"In a flash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought in sudden terror: What if he has seen us! As in a flash she understood. He was coming from the park; he had wanted to wait until they should have had time to reach the street; then the accident with her hat had spoiled his calculations and made him show himself too soon. ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Suddenly, as in a flash, the whole of his past life unrolled itself before his consciousness. He saw himself a toddling baby, a growing child, a schoolboy, a happy young rascal chasing sheep; then came a period of pain, a gradual convalescence, a joyful life in the country air, a life of reading, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... characteristics of the Grizzly are the quickness with which he makes a plan and the vigor with which he follows it up. Before the bull had reached the far side of the corral Jack seemed to know the wisest of courses. His pig-like eyes swept the fence in a flash—took in the most climbable part, a place where a cross-piece was nailed on in the middle. In three seconds he was there, in two seconds he was over, and in one second he dashed through the running, scattering mob and was making for the hills as fast as his strong and supple legs could carry ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... allowing the mind to go on developing. The bodies were not stunted or deformed; they were well-formed, nice little children's bodies, but the minds within them were grown-up, and the incongruity was distressing. All this he suddenly realised in a flash, intuitively, just as though it had been most elaborately explained to him; yet he could not have put the least part of it into words or have explained what he saw and ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... Nursery!" If this was the reason for his staying, what on earth had he come upon in the region of the third floor, and how ridiculously unlike him to allow himself to interfere. Could it be Andrews and Jennings? Surely Andrews was too old.—This passed across her mind in a flash. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... In a flash I was out of the room and down the steps. Mrs. Mundy, who had heard my hurried running, followed me to the door. "What is it?" she asked. "What's the ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... himself and her, he rises from her side. "We are not expecting any guest, are we?" he asks, a shade querulously. "Why, surely, the Knight?"—"How is that?"—"Did you not see him to-day?"—"No desire have I to see him!" the troubled father mutters. Then, in a flash, two and two leap together and make four to his startled mind. "What's this?... Nay, thick-witted am I grown!"—"Dear little father, go in and change your coat!" urges the pretty daughter. "Humph!" he murmurs, now as absent-minded ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the assembly heard that, a murmur went round, and, as it seemed to me, of surprise mixed with wrath. And I myself felt the same for the moment—but then the eyes of all turned in a flash upon me— and I remembered the accusation that had been brought against me, and I knew that it was I of whom Eanulf spoke. Then shame fell on me, to give place at once to anger, and I think I should have spoken hotly, but that at some sign from the ealdorman, my guards ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... to become a big, strong bird, like a hawk—Pyrzqxgl!" He pronounced it the right way, so in a flash he felt that he was completely changed in form. He flapped his wings, hopped to the porch ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... I soon came in sight of a cabin sitting lonely and forlorn in the middle of a small clearing. I saw more than this, for three men were engaged in a desperate effort to batter down the door. My horse bore me past the little lady in a flash, although she was using the whip. With a cry of "Halt and surrender!" I rode at the men pistol in hand. They whipped around the house without turning their heads, and ran off into the thick undergrowth, where it would have been both useless ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... in the least. An idea, bold, unconventional, and not over-scrupulous, shot into her head. With her eyes holding Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's, she stepped toward the desk; then, in a flash, she seized one of the sheets of note-paper that lay scattered about. Mrs. Franklyn Haldene made a desperate effort to intercept Patty; but Patty was young, slender and agile. She ran quickly to ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... deceive me: if I depended on her she would never deny me: if I loved her she would never play with me: if I trusted her she would never go back on me: if I remembered her she would never forget me. I may never see her again. Goodbye.' It was all said in a flash: but it was all said. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... him, and I saw her turn pale. In a flash I saw myself disfigured for life, and probably having to be sewed up. The pain in my face became excruciating, and I began to think yachting ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... screamed in mortal terror as the monster darted at him. With all the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the Snake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat over the helpless little baby bunny he ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before him with all his might, felling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Suddenly, in a flash of new understanding, Mrs. Wells decided. This was no longer a trifling incident, but a happening of deep spiritual import. She was struggling desperately for health—for happiness. Perhaps this was her way of salvation, if she could only bring herself ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... quick and anxious glance asked the question, "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... they do in the East, all colours, like jewels in the velvety sky. They seemed so far away, but not farther than he seemed to be from himself. For Roy's head had been dreadfully confused by that sunstroke in the desert. Only that morning something had seemed to come back to him in a flash, and he had so far forgotten he was only a page boy as to call the little Heir-to-Empire "Brother," but Head-nurse's cuff had brought him back to reality in double quick time. And as he sat there in the dark he saw a man creeping stealthily to the tent. He was on his feet ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... experience, were flashing through his mind; mock battles, and the batteries were firing! And, before him, on the metal screen, there glowed a vivid picture of the same thing. Men were serving the guns with sure swiftness; the bursts were high in the air—in a flash of understanding Lieutenant McGuire knew that he was giving his country's secrets to the enemy. And in that same instant he felt himself swept upward from the depths of that darkness where he had drifted. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... A barred owl hooted and laughed over their heads, causing the dog to jump up and bark at the sound that ordinarily he would have heeded not at all. Then silence was restored, and the red man's hidden train of thought was in a flash revealed. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Then, in a flash, a little story I had read in a magazine long before came to my mind. A friend dropped in to visit a busy mother. The family was large and poor, and they lived in only one room. It seemed to the visitor that the one room was ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... an instant for breath; and the man with the sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. Without doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... enormous cave, so striking in comparison with the roar of the flames and the hideous human tumult which we had left without, fell upon us like sudden cold and blinding night upon a wanderer in windy, sunlit mountains, all our excitement perished. In a flash, we understood our terrible position, we who had but escaped from the red fire to perish slowly in ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... river-bank. Clouds of silver ablets, green as ears of corn, or blue as jewels, teemed in the first light of day. They swarmed like the serpents of Medusa's head, and flung themselves greedily at the bread thrown to them; they plunged for it as it sank, and turned in spirals, and then darted away in a flash, like a ray of light. The river took on rosy and purple hues of reflection. The birds woke one after another. The truants hurried back. Just as carefully as when they had set out, they returned to the room, with its thick atmosphere, and Jean-Christophe, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... His whole body seemed to spring up behind it. The blow struck under the point of the chin. The head of the young bruiser dropped, then his shoulders, then his arms; his body sagged down upon Bertram. The champion of age shook him off; he dropped to the sidewalk. All this in a flash, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... In a flash of intuition, the whole truth was revealed to the woman who stood looking down at the cowering creature ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then enquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprized, gave him no other satisfaction, than, "that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire." ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in a flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror, reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more leave my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every look up to this awful ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Ma," he volunteered. He was up the hall and back in a flash. Rose had slumped into a chair at the dining-room table, and was pouring herself a cup of cold and bitter tea. Al came over to her and laid one white ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... landed, light as a dancing master, despite his bulk, had stooped, turned in a flash with his right hand clamped about the right wrist of Russell, bowing his back, heaving with all ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... In a flash Mr. Hepworth had himself rung the bell that meant the drop of the curtain, and as the curtain came down, he sprang forward among the bewildered girls, and reached the tall pedestal just in time to catch Patty as she tottered ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... pattern. Can it be that Rogojin wishes to murder anyone? The prince began to tremble violently. "It is a crime on my part to imagine anything so base, with such cynical frankness." His face reddened with shame at the thought; and then there came across him as in a flash the memory of the incidents at the Pavlofsk station, and at the other station in the morning; and the question asked him by Rogojin about THE EYES and Rogojin's cross, that he was even now wearing; and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... an instant I supposed the man had been overtaken by some sort of fit; but in a flash the truth came to me,—Kaldhein was being attacked by my protector, ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... Then, in a flash she remembered her faintness in the carriage on the drive to Sorrento and connected it, as she had never before dreamed of doing, with the conversation then going on; and recalled all those days since when she had been so different from ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... unexacting lover was effaced, and in his place was a man—an animal—a passionate egoist! He caught her in his arms, and his arms were like iron bands; his lips pressed hers, and they were like a flame. In a flash, the fabric of her illusions was scattered. She saw the truth. The world had cheated her, this second marriage was to be as the first. Terror seized my sister Maxine—terror of life, terror of herself. Her false calm broke up, ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... jumped I felt as though I were floating stationary in the air. Could it be that I was deceived in regard to the existence of the current? This could hardly be: it was not possible that I was stationary, for the hole through which I leaped had vanished in a flash. It then for the first time occurred to me, that being in the current, and as it were a part of the current, moving in it and with it without any resistance, it was impossible for me to tell whether I was advancing or not; and then I remembered how men that went up in balloons, ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... plunged away, his head down, bucking like a good fellow. For a moment or so Jesse hung on, but before anyone could mount and help him he was flung full length, and lay, his arms out, motionless. It all happened in a flash. ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... litters made of ox-hide shields. When she came to her own mind again, it was to find herself lying in her tent outside the mouth of the cave within the third enclosure of the temple-fortress. Her feet were sore and her bones ached, physical discomforts that brought back to her in a flash all the terrors through which ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... Pollock's intention to the end of the tragedy. As the first shot rang out, Bob turned and seized again the hair rope attached to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and cool judgment showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere, and revealed to him what he ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... always more distinctly shown if they should in any form go in for some kind of public life. People possessing this mark are rather less "hard students" than those with the Line of Head and Line of Life joined together, but they have such brilliancy and quickness of thought that they seem to see in a flash that which takes the other class hard work to attain. But these people with the "open Line of Head" must, above all things, have purpose in their life. Without purpose they are rather like a ship drifting on an idle sea. They may spend ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... him in regard to Rupert of Glasgow. But this was difficult, as his saturated clothing made him fit the smooth pipe closely. At last I had him partly up, when I was amazed at a rush of water from the pipe which flooded the room. I dropped him and pulled him up again with the same result. Then in a flash I saw it all. His body, acting like a piston in the pipe, had converted it into a powerful pump. Mad with joy, I rapidly lowered and pulled him up again and again, until the castle was flooded—and the moat completely drained! I had created the diversion I wished; the tenants ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... himself known in the world, goes of evenings into the most delightful truantry with his music. And it isn't only music, it is flowers and pictures and books. Of course he has an unusual brain and few men can hope to equal him. He is like Disraeli in that respect, who, it is said, could turn in a flash from the problem of financing the Suez Canal to the contemplation of the daffodils nodding along the fence. But do the rest of us try? There are few men of business, no matter with what singleness of purpose they have been installing their machinery and ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... of Edna clustered round that impression. They led Bert's mind step by step to an agreeable state that found expression in "I'll marry 'ER if she don't look out." And then in a flash it followed in his mind that if he sold the Butteridge secret he could! Suppose after all he did get twenty thousand pounds; such sums have been paid! With that he could buy house and garden, buy new clothes beyond dreaming, buy a motor, travel, have every delight of the civilised ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... flamed at the obnoxious word "duty." In a flash her mind reviewed all that had passed since that memorable Christmas day. Her cheeks grew hotter at the ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... been carried to completion by pioneer methods, one recognised the resourcefulness of the lumberman of the West. Then came a touch of Eastern America, to me almost more replete with memory and excitement. In a flash I was transferred from a camp in France to the rock-hewn highway of Fifth Avenue, running through groves of sky-scrapers, garnished with sunshine and echoing with tripping footsteps. I could smell the ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... Atreus' cruel murder of his brother's children; then follows the sight of Clytemnestra's treacherous smile and of Agamemnon in the bath, hand after hand reaching at him; quickly she sees the net cast about him, the murderess' blow. In a flash she foresees her own end and breaks out into a wild lament over the ruin of her native city. Her words work up the Chorus into a state of confused dread and foreboding; they can neither understand nor yet disbelieve. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... a letter!" said Edwin to himself. The idea came to him in a flash like a divine succour; and it seemed to solve all his difficulties—difficulties unconnected with the subject ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... was interesting, at any rate, even though he didn't draw himself. In a flash he thought of Agnes and of her hopes, and her high number, and wondered whether she had gone to Meander to file. Slavens held up Shanklin's coat by the collar and ran through the pockets in the hope of finding something that would yield ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and was tugging at one of the hogsheads to make room for others further back. Other prisoners were lifting on the last hogsheads. Tom leaned over one of the hogsheads and suddenly let himself go into it headfirst. It was all over in a flash. ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... supposed that by such observant eyes as Gwenda's, the Garthowen car, with the waiting Ann and the old man hovering about, had escaped unnoticed. Nay! To her quick perception the whole event revealed itself in a flash of intuition. They were waiting there for Will. He had disappointed and wounded his old father, but at the same moment she saw that the slight had been unintentional; for as the carriage dashed by the waiting car, she saw in ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... and smiles; he laughs loud and in company. Still less will he give you one of those speeches which are the supreme achievement of this faculty, where the speaker's philosophy is not reasoned out liked Falstaff's, but revealed in a flash of the onlooker's insight. Is it pardonable to quote the account of Falstaff's death as the ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... window of a store cleared this mystery. Hiram stopped and stared up at it. In a flash he knew what was the matter with him, and that he hated the stranger for his clothes—that he hated everybody because this man wore good clothes. He squeezed his pocketbook and read and reread the painted words ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... in a flash an' the silence hurt a feller's ears. The' was a sloppy, floppin' sound over under the table an' now an' again a low groan. "Fetch the lantern out o' the freight wagon, an' let's chalk up." said a deep, heavy voice. In about a minute a light ripped ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... of breathless waiting. Then they bawled, "Second district!" In a flash the company of indolent and cynical young men had vanished like a snowball disrupted ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... awd wit, the people will buy better; they always prefer a gentleman to a cad. Bless me! why, a swell in a dress-coat and kid gloves, with good patter and hatter, can sell a hundred rat-traps while a dusty cad in a flash kingsman would sell one. As for the replies, most of them are old ones. As the men who interrupt you are nearly all of the same kind, and have heads of very much the same make, with an equal number of corners, it follows that they ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... As in a flash there came to him the memory of Baldy's steadfast strength in the boys' race, his calm determination; and after an instant's hesitation he hooked Baldy up beside Kid. With a few words of direction to Ben, "Scotty" turned once more into the teeth of the gale; and at his heels, ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... In a flash of panic, Crane wondered if it was all a diabolical machination of Brent Taber's. Maybe Taber knew all about the recorder. Maybe the whole meeting was an elaborate plant to maneuver an earnest, alert senator into making a public fool of himself. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... in a flash he recognized where he was. He was sitting, under this canopy, just to the right as one enters through Hyde Park Corner; these trees were the trees of the Park; that open space in front was the beginning of Rotten Row; and Something Lane—Park ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... no jam there as a matter of fact, but the guilty Minnie's handkerchief went to her crimson face in a flash. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cents a bottle. He smokes cigars at $10 a pound. He is living like a gentleman. Let the poor sizar toil over musty books; he will have a race horse. 'Tis a fine life. How much better than a schoolboy's. He speaks of his father as the governor, and talks in a flash manner of the girls he is acquainted with. He thinks he will marry one of them, but his choice is not determined. The college dons, professors, tutors, fellows, know the temptations, know the risk, know the ruinous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... look such a fright," she said aloud, as she ripped and sewed. Then, in a flash, her mind wandered from herself, and she thought: "I wonder why George didn't tell his mother that we are going to take an apartment? I wonder why he didn't tell her that mother is coming in June? When he ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... that Mrs. Wix had reached the last limits of the squeeze, but she now felt those limits to be transcended and that the duration of her visitor's hug was a direct reply to Miss Overmore's veto. She understood in a flash how the visit had come to be possible—that Mrs. Wix, watching her chance, must have slipped in under protection of the fact that papa, always tormented in spite of arguments with the idea of a school, had, for a three days' excursion to Brighton, absolutely insisted on the attendance ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... back to town I happened to think of my last visit with you, and my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on which the world is based, the curse of dollar worship that keeps opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we worshipped life instead of metal disks, ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... her eyes, when this sudden reference was made to herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed agitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin's, and she met the look again. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... just as the knife strikes the nerve, by the howling confusion of a railway station that forces us to take care of ourselves and our belongings; and when the first instant of joy, or victory, or acute suffering is gone in a flash, memory never quite brings back all the happiness nor all ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... moment Eve saw. It came to her in a flash, as most things do come to women. She even had time to doubt ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... caravels and the draped figures showed strange contrasts of chalky pallor and deep shade. Only a moment later a second bar of light leaped out from a sky-high nook of the Manufactures building and swept the surface of the basin. It struck a moving gondola, and in a flash showed the gay Venetians bending to their long oars, the bright colors of the boat and the muffled ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... an immense hand which projected from a coarse blue sleeve in front of her; the owner of the hand was pushed away so quickly by those who came after him that Miss Eunice failed to see his face. Her tortured ear caught a rough "Thank y', miss!" The spirit of Miss Crofutt revived in a flash, and her disciple thereafter possessed no lack ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... down the dam in a boat," I thought in a flash; but no explanation came to the next part of my question, what was ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... found itself in a little eddy of pure Scotland. The Columbia was just in from Glasgow—had docked only an hour before. The doctor became very Scots in a flash. "Aye, bonny!" was his reply to every question asked him by Mr. Green, the diligent secretary. The secretary was addressed as "lad." A hat now became a "bonnet." The fine stiff speech of Glasgow was heard on every side, for the passengers were streaming through the customs. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... he had once or twice turned to me in a flash as the last note of a symphony lingered before the outburst of applause and asked, "Did you remember to tell Dunningham to have dinner served a quarter of an hour later this evening?" or "Did Thwaites say anything ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... him, and knowledge came to her, born of a swift intuition raised by his obvious difficulties. In a flash she knew; but even while she knew, she didn't care; it was ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... to see us," thought Sylvia in a flash, and started to her feet. The tide was high enough for the boatman to go into the basin and land at the nearest ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... of iniquity and of crime lay hid, I wondered, between these walls? In what tragedy had I thus accidentally become involved while fulfilling my prosaic duty in the interest of His Majesty's exchequer? As in a flash it suddenly came to me that perhaps I could serve both this lovely creature and the Emperor better by going out of the house now, and lying hidden all the night through somewhere in its vicinity until in daylight I could locate its exact situation. Then I could ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and hand-to-hand fighting spread in a flash all through the business part of the city. The rest of the surprise detachment of the Cacos made a rush for the center of the city. One block was set on ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... ordered him to make way. He laughed foolishly and swore at them insultingly. Maurice and the Count started forward, and the peasant menaced them with the scythe resting on the seat beside him. In a flash Albert leapt from his horse, threw the reins to Maurice, and went straight to the drunkard. The fellow tried to brandish his scythe, but already Albert had wrenched it from him and threw it aside. Then seizing the man, he pulled him down on his knees and held him there until he begged for ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... for—oh no, this is a pair of shoes for Debby—oh Debby, Debby, how dare you!" Audrey's face and voice and manner changed in a flash from sweet graciousness to hot anger. "Just look at the mess you have made, and your heel is on the brim of my best hat. Oh, how clumsy ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... proposal, Almayer hesitated, and remained silent for a minute. He was gifted with a strong and active imagination, and in that short space of time he saw, as in a flash of dazzling light, great piles of shining guilders, and realised all the possibilities of an opulent existence. The consideration, the indolent ease of life—for which he felt himself so well fitted—his ships, ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... her. "Great heaven!" thought I, "can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... cry the Viscount sprang forward and, turning in a flash, Barnabas saw a heavy bludgeon in the air above him; saw the Viscount meet it with up-flung arm; heard the thud of the blow, a snarling curse; saw a figure dart away and vanish among the jungle of carts; saw the Viscount stagger against ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... An abnormal silence fell. The owners of such faces as on stretched necks caught sight of her seemed in a flash to communicate ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at his suddenly hoarse voice, and by the badness of his articulation. It occurred to me in a flash that he was intoxicated, possibly by the fungus. It also occurred to me that he erred in imagining that he had discovered the moon; he had not discovered it, he had only reached it. I tried to lay my hand on his arm and explain this to him, but the issue was too ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... the vision of a certain woman;—a woman I knew a little, admired immensely, very much liked, but didn't for an instant suppose I was seriously in love with. And involuntarily, with the vision of her before me, I asked myself whether, mutatis mutandis, I could have done as he had, and in a flash I saw that I could not,—that not for the wealth of Ormus and of Ind could I or would I give her up, if once I had her. So, by that token, and by the uncommon wrath with which his tale inflamed me," John, with a rhetorical ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Riverboro faces, but where was aunt Jane, in her black silk made over especially for this occasion? Aunt Miranda had not intended to come, she knew, but where, on this day of days, was her beloved aunt Jane? However, this thought, like all others, came and went in a flash, for the whole morning was like a series of magic lantern pictures, crossing and recrossing her field of vision. She played, she sang, she recited Queen Mary's Latin prayer, like one in a dream, only brought to consciousness by meeting Mr. Aladdin's eyes as she spoke the last line. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the dead hand and gingerly fingered the lumpy knuckles. Then, in a flash of thought, it came to him. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... great natural philosopher, usually calls blubbers; and when the dolphin or skip—jack leapt into the air, they sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark water like rockets, until they fell again into their element in a flash of fire. This evening the corvette had showed no lights, and although I conjectured she was not far from us, still I could not with any certainty indicate her whereabouts. It might now have been about three o'clock, and I was standing on the aftermost gun on the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... breathed Tims, clasping her hands and smiling into space. "Isn't it a pretty name? It's always been my dream to have a pretty name." Then suddenly, as though in a flash seeing all those personal disadvantages which she usually ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... eavesdropper, a spy; but he was also aware that a very odd business, in which his confidence had been trifled with, was going forward, and that if in a measure it didn't concern him, in a measure it very definitely did. His observation, his reflections, accomplished themselves in a flash. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... sure! For I have tested myself. When I went to bed that night after our talk, I rehearsed your argument point by point, and I knew you had it right. But when I woke up from a good night's sleep and my head was clear again, then it came over me in a flash that you might be mistaken after all. And I jumped out of bed and got hold of my brushes and paints—but it was no use! Every trace of illusion was gone—it was nothing but smears of paint, and I quaked at the thought of having believed, and having made others believe, that a ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... window-slit, and Bunny suddenly awoke to the fact that the flying figure in front was trying to out-distance him. It came to him in a flash of intuition. She was daring him, she was fooling him. Some imp of mischief had entered into her. She was luring him to pursuit; and like the whirling of a torch in a dark place, the knowledge first dazzled, and then drew him. All his pulses beat in a swift crescendo. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... then something remarkable occurred. At the time when Rafael was nineteen he was one day in a French chemical factory, and, as it were in a flash, saw how half the power used in the machinery might be saved. The son of the owner who had brought him there was a fellow-student. To him he confided his discovery. They worked it out together with feverish excitement to the most minute details. It was very complex, for it was the ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... street lights come twinkling out, and she did not turn on the light of the sitting room chandelier. Did he love her at all; or if he did, did he know what this waiting all day meant to a woman? Then, it came to her in a flash, his wistful look in the morning behind the forced gayety, his reference to the last ride, to keeping resolutions. Was that resolution for the sake of his work at all; or for her? Of course, Matthews had told him in the Desert; and ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 'im, stupid-like, for a minute or two, but he couldn't get out another word. In a flash 'e saw 'ow he'd been done, and how Bob Pretty 'ad been deceiving 'im all along, and the idea that he 'ad arf ruined himself keeping Mrs. Pretty's grandfather for 'em pretty near sent 'im out of ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... put it back on the shelf, and was moving away, when her eyes were caught by two words—"For Anne," at the top of a sheet of paper which lay on Ridgeley's desk. The entire page was filled with Ridgeley's neat professional script, and in a flash the gesture which he had made the night before returned to her, as if he were trying to ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... the mystery in a flash. A stifled cry escaped him; for an instant he buried his face in his hands; then; flinging out his arms in a gesture of despair, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... even hear or see a tall young woman enter the church, clad in summer white, no, not when she was within five pace and, becoming suddenly aware of his presence, had stopped to study him with the acutest interest. In a flash Isobel knew who he was. Of course he was much changed, for Godfrey, who had matured early, as those of his generation were apt to do, especially if they had led a varied life, was now a handsome and ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... had I begun to grow drowsy with the conning over of my sins than in a flash I recollected a particularly shameful sin which I had suppressed at confession time. Instantly the words of the prayer before confession came back to my memory and began sounding in my ears. My peace was gone for ever. "For if thou concealest aught, then great will be thy sin." ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... direct. A loaf of bread, discharged against her head across the table, was his reply. Not content with this harmless demonstration of rage, he seized the four corners of the table-cloth, and gathering the tea-things and food in the sack, threw the whole overboard into the bay. In a flash, the tigress fastened on his scanty locks with one hand, while, with the other, she pummelled his eyes and nose. Badly used as he was, I must confess that the captain proved too generous to retaliate on that portion of his spouse where female ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... apt to appeal to her nature, and within her secret heart there was rapidly developing a respect for this man, who with such calm assurance won his own way. He was strong, forceful, brave,—Homeric virtues of real worth in that hard life which she knew best. All this swept across her mind in a flash of revelation while she stood alone, her eyes endeavoring vainly to peer into the gloom. Then, suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her heart throbbing wildly to the sharp reports of the rifles, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Barbarians attempted before they had recourse to the simpler and less glorious method of crushing their foes by arrow fire, a Babylonian's war club had dashed upon his helmet. The stout bronze had saved him from wound, but under the stroke strength and consciousness had left him in a flash. The moment after he fell, the soldier beside him had perished by a javelin, and falling above the Athenian made his body a ghastly shield against the surge and trampling of the battle. Glaucon lay scathless but senseless through the final catastrophe. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... will. God knows how little of a god am I; but I will do what I can. Hey, now! look about!" he called out the next minute, and leapt back into the room. The door split in the midst and fell apart. Two men fully armed, with their vizors down, burst into the light; they were upon him in a flash. Prosper up with his shield and drove at them. They were no match for him with swords, as they very soon found when he penned them back in the entry. One of the pair, indeed, lost his arm in the first passes of the game, but the press of men behind ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... chest and searching through the papers within, was not four feet away. Hiram raised the bag in his hands. He must have made some slight rustle as he did so, for suddenly Levi half turned his head. But he was one instant too late. In a flash the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... conversed at cross-purposes; the only wonder was that we had not discovered our mutual mistake. How the other man would have laughed! But I—I could not laugh. By Jove, no, it was no laughing matter for me! I saw the whole thing in a flash, without a tremor, but with the direst depression from my own single point of view. Call it callous if you like, Bunny, but remember that I was in much the same hole as you've since been in yourself, and that I had counted on this W. F. Raffles even as you counted on A. J. I thought ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... informal scuffles, on and off in a flash, and conducted with none of the ceremony which I have read of concerning the fights of English boys. It was believed that some of the fellows knew how to box, and all the fellows intended to learn, but nobody ever ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... In a flash I was out of the car and holding my shawl over the face of the offender. At once Fitch took the car forward. As I fell in behind, I heard ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used a word that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. He had mentioned "the lame fellow," using a German word "der Stelze." In a flash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vos in't Tuintje—the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse on the floor and that sinister woman crying out: "Der Stelze has power, he has authority, he can ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... indeed an assassin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the Duchess realised in a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the assassin's in the mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted fashion, so that the man ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... live with him. There was an elderly dame and a young man in company with the beautiful visitor, but Mr. Delaplaine took no note of them. With his niece's hands in his own, gazing into the face so like that young face in whose company he had grown from childhood to manhood, Mr. Delaplaine saw in a flash, that since the death of his wife until that moment he had never had the least reason to be content with the world or to be satisfied with his lot. This was his sister's child come to ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... put religiously aside. There were some letters, which seemed to be of a purely business character. There were a few daguerreotypes of pretty faces, one of which was singularly fascinating to him. But there was another, of a young man, which startled him with its marvelous resemblance to HIMSELF! In a flash of intelligence he understood it all now. It was the likeness of the former owner of the trunk, for whom the assistant had actually mistaken him! He glanced hurriedly at the envelopes of the letters. They were addressed to Shelby Fowler, the name by which the assistant had ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... once, I found there was a second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my two thumbs in - say anybody else's one thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there were not enough bones; I put the two pieces of skull together, and at last convinced them. Whereupon, in a flash, they found the not unromantic explanation. This poor brave had succeeded in the height of a Samoan warriors ambition; he had taken a head, which he was never destined to show to his applauding camp. Wounded himself, he had crept here into the bush to die with his useless trophy by his side. His ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not done in a flash. It took them some time to scale Dolly's stubborn breast, and it took them another hour to reach Seat Sandal; and by the time they came to the iron gate in the fence, which at this point divides the two counties, the atmosphere had thickened ominously, and dark wreaths of fog were floating about ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... sight is puzzled to determine the character of such an object. I could not make out the nature of this bobbing, moving circle that followed along the irregular line of wall shrubbery. Then, when it was nearer, I saw in a flash that it was the top of a silk hat. I could see, too, the stooping shoulders of the man who wore it, I could see that he was proceeding cautiously as if he feared to attract attention, and at last, when ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... had all paired off, in a flash, without her. Susan needed no further spur. With more assurance than she had yet shown, she touched the last girl, as she passed, on the arm. It chanced to be Miss Emily Saunders. She and her escort both stopped, laughing with that nervous ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... In a flash of rage Arthur struck out viciously. The crowd paid not the slightest attention to him, however. Every man was too panic-stricken, and too intent on getting some of this food before it was all ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... I hope," Patricia laughed. "There they are now. Start a fire in my room, please, Sarah, and make up a bed on my lounge. Come on, Nell," and Patricia was out of the room and downstairs in a flash. ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... In a flash, Dalton's eyes seemed to dilate and then contract. "What makes you think so?" ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... that once more he saw the yellow-brown evil thing crawling forth from the thicket; then, turning suddenly on the Lady, he met her eyes, and seemed in one moment of time to find a far other look in them than that of frankness and kindness; though in a flash they changed back again, and she said merrily and sweetly: "So, so, Sir Squire, now art thou awake again, and mayest for a ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home. It has no windows, and the door swings, 390 Dry bones can harm no one. Only a cock stood on the rooftree Co co rico co co rico In a flash of lightning. Then ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... gave under me as I forced myself to advance; but my wits took new life from the crisis, and in a flash I saw how to turn my weakness into account. I made a false step on my way to the door; when I reached it I leant heavily against the jam, and I said with a slur that I felt unwell. I had certainly been flushed with wine when ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung |
