuel refused to burn. The rain had thoroughly soaked everything. The merest flicker of flame was all they were able to get. They tried again and again, but with no better results, finally giving up ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... such heroically antique models." Major Hawke gazed upon the leather-faced visage of the slaty-eyed woman, whose age none might venture to guess. An artless admiration of the absent Miss Justine's photographed charms, caused a faint glow to flicker upon the ancient maiden's cheek. When Alan Hawke drew forth a hideous carbuncle and Indian filigree bracelet (an old relic of bazaar haunting), the thin lips of the preceptress parted in a ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... quietly. The expression on his face did not change, but Tommy caught the flicker of despair in his eyes. It convinced him as nothing else had done ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of Liot was very dark and still. A ghostly flicker of light struggled through the narrow windows, and on the fires the embers slowly died. Beside the benches slumbered the forms of some of the heaviest drinkers, and once or twice they nearly stumbled over these. Grim came up ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... the yumari soon becomes tiresome, in spite of its greater animation. Yet the spectacle has something weird in it, especially when seen by the fitful flicker of the fire, which throws a fantastic light upon the grotesque figures, like goblins moving about on the same space. Many mothers carry their sleeping infants on their backs. Sometimes, the blanket which supports the baby loosens, and the little thing hangs half out of it, following every movement ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Station for the doctor and the ice. If he meet not the ice cart on the road, let him borrow all they will lend him at the houses of the sahibs," said the cook. "Jhut!—lose no time. In these illnesses the life of a child is as the flicker of a candle. A breath, and it is out; and once dead, who can restore ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... color, and paint them so. You will find that often, especially in full sunlight, the color peculiar to the thing itself is not to be seen at all. The character of the light which falls on it gives the note, and controls. In the shade the effect is less marked, but the constant flicker makes the same sort of variation, though not to ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... had gone to her room, to lie awake on the bed, fully dressed. She had left the oil-lamp burning, for Hamlin had been sitting at a table reading. She heard him get up after a while; saw the light flicker and go out; heard her father cross the floor and go to ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... conclusion that the campaign was closing, and that in the course of about another fortnight some of us would be on our homeward way. They forgot that after a candle has burned down into its socket it may still flare and flicker wearisomely long before it finally goes out. War lights just such a candle, and no extinguisher has yet been patented for the instant quenching of its flame just when our personal convenience chances to clamour ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... the ladder with extended hands, put his foot on the lower rung, and, turning his head, saw over the shoulder of the nearest man, in the yellow flicker of the light, the first-comer astride over Howard and still working at the door. Graham turned to the ladder again, and was thrust by his conductor and helped up by those above, and then he was standing on something hard and cold and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... like a twofold sore! Yet all things slept, and scarce some pale late light Flitted along the streets through the still night, Lamps of debauch, forgotten and alone, The feast's lost fires left there to flicker on; The walls' large angles clove the light-lengthening shades 'Neath the white moon, or on some pool's face played. Perchance one heard, faint in the plain beneath, The kiss suppressed, the mingling of the breath; And the two sister cities, tired of heat, In love's embrace lay down ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... advisable to use a revolver lest the excessive noise of a fowling-piece should disturb the entire forest, and how once he had shot seven times at an imperturbable partridge showing its head over a tree, and missed seven times, and how the partridge had at last flown off, with a flicker of plumage that almost said aloud, "Well, I really can't wait any longer!" And then might follow a simply tremendous discussion about the digestibility ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the ground, gnawing his thick lower lip, and if ever the infernal fire darted from human eyes, I saw its baleful flicker then. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Mrs. Indian's horse's tail flicker. Like to have a close-up, wouldn't you? Staring at us like that, it makes a fellow feel as if he's been stealing something of theirs and they're taking a good look in time for the ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... quickly that he did not realize her departure until he saw her form flicker in the darkness and then disappear completely. A faint ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the Sun is the seat of violent storms and tempests. From it gigantic flames, consisting mainly of hydrogen, flicker and leap. Professor Young describes one as being, when first observed, 40,000 miles high. Suddenly it became very brilliant, and in half an hour sprang up 40,000 more. For another hour it soared higher and higher, reaching finally an elevation of no less than 350,000 ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... the end came very suddenly, just when it was least expected. Hatty had seemed better that day; there was a strange flicker of life and energy; she had talked much to her mother and Bessie, and had sent a loving, playful message to Tom, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... blandly, without so much as a flicker of humour in her serene blue eyes. "Your grandfather used to be very fond of quoting something from 'Sappho,'" she returned thoughtfully, "or was it from Mr. Pope? I can't remember which or what it was except that it was hardly the kind ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... before dejeuner. He did turn up; about eleven o'clock he came in and found Francie alone. She noticed, for strangeness, that he was very pale at the same time that he was sunburnt; also that he didn't for an instant smile at her. It was very certain there was no bright flicker in her own face, and they had the most singular, the most unnatural meeting. He only said as he arrived: "I couldn't come last evening; they made it impossible; they were all there and we were up till three o'clock this morning." He looked as if he had ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... to stare out of the window, seeing nothing of the scenery but the flicker of telegraph posts before his eyes that were visioning ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... haven't," he declared. Night after night in those next weeks, as he idled moodily about Mercer's streets, or, lounging across the bridge, leaned on the handrail and watched the ashes from his cigar flicker down into the unseen current below, he said the same thing: "I am not in love with her, and I sha'n't allow myself to be. I won't let it go any farther. But David is no man for a girl like Elizabeth to marry." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... this Eternal Justice, may be, will judge the intention more than the crime. O Lord, Lord! save my soul! Teach me how to escape from the condemning fires of Thine anger!" Thus she prayed and wrestled with, her accusing self in secret—despair and fear raging in her heart, though not a flicker of her inward agitation betrayed itself outwardly on ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... sober-looking book. Again, he would gaze out of the window; and he gazed oftenest when a freight train hid the beauties of outside nature. The dun sides of freight cars make out of a window a passable mirror. Twice, in those dim and confused glimpses, he caught just a flicker of her eye across her book, as though, she, on her part, were ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... Bagger would carry his fine theories upon matrimony into practice. The toast was drunk with enthusiasm, and just at that moment a strong wind shook the windows, and burst open one of the doors, blowing so far into the hall as to cause the lights to flicker much. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... of peasants armed with scythes and carrying torches which flicker in the frosty air have invaded the slopes and flats of the military zone. They are yelling "Vive l'Empereur!" at the top of their voices, and from walls and bastions reverberates the answering cry "Vive l'Empereur!" vociferated by infantrymen and gunners and sapeurs, and echoed ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... so very old a cave Is all glittering-bright within, Like the flicker of fire. It is like the inside of a house. They are setting up a loom, And heaping up charm-sticks. No, The hangings are out of old time. ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... to the sylvan gods, garlanded with flowers; every post, or stick, or slight stem, like a Bacchante's thyrsus, twined with wreaths of ivy and wild vine, waving in the tepid wind. Beautiful butterflies flicker like flying flowers among the bushes, and gorgeous birds, like winged jewels, dart from the boughs,—and—and—a huge ground snake slid like a dark ribbon, across the path while I was stopping to enjoy ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... her—what goodness there was in her: it showed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly annoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner of the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there anything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave just as readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... about him which, dim and unreal in itself, served to make all things dim and unreal. He did not know whether he was asleep or awake, so strange was life, so vivid were his dreams. Mummie, Uncle John, the baby, Toby himself came with a flicker of the veil and disappeared vaguely without cause. It would happen that Toby would be speaking to Uncle John, and suddenly he would find himself looking into the large eyes of the baby, turned stupidly towards the ceiling, and again the baby would be Toby himself, a hot, dry little ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... streak of blessedness the Thames ran silvered by the moonlight. He could see the clumped shadows of woods and the flicker of ripples striking fire against the banks. More distantly London glowed—a golden flower cupped in the hollowed hand of night. Holding his breath he listened to the loudness of the quiet. Subtle ecstasies drifted to him, fluttering like moths against the windows of his mind—"lilies ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... that Aronsen cherished a flicker of hope, and thought he could afford to stand on his dignity with any who offered to buy up Storborg. But it was ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... I palpitate, a poet;— Can I close dead ears against the rush and resonance of things? Symbols in me breathe and flicker up the heights of the heroic; Earth's worst spawn, you said, and cursed me? look! approve me! I ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... life. All Christendom is professing to commemorate that fact to-day, [Preached on Whitsunday] but a large portion of us forget that it was but a transient sign of a perpetual reality. The rushing mighty wind has died down into a calm; the fiery tongues have ceased to flicker on the disciples' heads, but the miracle, which is permanent, and is being repeated from day to day, in the experience of every believing soul, is the inrush of the very breath of God into their lives, and the plunging of them into a fiery baptism which melts their coldness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Teutonic strength and directness, with a sweet freshness of spring in its more delicate poetry, and both of these elements blended at times in an atmosphere as of German forests in June. In some writers the flicker of French brilliancy illumines the depth of these Teutonic woods, producing a German which, in spite of the condemnation of the Emperor, we should like to write ourselves if the choice were ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... asked if I could swim and when I said yes he warned me not to swim to the shore as the river was falling and the bank caving, but to float with the mattress and call till I was picked up. So I went over with it. But it twisted away from me. I swam to a floating cotton bale, one with a flicker of fire still on it, as it drifted up-stream in the eddy. At the same time I'd heard your uncle and Phyllis strike the water together, and a moment later I saw them—their heads. She was holding to the mattress with one hand and to him with the other. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... There was a flicker of Irish fighting spirit in the Boer War. Many thousands, no doubt, were in the English army of 250,000 men brought against the 30,000 Boers, but there was a small "Irish Brigade" that fought on the Boer ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... song, the torches flicker out and the figures are no longer distinguishable in the darkness. They pass out like shadows. The purple curtain hangs ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... to have been a calm turquoise blue, but which was flickering from dark blue through violet to mauve. That was simple nervous tension and guilt and anger at the humiliation of being subjected to veridicated interrogation. Now and then there would be a stabbing flicker of bright red as he toyed mentally with ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... with her throughout the night. Just before death there came to her a brief season of long-lost animation, the last flicker of the torch before darkness. She talked to them almost continuously until the dawn. Into their hands was given the task of educating the others of the family, and on their hearts and consciences the charge was graven. Charlie, who was born during the early ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Then I saw the flicker of lights beyond the trees—light from the lantern Cuinn had been carrying in his ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the implements of labor, in the dingy werkstube in Johannis Strasse; lighted by the single flicker of an oil lamp, with the workboard for a writing-desk, let me endeavour to collect some few scattered details about the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... went swish in the leaves like thet. His whiskers quivered, his tongue come out. C'u'd think o' nuthin' but his big empty belly. The boy was scairt. He up with his gun quick es a flash. Aimed at his eyes 'n let 'er flicker. Blew a lot o' smoke 'n bird shot 'n paper waddin' right up in t' his face. The panther he lost his whiskers 'n one eye 'n got his hide fill' o' shot 'n fell off the tree like a ripe apple 'n run fer his life. Thought he'd never see nuthin' c'u'd ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... came buzzing along (the dressing room has some insect life) and slowly circled her head rather close, but she didn't even flicker ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... plant a powder-bag, and as I glanced out I saw that he was rapidly laying a train by drawing a second bag of powder after him as he stepped rapidly back towards another man who was carrying a lighted lanthorn—lighted, I felt sure, though in the brilliant sunshine the flicker of the candle inside was ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... butterfly moon! Where the heavy-lidded Buddhas dream To the sound of the cuckoo's call.... The white wings of moon-butterflies Flicker down the streets of the city, Blushing into darkness the useless wicks of round lanterns in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the end of last century. As, to use their own beautiful expression, "'Tis always the darkest the hour before day," so the gloom had never settled down so darkly over the land, when light began to dawn, and the first symptoms of returning life to flicker over the face of the, to all seeming, dead nation. Its coming has been best described in the "History of the Catholic Association" by Wyse. On reading his account, it is impossible not to be struck with the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Foreign Affairs. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was thus begun. Kerensky's attempt to rally forces enough to put an end to this dictatorship was a pathetic failure, as it was bound to be. It was like the last fitful flicker with which a great flame dies. The masses wanted peace—for that they would ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... towards them, and I addressed Adele without a flicker of recognition in my face. I piloted them to a table a little apart, ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hat. It was dark. Lights began to flicker in the fort and the chateau. The resolution seemed to give him new strength, and he squared his shoulders, took in deep breaths, entered the officers' ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself that maybe they'd get Dutchy on ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Rachel administered a draught of the cordial which did most to support the failing strength of the dying man. Just at this moment the lamp of life seemed to be glowing with fresh strength. It was but the last flicker before extinction, and the wife knew it, but Rachel experienced a glow of hope that perhaps it might ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... discovered. In the gable was only the one window for which they were making. Mary went first, as better knowing the path, also as having the better right to look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see the flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It lasted but a moment—long enough, however, to let them see plainly into a small closet, the door of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the firelight, either, No change in the coals or blaze That flicker and flash, as ruddy To-night as ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the flicker among the oaks on the hill-side, and a new ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Hereward still held out, the spirit of resistance survived. In April, 1071, William arrived at Cambridge and commenced a regular blockade. Advancing cautiously by means of a causeway through the fens, he entered Ely in October, and therewith the last flicker of independence died out. The conquest of England was completed. To guard against any fresh incitements to rebellion from Scotland, William in 1072 invaded that country and forced Malcolm to do him homage—an event which had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... change of air—pressing and relaxing, twelve to fifteen times a minute (time it by watch at first, and then count) artificial breathing is performed. Sometimes it is necessary to work an hour or two before the flicker of an eyelid or a gasp from the patient rewards the life saver's efforts, and then he must carefully "piece in" the breathing until natural breathing is resumed. When breathing starts, then promote circulation by rubbing the legs and body toward ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Stuarts failed in England they fought for things that succeeded in Europe. These were roughly, first, the effects of the Counter-Reformation, which made the sincere Protestant see Stuart Catholicism not at all as the last flicker of an old flame, but as the spread of a conflagration. Charles II., for instance, was a man of strong, sceptical, and almost irritably humorous intellect, and he was quite certainly, and even reluctantly, ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... thus over his misfortunes, the flames on the hearth flicker and burn brighter. Suddenly their light glints upon the hilt of a sword driven deep in the bole of the mighty oak, and, reassured by the thought that he has a weapon within reach, Siegmund disposes ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise, As I turn it low—to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes, And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke Its fate with my tobacco and ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... looking to heaven with piercing eyes and letting a bitter smile flicker on her lips, "what other feeling does the Church leave to a lost soul unless it ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... shoes are. Why don't you wear boots when you're out like this?" A flicker of his earlier peremptoriness came into his voice. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... last faint flicker of hope deserted me. Yet the exercise of that fruitless search had restored some measure of manhood; my brain no longer throbbed with dull agony, nor did my veins burn as with liquid fire. I felt convinced this black vault was destined to become my ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... seemed to fail, die out—perhaps a tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed twilit doubt crept in—the same dull acquiescence—the same uncertainty ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... ever burning in his broad chest, unsteady as yet, not confident in its own power. It flashed brightly in his eyes, forced out from within; but suddenly it would nearly expire in fright and flicker behind the smoke of perplexed alarm ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... that they were slowly gaining on her. Every now and then he turned to the man at the helm with some remark, and then shouted to the other forward to keep a bright look-out. At length, however, the light ahead began to flicker and dance, and now to grow larger, now to decrease, till it was scarcely visible. He was holding fast on to the side of the dhow, and found some support necessary. He looked up at the huge sail, which, bulging out, seemed to grow larger and larger till it towered up into the sky. Desmond ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... at an easy pace and descended to the beach. The flicker of a match guided him to the searcher. As he drew near, the light went out, and the young ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... farm. In Charlemagne's time (for instance) they did nearly all the sheep shearing. Then at last Bodo comes back for his supper, and as soon as the sun goes down they go to bed; for their hand-made candle gives only a flicker of light, and they both have to be up early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed out, in his inimitable manner, how the ancients everywhere went to bed, 'like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock'. 'Man went to bed early in those ages ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... pale and pure northern dawn. At first he thought it must be the rising moon, but no orb appeared; and as the brilliance deepened, intensified into colour, and shot towards the zenith, he knew it for the aurora borealis. Soon the stars were blinded out by the vivid sweeping flicker of its rays; hues bright and varied as the rainbow thrilled along the iridescent roadways to the central point above, and tongues of flame leaped from arches in the north-west. Burning scarlet and amber, purple, green, trembled in pulsations across the ebony surface ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... in and sat down in the arm-chair beyond the fire. What memories a fire gathered into it, with its flaky ashes, its little leaf-like flames, and that quiet glow and flicker! What tale of passions! How like to a fire was a man's heart! The first young fitful leapings, the sudden, fierce, mastering heat, the long, steady sober burning, and then—that last flaming-up, that clutch back at its own vanished youth, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his business to carry lamps in that part of the palace—he was not a human being, but a lamplighter. They went on, down a short flight of broad steps, and then through a wider corridor where the lights were better, though the night breeze was blowing in and made them flicker and flare. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... the shack was closed; a board covered the window, but a murmur of voices came from within. Maurice stole close and listened. Through a crack he could see the flicker of a candle-flame, and he heard the voice ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... upon the group; and for once we were welcome to our enemies. Even Carmona's face brightened, a flicker of hope lit Lady Vale-Avon's grey eyes; and the Duchess deliberately courted ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "something else!" Why do we not stop and gather it by the roadside we are passing now? We will not find it farther on. That which is enticing us onward is only the illusionary flicker of a will o'-the-wisp! We will stretch out our hands too late—when we have been caught in its fatal snares, and then in the darkness and misery that will surround us, we will feel how foolish we have been, and our cries of despair and distress will be echoed back to our own ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... she has little imagination. It is not simply that she suppresses what she has. To her, things remain at the most terrible moment precisely what they were at the calmest, plain facts which stand in a given relation to a certain deed, not visions which tremble and flicker in the light of other worlds. The probability that the old king will sleep soundly after his long journey to Inverness is to her simply a fortunate circumstance; but one can fancy the shoot of horror across Macbeth's face as she mentions it. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her engines out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks on her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, and look sharp. ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... through the darkness to a deep and broad ravine, into which they descended. The sides and bottom of this ravine were clothed in bushes, and they grew thick on the edges above. It was much darker here, but Dick presently caught ahead of him the flicker of the first light that he had ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... What a jewel he was, all the way through! And he'd have marched straight to the altar, too, with never a flicker of an eyelid, I know—self-sacrificing martyr ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... straining his eyes upon the hill-cap, he fancied he saw a flicker of red light on its side. For a moment he believed his sight had deceived him, and he rubbed his lashes and looked again. There it was again, a more distinct flicker than at first; then it grew brighter and steadier, and presently ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... seeing, not the picture she painted but that which she made, there in the sunshine. She was whiter than ever. Deep shadows were under her eyes. But the eyes themselves were very steady, her voice never quavered, nor did the smile flicker. Where did she get her spirit, this slender fragile girl who seemed so in need of another's ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... characteristic. For while Knox had long been a beacon-light to Scotland, we have had reason to think that the flame was first kindled in this man's own soul. But now that the fuel which fed it is withdrawn, will that flame sink into the socket? Will it flicker out, now that the airs which fanned it have become still? How will it behave in the chill that falls from ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... other, were to finish the game of military mathematics which had been progressing during four years. Carleton wrote, March 31, 1865, "How inspiring to watch the close of such a game." He expected a great battle. "The last flicker of a candle is ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... have called the contest of mutual inspection a fifty-fifty break—perhaps with a shade in favor of Britt, for the usurer's face was like leather and his goggling marbles of eyes under the lids that resembled little tents did not flicker. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... magnetism that was a component part of Dr. Maverick's nature when he chose to use it, which was not nearly always, there was a steadfast kindliness, the vigor of a true and pure manhood, that made a clear atmosphere about him, in which insincerity, weakness, and selfishness seemed to flicker into pale shadows, and shrink away from the intense mental light ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... when they came to the end of the road, rose a hill with a broad plateau on its stomach. Here through the dull haze of the morning they saw smoky-orange lights beginning to flicker uncertainly as the wind that heralds the sunrise came fitfully up. The soft wet grass under their feet was flecked with little grayish-silver cobwebs, and here and there they heard the morning chirp of ground-nesting birds. As they went farther up the hill a hum of voices came from above; the voices ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... on,—southwards to Cuba, then north again to the Lucayas and the Florida straits, looking for Spanish ships and their gold. The lights yet burned,—now brightly, now so sunken that it seemed as though the next hour they must flicker out. We, the players, flagged not in that desperate masque; but we knew that, in spite of all endeavor, the darkness ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... say further than in writing of "politics" I am only dealing with the lights and shadows that flicker over the surface, and am not trying to discuss, still less to decry, the deep and vital ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... I can refuse you nothing," she said, with a last flicker of resistance; "nothing that will make you truly happier. But will this? Are you sure, my husband? Last night, you say, you found him! He may ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it towards her hostess, wore a sweet, patient look, with just the tiniest flicker of pain about the curves of the perfect lips. "Please, do not blame Winnie too severely, Mrs. Blake," she pleaded mildly; "her words are to some extent true, but I—" and the lids drooped slowly over the lovely eyes, while a faint flush tinged the delicate cheeks—"I ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... directed by the boys, Charley presently showed the flicker of an eye. They worked faithfully over him for a considerable time and were at last rewarded by having him on the road to recovery from his enforced bath and attendant experience. He had fallen into the water just ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... spruce thicket, his savage eyes turning from side to side, the lynx came upon a strange trail, and stopped short, crouching. His stub of a tail twitched, his ears flattened back angrily, his long, white fangs bared themselves in a soundless snarl. A green flame seemed to flicker in his eyes, as he subjected every bush, every stone, every stump within his view to the most piercing scrutiny. Detecting no hostile presence, he bent his attention to the strange trail, sniffing at it with ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... such words, for I am dizzy and They flicker in my eyes. Lament not much, I beg of thee. If I remained alive, All mangled as I am, I never could Bring children into life for thee; my body Would be so ugly, whereas formerly I know I had some beauty. This would be So hard for thee to bear and hide from me. But I shall die at once, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... head. His eyes did not flicker as he answered steadily: "Surely you cannot think that I would have so much as mentioned ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... serene eye wander over them. He was walking toward the door, guiding Carigny with a hand on his arm. There was a flicker of a smile on his face. Without answering, he passed out. To this day, no man knows what card ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... against him was himself. He cast his mind back over the meeting and dinner but there had been no slips past the first shock of the chairman's announcement, and that had been unobserved by anyone. The psychologist they had hired might perhaps get a betraying flicker of expression from him in an interview, many well-trained observers of human reactions could read expressions that keenly, but the interviewing of all the Board by the psychologist was not likely. The Directors of the Board were even now climbing into ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... white hand parted the curtain an inch or two. There was the flicker of a fan held ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... to a passage than the radiant girls who chant and tell their beads. Angels in all shapes of beauty flit over and amid the throngs I see,—in shape of fleecy clouds that fan them,—in shape of brooks that murmur praise,—in shape of leafy shadows that tremble and flicker,—in shape of birds that make a concert of song." The birds even then were singing, the clouds floating in his eye, the leafy shadows trailing on the chamber floor, and, from the valley, the murmur of the brook came to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... read Mrs. Radcliffe, or am I the only wanderer in her windy corridors, listening timidly to groans and hollow voices, and shielding the flame of a lamp, which, I fear, will presently flicker out, and leave me in darkness? People know the name of "The Mysteries of Udolpho;" they know that boys would say to Thackeray, at school, "Old fellow, draw us Vivaldi in the Inquisition." But have they penetrated into ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... our comrades died away down the low passage, and then the last flicker of their torch passed from the stone walls of that terrible pit, leaving Selred and myself alone in the cold moonlight. Out through the doors toward the council chamber I saw the Mercian thane, who had been watching us in silence, sit down at the table and set his head ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... the fine expression of life with which her upturned eyes had glittered was gradually passing away, clasped her mother's hands within her own: suddenly they struggled for freedom, and as her eye followed the pointing of her parent's finger, she saw the lamp's last beam flicker for a moment, and then expire!—Her mother, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid dexterity, running verbally in and out among ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... cannot understand those reared on the bosom of the Dead—human faces grow pale at the approach of the spectres—at the echo of their footsteps the home-fires glimmer and flicker low on the hearthstone—the mother hides her child—the wife leads away the husband that he may not clasp hands with the wandering exile,—the evening star alone, the star of graves, smiles ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... of the warning flashed from the shore. "Guess there must be something hellish afoot after all," he muttered again. "The flicker of green that stopped the signals, and the green fire that got us—what can they mean?" He looked toward the looming black shadow of the island, and began divesting himself of his clinging, sodden garments. "I don't wonder somebody ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the hemlock: "corrupting the morals of the youth, and teaching strange gods." Feeling the virtue of his teaching, he was unwilling as Socrates to abandon the field. In Samson he thought he recognized twin gifts: a spark of a genius too rare to be allowed to flicker out, and a potentiality for constructive work among his own people, which needed for its perfecting only education and experience. Having aroused a soul's restiveness in the boy, he felt a direct responsibility for it and him, to which ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... it!" Clancy permitted a thin smile to flicker contemptuously across his lips. "You've got a whole lot of friends that I'm interested in. Get the idea? There ain't a crook in New York that's shy of you. You got a 'stand-in' everywhere." He held up the ten-dollar bill. "There's more of ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... sickening Mr. Thompson. He was extraordinarily glad when he got outside. That closeness—to speak mildly—coupled with the heavy, copper-red faces, impassive as masks, impersonally listening with scarcely a flicker of the eye-lids, made Thompson forswear another attempt to preach until he could speak to them in their own tongue and speak to them in a goodly place of worship where a man's thoughts would not be imperiously distracted by a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... perfectly serious; but presently he regarded her with a flicker of humor in his eyes, she thought. "You didn't say that as if you meant it, Sylvia," he declared. "You didn't say it as if you quite believed it. But I'm going to show you that you're right. What we've been together, Sylvia, you and I, we're going to continue to be until we both agree ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... was conscious of their existence, but they no longer ruled him. One thing was paramount, his determination to know everything of the crime that had been perpetrated in the main drive of the Silver Stream. Fragments of thoughts seemed to flicker up like flames within him and die out again instantly, and he repeated constantly under his breath ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... remembered to have had in his tiny room. Where were the hearth, the bed, the table, stool, and basin? The humble torch of his vigils still trembled by his side, but its light could not reach the lofty ceiling. The little wings of flame threw their feeble flicker on to a pillar close by, which was all that stood out from the darkness. But little by little his eyes grew accustomed to his new abode. He wandered through room after room, and rejoiced as profoundly at all that his ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... seemed to be overpowered by curiosity or hostility, and Smith saw, with alarm, that the little figures were gradually drawing nearer, flitting silently as shadows from tree to tree, and hiding themselves so effectually, even when they came to closer quarters, that nothing but the flicker of a brownish form among the undergrowth, or a round black head projecting from tree or ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... and look at my own coffin! Why not? It would be a novel experience. The sense of fear had entirely deserted me; the possession of that box of matches was sufficient to endow me with absolute hardihood. I picked up the church-candle and lighted it; it gave at first a feeble flicker, but afterward burned with a clear and steady flame. Shading it with one hand from the draught, I gave a parting glance at the fair daylight that peeped smilingly in through my prison door, and then went down—down again into the dismal place where I had ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... your request. How can I? Believing, with you, that your wealth is a Divine trust, I regard your appeal as a call from God Himself. Besides, you could not have demanded from me a more congenial service. You shall have all the help I can give; and between us," he added, with a reviving flicker of his previous facetiousness, "we shall make ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... smoking in silence. A cold fear was at his heart. That terrible Grodman! As the hangman's cord was tightening round Mortlake, he felt the convict's chains tightening round himself. And yet there was one gleam of hope, feeble as the yellow flicker of the gas-lamp across the way. Grodman had obtained an interview with the condemned late that afternoon, and the parting had been painful, but the evening paper, that in its turn had obtained an interview with the ex-detective, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... as soon as the door was shut on him and the little flicker of gas, Bernard fell into an anguish of sobs and tears, the work of her persevering love, softening and lessening the obstinate pride so far that the next visitors met with a much better reception than they might have done. The first came stumbling ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a strange little flicker of the eyelids. They had grown wonderfully accustomed to each other during the last three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one of those friendships between man and woman that occasionally set the world agog with curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed to be no doubt about it. He was over thirty, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... hold of things though," he said, "if it's only to keep one's hand in." His eyes did not flicker now as they swept the ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... was digging up the river, and I swam the flooded bend With a little cash and comfort for my literary friend. Brown was sitting sad and lonely with his head bowed in despair, While a single tallow candle threw a flicker on his hair, And the gusty wind that whistled through the crannies of the door Stirred the scattered files of paper that were lying on the floor. Charlie took my hand in silence — and by-and-by ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... headache and would like to go upstairs to bed; and when she kissed President's cheek, I saw aversion written in every line of her shrinking figure. Yet opposite to him sat Sally, who was a Bland and a Fairfax, and not a tremor, not the flicker of an eyelash, disturbed her friendly and charming expression. What was the secret of that exquisite patience, that perfect courtesy, which was confirmed by the heart, not by the lips? Did the hidden cause of it lie in the fact that it was not ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... and snake-bite, though hidden in blossoms, are hatred's old arms. And what is your May Queen at heart, oh, true hearts, that succumb to her charms? Dropped and deep in the blossoms, with eyes that flicker like fir The asp of Murder lies hid, which with poison shall feed your desire. More than these things will she give, who looks fairer than all these things? Not while her sceptre's a snake, and her orb the red horror that rings Devilish, foul, round the world; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... myself," the matron continued agreeably, descending the porch steps. "Before I come here I never had nothing in my kitchen but an oil lamp and a reflector. Jest as sure as I'd be dishing up dinner, hot nights, that lamp would begin to flicker and suck—well, shucks! I'd look up at it and I'd say, 'Well, why don't you go out? Go ahead!'" Mrs. Tolley laughed joyously. "Well, one night—George—" she was continuing with relish, when Min pulled at her ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... rushed to fetch them. I marvelled when I saw them lead out Paddy's horse. I had thought from what I perceived over my shoulder when I left Bristol that he would never be able to make half a league in the saddle. Amid the flicker of lanterns, Bottles and I mounted and then I heard Paddy calling to ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane |
