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Flash   Listen
verb
Flash  v. i.  (past & past part. flashed; pres. part. flashing)  
1.
To burst or break forth with a sudden and transient flood of flame and light; as, the lighting flashes vividly; the powder flashed.
2.
To break forth, as a sudden flood of light; to burst instantly and brightly on the sight; to show a momentary brilliancy; to come or pass like a flash. "Names which have flashed and thundered as the watch words of unnumbered struggles." "The object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind." "A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act."
3.
To burst forth like a sudden flame; to break out violently; to rush hastily. "Every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other."
flash in the pan, a failure or a poor performance, especially after a normal or auspicious start; also, a person whose initial performance appears augur success but who fails to achieve anything notable. From 4th pan, n., sense 3 part of a flintlock. Occasionally, the powder in the pan of a flintlock would flash without conveying the fire to the charge, and the ball would fail to be discharged. Thus, a good or even spectacular beginning that eventually achieves little came to be called a flash in the pan.
To flash in the pan, to fail of success, especially after a normal or auspicious start. (Colloq.) See under Flash, a burst of light.
Synonyms: Flash, Glitter, Gleam, Glisten, Glister. Flash differs from glitter and gleam, denoting a flood or wide extent of light. The latter words may express the issuing of light from a small object, or from a pencil of rays. Flash differs from other words, also, in denoting suddenness of appearance and disappearance. Flashing differs from exploding or disploding in not being accompanied with a loud report. To glisten, or glister, is to shine with a soft and fitful luster, as eyes suffused with tears, or flowers wet with dew.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flash" Quotes from Famous Books



... side door, but she realized now that even if they could carry the Adventurer they could not get away in time. Her mind itself seemed stunned for an instant—and then, in a lightning flash, inspiration came. She remembered that iron casting, and the wharf, and the other side of the shed in shadow. It was desperate, perhaps almost hopeless, but it was the only way that gave the Adventurer a ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... had already alighted and was now passing swiftly under the high stone arch of the gateway. Never did she come through that gate without a flash of remembrance of the first time she entered there, leaning on her husband's arm, a bride of seventeen summers, younger than her own fair Margaret now. She entered, this time, leaning on the arm of tall Bridget, walking as if she were a trifle weary, yet stooping to pick up little Susanna ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... their saddles and with sabres drawn, struck, struck the frightened enemy, and recovered, foot by foot, the conquered territory. There was in this exalted march a sound of horses' hoofs, the clash of arms, a shaking of the earth under the gallop of horsemen, a flash of agraffes, a rustle of pelisses in the wind, an heroic gayety and a chivalrous bravery, like the cry of a whole people of cavaliers sounding the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... did he actually hear his own name? Whose voice could it be but lady Arctura's, calling to him from the spirit world! They had killed her, and she was calling to let him know she was in the land of liberty! With that came another flash and another roar of thunder—and there was the voice again: "Mr. Grant! Mr. Grant! come, come! You promised!" Did he actually hear the words? They sounded so far away that it seemed as if he ought not to hear them. But could the voice be from the spirit-land? Would she claim his promise thence, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... I have been obliged to write out slowly in words, went through Bert's mind like a flash. He was a generous little fellow, and any kindness shown him, no matter how trifling, made ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... ecstasy, making her adore him with her skin as she had always adored him with her heart. And as the life of her nerves became more and more intense, her sensations more and more luminous, she became less conscious of her materiality. At the end she felt like a flash of lightning. From that moment she sank confused into the warm darkness of his embrace, while above her his voice muttered hesitant with solemnity: "Ellen ... you are the answer ... ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... time hollow balls of stone or cast iron were fired from mortars. The balls were nearly filled with gunpowder and the remaining space with a slow-burning composition. This plan was unsatisfactory, as the composition was not always ignited by the flash from the discharge of the gun, and moreover the amount of composition to burn a stipulated time could not easily be gauged. The shell was, therefore, fitted with a hollow forged iron or copper plug, filled with slow-burning ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... inflame them, scorch, swell, and finally melt them down. Before daylight, the site of the convent was a gulf of flame. This comes of sympathy in stones—what will it be in men? Wait a twelvemonth; and you will see the flash and flame of French republicanism melting down every barrier of the Continent. The mob has the mob on its side for ever. The offer of liberty to men who have spent a thousand years under despotism, is irresistible. Light may blind, but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the lock ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... defenseless animals that Stas for a time was struck with consternation, and forgot about the rifle. What, after all, would it have availed him to shoot in such darkness? Unless for this, that those midnight assassins, if the flash and report should frighten them, would abandon the horses already killed, and start after those which were scared away and had run from the camp as far as their fettered legs ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... knolls when a thunderstorm came on; and his aunt, suddenly recollecting his situation, and running out to bring him home, is said to have found him lying on his back, clapping his hands at the lightning, and crying out, "Bonny! bonny!" at every flash. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... had its flags and its music, the day was fair and bright, and, as the flotilla swept on past the verdure-clad hills, with the sun shining brilliantly down on the bright uniforms and gay flags, on the flash of oars and the glitter of weapons, a ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... a simile, he thought of a flash of lightning, a steel hoop lying on its side, a hornet's nest—but none of these quite suited him. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... deranged the senses and made things appear different from what they were. Therefore, being certain that Sancho had suddenly become possessed of fear, he put the spurs in Rocinante and charged down the hill like a flash of lightning, determined to down ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... flash of memory and association, there passed through her mind the vision of the Opera House blazing with lights—Iphigenia on the stage, wailing at her father's knees in an agony of terror and ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... American Republic is a colossal brazen statue of Liberty, which is to be a Pharos to light the shipping of the world into New York harbor. It will stand on Bedloe's Island, and from the torch in its uplifted hand will flash a calcium light. Only the hand and arm were finished in time to be sent to the Exposition; but these were on so gigantic a scale that a man standing in the little gallery which ringed the thumb holding the torch seemed like an ant or a fly creeping ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... rocking in space! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And aether goes mingling in storm ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... vehemence, a temper of impatience and indignation which would surely have carried her into the camp of anarchy but for the restraining power of her religious experience. She feels, deeply and burningly, but she has a Master. The flash comes into her eyes, but the habitual ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... of smoke rose at the lower end of the ravine and moved up the hill. Then a flash of twinkling metal broke out among the rocks, and Ida saw that a small locomotive ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... who first heard afar the pant of the mysterious jinni. Before he or his companions descried the motor-boat, however, Gaston, rounding a sharp curve above the island of Umm-un-Nakhl, caught sight of the sweeps of the barge flashing in the moonlight. The unexpected view of that flash was not disagreeable to Gaston. For, as Gaston put it to himself, he was sad—despite the efforts of his friend, the telegraph operator at Ahwaz, to cheer him up. It is true that the operator, who was Irish and a man of heart, had accorded him but a limited amount of cheer, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... are always searching the nearer scene for things to FIND, and do not concern themselves with what is far. The sight of the Lodge itself, with its long white front among the shrubberies and across the pastures was almost too much for me; the years seemed all obliterated in a flash, and I felt as if ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... delighted. When this part of the cruel amusement was over the trumpets again sounded, and the gladiators made ready for their contest. Then it was that Marcella's heart beat wildly with fear. She saw her father advance together with the other gladiator; she saw their swords flash; she heard the people around her call out the name now of Naevus, and now of Lucius; she heard one near ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round Sidney's pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the unshelterable flame. Sidney, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... you, boys, to follow after me to give me warning," he said, laying a hand on each of them. "But this time I rather suspect it's going to turn out to be a flash in the pan. Because, you see, my lads, I just said good-night to that same stranger at the door of my place of business, where we have been holding a consultation. Possibly he took a notion to see me safely home, not knowing but what I might be ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... of Silence. We know it well; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered philosophies, and buttoned himself together; he was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather and the Journals: only by a transient knitting of those shaggy brows, by some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew not whether with tear-dew or with fierce fire,—might you have guessed what a Gehenna was within; that a whole Satanic School were spouting, though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some chimneys ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... In married life, the moment when two hearts come to understand each other is sudden as a flash of lightning, and never returns, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... Woman's power is, at present, poetical and unsubstantial; let it be practical and real. There is no reality in any power that can not be coined into votes. The demagogue has a sincere respect and a salutary fear of the voter; and he that can direct the lightning flash of the ballot-box is greater than he who possesses a continent of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... which glowed in the caldron had now taken a splendor that mocked all comparisons borrowed from the luster of gems. In its prevalent color it had, indeed, the dazzle and flash of the ruby; but out from the mass of the molten red, broke coruscations of all prismal hues, shooting, shifting, in a play that made the wavelets themselves seem living things, sensible of their joy. No longer was there scum or film upon the surface; only ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... for you as if she's dying." It had determined in Kate the flash of justesse he could perhaps most, on consideration, have admired, since her retort touched the truth. There before him was the fact of how Milly to-night impressed him, and his companion, with her eyes in his own and pursuing his impression ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... our early trials, crossing the plains over the deserts and our trying scenes out of Death Valley and turned all over in my mind for some time and finally all came to me like a flash and I could clearly see that the little lady was a true picture of her mother; I now began to ask questions about her folks, she said her father lived near Belmont, Nevada, and her grand-father died at the Monte, Los Angeles county Cal.. Our visit ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... splutter in their dark pits, sending up clouds of steam and sulphurous fumes. Others are of the clearest green or deepest, purest blue, through which thousands of silver bubbles shoot up to the surface, flash, and vanish. But the main use of the hot springs is found in their combination of certain chemical properties,—sulphur-acid, sulphur-alkaline. Nowhere in the world, probably, are found healing waters at once so powerful and so various in their uses. Generations ago the Maori tribes ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... it began to rain and then thunder and lightnin', and we stood in a kind of shed for a bit, when all of a sudden I felt creepy and tingly, and saw a flash, followed by awful thunder; and of course I knew I had got a shock. Perry Strickland had been killed the summer before just this a way; and it seemed like once in a while God just launched out like you'd swat a fly, and took somebody; and of ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped into being, and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and squeezing again. Then he jumped ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... his part to perfection and to the utter disappointment of the women. The serious face shone now with smiles and color, with the flash of wit and the play of humor. Horace Endicott had been a merry fellow, but a Quaker compared with the butterfly swiftness and gaiety of this young man, who led the grand march, flirted with the damsels and chatted with ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... say what happened. Round and round the rock chair they swung, Van Vooren still holding fast to the arm of the dead woman who was lashed in it. Yes, even from where I stood five hundred feet below I could see the flash of spear and knife as they struck ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... was accurate. The Naval guns, nevertheless, remained in action until the conclusion of the day. When, a little later, the 75th battery was moved to the eastward, Lieut. Dean held his ground. By making his men lie down as each flash at the enemy's battery was seen, he was able to save them from any heavy casualties. The effect of the British on the Boer artillery was also very slight, the enemy's casualties being limited to one gunner wounded ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... realize that the feat of which she was witness was not without its difficulties. As the sloop drew nearer she made out a bare-headed figure bent tensely at the wheel, and four others clinging to the yellow deck. In a flash the boat had rounded to, the mainsail fell, and a veil of spray hid the actors of her drama. When it cleared the yacht was tugging like a wild thing at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... up fire to your turning spheres, And cause the sun to borrow light of you. My sword struck fire from his coat of steel, Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk; As when a fiery exhalation, Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud, Fighting for passage, make[s] the welkin crack, And casts a flash of lightning to [200] the earth: But, ere I march to wealthy Persia, Or leave Damascus and th' Egyptian fields, As was the fame of Clymene's brain-sick son That almost brent [201] the axle-tree of heaven, So shall our swords, our lances, and our shot Fill all the air with fiery meteors; Then, when ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... rustling among the branches had seemed to her like the voice of God's wrath and she fancied she again heard the angry words of hoary-headed Nun. The latter's reproaches had dismayed Uri like the flash of lightning, the roll of thunder, yet how did Joshua's proposition differ ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... if they had ridden far, through streams or boggy ground. The men were dressed soberly and well, like poor gentlemen or prosperous yeomen; all three were bearded, and all carried arms as could be seen from the flash of the sun on their hilts. It was plain, too, that they were not rogues or cutters, since each carried his valise on his saddle, as well as from their appearance. Our gentlemen, then, after passing them with a salute and a good-day, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... something to them in a style a suspicious shade or so above his ostensible degree, and so I always got him well out of the road in time. Then he would stand and look with all his eyes; and a proud light would flash from them, and his nostrils would inflate like a war-horse's, and I knew he was longing for a brush with them. But about noon of the third day I had stopped in the road to take a precaution which had been suggested by the whip-stroke ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the Lightning rushing up and down the pillar of the balcony opposite their apartment—furiously clawing the woodwork, but unable to enter because of the mosquito-netting. His house had been badly damaged by a flash; but he supposed the mischief to have been accomplished by the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... horrid treachery. But, oh wonder! his furious and bloodshot gaze met the calm look of Adrienne—a look so full of dignity and serene confidence—and the expression of ferocious rage passed away like a flash ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... a smile, as he stood just back of them. They both turned with a flash, and a look of pleased surprise came over the faces of Reggie and his sister as they ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... vain did Bencornutus Flash lightnings from his beard; In vain Fabrorum Maximus His massive form upreared; And Lumbius Revisorius— Diviner potent he!— And Peronatus robed in state, And fine old Fossilis sedate, All vainly stemmed the tide of fate— Triumphed the ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... tough thundercloud bends across the sky I watch for the first flash, and listen for the first roar, and in my heart stillness seems impossible and at the ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... lined on both sides with dagos with peanut-stands, selling peanuts to the population as fast as they can pass 'em out; and there's a long line, mainly kids, at the box-office. I goes on in and takes a flash at the front of the house through the peephole in the curtain, and the place is already jam full. If there's one kid out there, there's a thousand, and every tiny tot has got a sack of peanuts clutched in his or her chubby fist, as the case may be. And say, listen: ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... midnight. In February I would go to Barcelona, where the cooler air may be delightful, though when is it not delightful in Barcelona, even if martial law prevails? For March there is doubtless Sicily. For April there is no spot like Seville, when Spring arrives in a dazzling intoxicating flash. In May one should be in Paris to meet the spring again, softly insinuating itself into the heart under the delicious northern sky. In June and July we may be anywhere, in cities or in forests. August I prefer to spend in London, for then only is London leisurely, brilliant, almost exotic; and ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... midst of the general uproar, a vivid flash illuminated the atmosphere. The thunder-clap followed immediately, and Will Tree was permeated from top to bottom with the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... but he discovered in time that these free riders of the ranches do everything in that nervous manner. It is a country where men quickly learn that often their lives depend on their ability to act promptly and like a flash. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... driven across the great bridge over the Danube, etc.—with infinite gusto. The humblest wharf-laborer takes a vital interest in the welfare of his country, even if he is not intelligent enough to know from what quarter hostilities might be expected. There is a flash in an Hungarian's eye when he speaks of the events of 1848 which is equalled only by the lightnings evoked from his glance by the magic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... short time the senators themselves came away from the ground, and returned to the city; but Romulus was not with them. The story which they told was that in the middle of the tempest, Romulus had been suddenly enveloped in a flame which seemed to come down in a bright flash of lightning from the clouds, and immediately afterward had been taken up in the flame ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of grey eyes looked quizzically at her in the darkness, discerning only the gleam of a white face in a close-fitting bonnet, and the flash of white, even teeth. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... she ventured to flash her torch, footprints cast curious shadows, and it was hard to make out tracks so oddly distorted by the light. Prints mingled and partly obliterated other prints. She identified her own tracks leading south, and guessed at the others, pointing north and south, where they had carried in the wounded ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... Look! they seem to flash out like the sparks in a wood fire, when the wind suddenly blows over it, and then ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... Her whole bosom heaved. I felt in a flash she was not wholly indifferent to me. Strange tremors in the air seemed to play about us. But she waved me aside once more. "Don't press me," she said, in a very low voice. "Let me go my own way. It is hard enough ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... of it was that I found myself using exactly the same expression to old Sabre as we used to use at school. I said, 'Good lord, man, fancy sticking up for a chap like that!' And old Sabre—by Jove, I tell you there we all were in a flash back in the playground at old Wickamote's, down in that corner by the workshop, all kids again and old Puzzlehead flicking his hand out of his pocket—remember how he used to?—like that—and saying, 'You sickening fool, I'm not sticking up for him, I'm only ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... much annoyed. "Am I a king over the tribes of Abs, of Adnan, of Fazarah, and of Dibyan," he exclaimed, "and yet a common Arab dares to oppose me!" He summoned his people and his warriors. Immediately there was the flash of armor, of coats of mail, and swords and helmets appeared amid the tents; the champions mounted their steeds, shook their spears, and marched forth against the tribe of Byah. As soon as they reached their enemy's territory they overran the pastures, and gathered an immense booty in cattle, ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... her bosom heaving as she sat with clenched hands, and it was all he could do to conquer the desire to flash his arms out and around her instead of going on with his coolly planned campaign. As it was, he nearly told her that she was a most adorable boy. But he checked all such wayward fancies, and held himself rigidly ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... York, it seemed deliciously quiet, and old, and aristocratic. The pounding of the horses' hoofs, the voices of the people in the omnibus, were desecrating. He had glimpses of long avenues, dark, green, dim; a flash of villa top or imposing gateway behind the stately trees. He felt that he was ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... acres of ground, and the dogs come out in such multitudes to present their noisy and excitable protests against my intrusion, that I consider myself quite justified in shooting at them. I hit one old fellow fair and square, but he disappears like a flash down his hole, which now becomes his grave. The lightning-like movements of the prairie-dog, and his instinctive inclination toward his home, combine to perform the last sad rites of burial for his body at death. As, toward dark, I near Potter Station, where I expect accommodation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... it had been rapidly growing dark, and the gloom at length increased so much, that the speakers could scarcely see each other's faces. The sudden and portentous darkness was accounted for by a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a low growl of thunder rumbling over Whalley Nab. The mother and daughter drew close together, and Mistress Nutter passed her ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the martyrs of independence, to throw around the mighty names that flash upon us from the squalor of the Chronicles of Newgate the radiance of a storied imagination, to clothe the gibbet and the hulks 'in golden exhalations of the dawn,' and secure for the boozing-ken and the gin-palace that hold upon the general sympathies which has too long been monopolised by the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... head in his hand, and stared blankly at the floor. He did not see the dim flash of ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... was no one in the sick-room when she entered it, though the nurse had told her that she would be in the dressing-room within call. There was no one to see the flash of joy in the sick man's eyes, when Margaret's cold lips touched his forehead, or to hear his low "Margaret, ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... dimpled fountain, at its own capricious will, Each step a note of music, and each fall and flash a thrill, The rill goes singing to the meadow levels ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... The bright flash of colours under Jimmy's hat-brim dazzled his eyes, and he felt a little alarmed. "I hope this quilt is harmless if it IS crazy," he said. But the quilt was warm, and he dismissed his fears. Soon the doll-baby whimpered, but he creaked his joints a little, and that amused it, and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... with that tantalizing smile of his which might mean nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a flash I was convinced that our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival, the doyen of an older school, had ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... expression came into the earnest eyes of the master for an instant. Only an instant, and then a heavy frown contracted his forehead. A flash of scorn in the clear eye, and a curl of the proud, sensitive lip, told of the suppressed anger that ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... midnight trooper; that the had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... inconspicuous, and that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the rocks which so constantly crop up on hill sides. Even the brilliant blue of the Kingfisher, which in a museum renders it so conspicuous, in its native haunts, on the contrary, makes it difficult to distinguish from a flash of light upon the water; and the richly-coloured Woodpecker wears the genuine dress of a Forester—the green coat ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... thought out? Has the insect indeed perceived, by the light of a flash of reason, that in order to make the tit-bit fall it was necessary to unhook it by sliding it along the peg? Has it really perceived the mechanism of suspension? I know some persons—indeed, I know many—who, in the presence of this magnificent result, would ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... is quiet, the robber crab ascends the tree by gripping the bark with his claws. The rays of my electric flash-light have often caught him high over my head against the gray palm. Height does not daunt him. He will go up till he reaches the nuts, if it be a hundred feet. With his powerful nippers he severs the stem, choosing always a nut that is big and ripe. Descending the palm, he ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... clamoured as our race we sped, Where now they number our heroic dead.* As clear as life you, too, can hear the sound Of voices once for all by "lock-up" bound, And see the flash of eyes still nobly bright But in the "Bigside ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... moments when the 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 he paused beneath ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... clicking sound, as the youth moved some gear wheel on his gun. Then there came a faint crackling noise, like some distant wireless apparatus beginning to flash ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... pier where the boats from the Battery land, but just as he tried to lift his head once more and yell for help, a motor boat was heard chugging through the fog. His cry was heard by those in the boat, and in a few moments the flash-light in its prow was blinding ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia." From all this agitation a slave insurrection was a mere corollary. With so much electricity in the air, a single flash of lightning foreboded all the terrors of the tempest. Let but a single armed negro be seen or suspected, and at once on many a lonely plantation there were trembling hands at work to bar doors and windows that seldom had been even closed before, and there was shuddering when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... gable-wall of his attic room: the night was warm, and, loving the night air, he had it open. Hearkening there for a moment, he thought he heard a slight movement below. Very softly he put out his head, and looked down. There was no moon, but in the momentary flash of a lantern he caught sight of a small pair of legs disappearing inside the scullery window, which was almost under his own. Swift and noiseless he hurried down, and reached the scullery door just in time for a little ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... red hot." He laughed in his luminous and excited way, and, seizing both her hands, kissed them one after the other. "There!" said he, "be ready by the time I return. Do not hesitate. Do not look back. Remember Lot's wife!" He flourished his hat and was gone like a flash into the heavy rain and darkness of the December evening. Anne cried after him, but he too remembering Lot's wife would not turn. He marched on buoyantly, heedless of the wet and the squirting mud from unseen puddles. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... symbols, the same weird music? I caught her close, and bent over her lips. The gold hair waved over my shoulder; the great, glittering eyes foamed into mine, then melted and swam into deep, quivering seas of dreams. I whispered, 'Zoe mou!' Oh, the quick, golden whisper, the flash of genial heartiness, the daring—oh, how tender! 'Sas agapo.' I held her off, radiant, glowing, fragrant, and Bertha's dress rustled ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... when he just slid, letting the rope slip through his fingers, that he must have burned the skin from his palms. But he made it, and came running toward Fred. He was crouched low against the ground. But, just before he reached the bushes there was a shout from above, a flash, a loud report. A bullet sang over Fred's head, and the next moment the garden was alive with rushing, shouting men, ablaze with flashing points of electric light. They tried to hide in the shrubbery. But in vain. At this last moment, when Fred's plan had seemed sure of success, ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... of the latch Reddy turned his head, and in a flash he saw what had happened. All in an instant everything had changed for Reddy Fox. Fear and despair took the place of contentment and happy anticipations. He was ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess

... once he was on time, and received a word of commendation from his grandmother, which so elated him that he mentally reviewed the day's events for a bit of news with which to enliven her monotony. Then like a flash arose before him the picture of an unknown girl at Miss Maitland's window. This ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... Time swiftly flies with heading on her wings. From out the eastern skies where Caesar dwells, The lightnings flash reports that should rejoice Each loyal heart within this island realm. Soon, senators with dignity enrobed Will grace the halls of our enfranchised state, And then the padlock which our lips now close Shall like a useless toy to be cast side. Then can we voice ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... Master flash in the pan, and wide of the mark! full of reasons, yet devoid of reason!—Everything was ready yesterday for Glaeser (the copyist). As for you, I shall expect you in Hetzendorf to dinner at half-past two o'clock. If you come later, dinner shall ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... Those words mean that you have resigned all hope that Lilian's life will linger here, when her mind comes back in full consciousness; I know well that last lightning flash and the darkness which swallows ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... senses into soul, while at the same time it is a melancholy elegy on its inherent and imparted frailty; it is at once the apotheosis and the obsequies of love. It appears here a heavenly spark, that, as it descends to the earth, is converted into the lightning flash, which almost in the same moment sets on fire and consumes the mortal being on whom it lights. All that is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring,—all that is languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... without a word mounted by the back stairs to their own room. When their eyes met, a flash of anger kindled, grew ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... they were thrust forward in all kinds of places, often in front of the pillars, as at Amiens, awkwardly enough, but with manly respect to the purpose of the figures. The Flamboyant hollows yawned at their sides, the statues fell back into them, and nearly disappeared, and a flash of flame in the shape of a ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... lungs were weak, or Abby thought they were, and the doctor had told her I must not sit too long over my bench, but must be out in the air as much as might be, though not at hard labour. Then,—those afternoons, I am saying,—I would be off like a flash with my fiddle,—off to the yellow sand beach where the round pebbles lay. I could never let my poor father hear me play; it was a knife in his heart even to see the Lady; and these hours on the beach were my ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance. Presently it was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the sound of breathing succeeded a grating and scratching of bark. Suddenly, as if riven by lightning, a flash broke from the centre of the tree-trunk, lit up the woods, and a sharp report rang through it. After a pause the jingling of spurs and the dancing of torches were revived from ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... like a mighty wheel, I saw the trees like drunkards reel, And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, Which saw ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... over me— The moon conceals her light— The lamp is quench'd— Vapours are rising— Quiv'ring round my head Flash the red beams— Down from the vaulted roof A shuddering horror floats, And seizes me! I feel it, spirit, prayer-compell'd, 'tis thou Art hovering near! Unveil thyself! Ha! How my heart is riven now! Each sense, with eager palpitation, Is strain'd to catch some new sensation! ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... for another strike at Barbara's horse, which had almost reached the place before Eleanor screamed. The whole occurrence was so unexpected and sudden that Barbara had not seen the swift flash of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Fitzgerald's coming here! His impudence goes a little beyond anything I ever heard of. Wasn't it lucky that Boston friend should drop down from the skies, as it were, just at the right minute; for the Signor's such a flash-in-the-pan, there 's no telling what might have happened. Tell me all ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... causes, never get down to principles, as it were. It requires a purely occidental intellect to master the problem before me. This cow has a strong disinclination to be milked. Why? What is the motive of her conduct? If I could only answer that!' All at once it came to me,—came like a flash. The reason was plain. 'This cow is a mother. The maternal instinct in her case is beautifully developed. Her reasoning faculties less so. She has a calf. To her mind, we are trying to rob her beloved offspring of its nourishment. She naturally resents this injustice on our part. Beautiful ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... danger of that," he said. "I will show you a trick or two. Do you see this helmet? It is a magic helmet. With it I can make myself so no one can see me, or I can change myself, quick as a flash, into anything I wish to be. So, you ...
— Opera Stories from Wagner • Florence Akin

... as much as three full-grown men; and, "if you heard him fellin' trees in a clearin'," said his cousin, Dennis Hanks, "you would say there was three men at work by the way the trees fell. His ax would flash and bite into a sugar tree or sycamore, and ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... light Opera," thought that, as it wasn't quite up to this description, it would be as well if the required "light'ning" were brought in somewhere, and so he introduced it here. If this be so, it is about the only flash ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various

... a soft thud sounded at his feet, coincident with a flash of black and white across his shoulder. He covered the object with one foot, as the oily, leering face of Ah Sih King appeared in the doorway. The blanched face surmounted a costly mandarin robe, righteously worn, a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... long, hazy reach of land; piled up in terraces, traced here and there with rushing streams, that worked up gold dust alluvian, and seemed to flash over pebbled diamonds. Heliotropes, sun-flowers, marigolds gemmed, or starred the violet meads, and vassal-like, still sunward bowed their heads. The rocks were pierced with grottoes, blazing with ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... gold was there; picture if you can that glorious lightning-flash! What is it that Pindar says about gold? Can you help me to it? He says water is best, and then very properly proceeds to sing the praises of gold; it comes at the beginning of the book, and ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... assistants brought a case which Deibler opened, and Fandor instinctively shrank as a flash from the bright steel fell full in his eyes, that sinister triangular knife that presently would ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... was giving her an amusing account of the susceptibility to titles shown by the primitive democrats of Norway. As they passed a gap in the vicarage hedge, laughing and chatting. Rose became aware of a window and a gray head hastily withdrawn. Mr. Flaxman was puzzled by the merry flash, instantly suppressed, that ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... still interesting. They can best be described as reflections of the misty scenes of Macpherson's native Highlands—vague impressionistic glimpses, succeeding one another in purposeless repetition, of bands of marching warriors whose weapons intermittently flash and clang through the fog, and of heroic women, white-armed and with flowing hair, exhorting the heroes to the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... raged to escape from their confinement. Old Bill came hobbling around the corner. Steps were heard on the gallery. The visitor's face showed a slight uneasiness as he caught a glance of a certain spot now suddenly made alive by the flutter of a soft gown and the flash of a bunch of scarlet ribbons. Thither he gazed as directly as he might under these circumstances, but the girl was gone before he had opportunity even to rise ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... at the same time that he was being pointed out in no flattering terms by the young lady in question, who cast a single haughty glance in his direction by way of identification. He saw her eyes flash, and, though the brief dialogue which ensued was necessarily inarticulate to him, it was plain that she was laying her outraged feelings at the feet of her admirer, with a command for something summary and substantial by ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... opposite, flooded the room with light. It made Aurora's red dress brilliant, and played and sparkled on the gold she wore. Twenty little golden chains of Venice hung around her neck, slender thread after thread from throat to girdle, invisible now with fineness, and now showing a misty flash in the sun. There was a gold filigree rose in her hair, which at certain movements changed to a red rose, and then to a pallid flame, and in the shadow it had all the softness of a yellow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various



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