"Flashy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... squaws take much care of their dress and horse equipments; they dash furiously past on wild steeds, astride of the high-pommelled saddles. A fancifully coloured cover, worked with beads or porcupine quills, making a flashy, striking appearance, extended from withers to rump of the horse, while the riders evinced an admirable daring, worthy of Amazons. Their dresses were made of buckskin, high at the neck, with short sleeves, or rather none at all, fitting loosely, and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... appear to be in even the slightest degree insincere. Much as there must have been in Byron's loose art, his voluble inadequacy—nay, even in his choice of subject—that was repellent to Mr Arnold: much more as there must have been in his unchastened conduct, his flashy affectations, his lack of dignity, morality, tenue of every kind,—yet there were real links between them. Mr Arnold saw in Byron an ally, if not an altogether admirable or trustworthy ally, against the Philistine. He saw in him a link with general European literature, a check and antidote to the ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... those who, in ragged jackets, greasy leathern breeches and huge jack boots, are urging them on. Two men sit at ease on the coach box. One, a tall young fellow, looks at a distance like a field-officer in a flashy uniform, but is only an English footman in a gaudy livery, who needs the training of a London winter or two, in a fashionable household, to make him a flunky of the first water. The other, an old man, with a severe countenance, is plainly ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold A Sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least 120 That to the faithfull Herdmans art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw, The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the English population New York began to depart from its normal, quiet round of social life, and entered into far more flashy, but far less healthful forms of pleasure. There was wealth in the old city before the British flocked to it, and withal an atmosphere of plenty and peaceful enjoyment of life. The description of the Schuyler residence, "The Flatts," presented in Grant's Memoirs, probably indicates at its ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... is absurd in plot, and like most first books, flashy and overdrawn. And yet there is a deal of power in it, and the thinly veiled characters were speedily pointed out as living personages. Literary London went agog, and Mrs. Austen fanned the flame by inviting "the set" to her drawing-room ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... moved away again along that long white highway that traverses France by Sens, Dijon, Macon, Lyons, Valence, and Digue, and has its end at the rocky shore of the blue Mediterranean at Cannes—that land of flowers and flashy adventurers, which the ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... 'lurking' or raffish Military Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging on horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up and ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was said of Ras Fendihook. The man's broad, flashy good-humour had caught her fancy; his vagabond life stimulated her imagination of wider horizons; he promised her release from the conventions and restrictions of her artificial existence; she was ready to embark with him, as his wife, into the Unknown; but it was evident that ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... was able to erect such effective control structures as today, populations who had lived along "flashy" watercourses long enough to learn their habits tended to build their more valuable structures back away from the parts of the flood plain that got wet most often, leaving those parts for cropland and timber, ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... have internal Qualities in proportion to your Beauty; tho' the World resounds your Praises from Morning till Night, and consequently you must have a just Title to a superior Degree of Understanding than the rest of your Sex; Yet your Wit is no ways flashy; Your Taste is refin'd, and I have had the Honour to hear you talk more learnedly than the wisest Dervise, with his venerable Beard, and pointed Bonnet: You are discreet, and yet not mistrustful; you are easy, but not weak; you are beneficent with Discretion; ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Christmas in Egypt, Jack was sitting before the fire in Queen Mab's parlour, when Raymond was announced, and shown into the room. He was dressed, as usual, in good though rather flashy clothes; but in spite of this, he looked cheap and common, and his general appearance gave one the impression of dirt wrapped up in silver paper. The moment he saw Jack a spiteful look came into his face, and he took no pains to conceal the old dislike ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... while the girls were partaking of aunt Hannah's hospitality; two or three of the upper rooms were full of commotion created by the change which each deemed necessary to his apparel, before he appeared in dancing trim before the ladies. Flashy vests were taken from overcoat pockets. The dickies, snugly curled under the lining of a fur cap or narrow-brimmed hat, came forth to be arranged under neck-ties of ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... "D'Aubigne," growled the flashy man with an oath, "what do I care about d'Aubigne? Advance, d'Aubigne, and all's well! You needn't be jealous of ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... know where she was going well enough, and yet the coarse red cheek turned pale while she approached her goal, though it was but a flashy, dirty-looking gin-shop, standing at a corner where two streets met. Her colour rose though, higher than before, when a pot-boy, with a shock of red hair, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... words must be lacquered over either with gilding or with sugar, is such a confectionary matter as clean baffles my poor old English brain.—Come with me, Tracy, and come you too, Master Walter Wittypate, that art the cause of our having all this ado. Let us see if thy neat brain, that frames so many flashy fireworks, can help out a plain fellow at need with some of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... I could set she back in her place, too, that tricked-up, flashy thing over the way. I've but to climb the stairs and clap my hand on Steve—"Get you from your dreams," I have got but to say, "the woman what's yourn be comed home. Her have tasted the cup of death, very near, and her ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... to her commands, and by the name and address she had given me, I soon found out the house; by the porter I sent word of the circumstance [of my having brought] a letter. The moment he heard [my message,] a handsome young negro, with a flashy turban on his head, came out to me; though his colour was dark, his countenance was full of animation. He took the note from my hand, but said nothing, asked no questions, and at the same pace [without a pause] entered the house. In a short time he came out, accompanied by slaves, who carried on ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... has been described as a ruffian and villain of irredeemable depravity—desperate to the last degree. James P. Casey was a young man of bright, intelligent and rather prepossessing face, neat in his person, inclined to fine clothes, but not flashy or gaudy in his attire. He was of low stature, slender frame, lithe and compact, sinewy, nervous, and very agile. His eyes were blue and large, of bold expression. His voice was full and sonorous. He had served as Assistant County Treasurer for ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... right to say he has not, but he is a flashy slang style of youth, and I hope the young Wards will keep out of ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... present, filled its whole capacity and entire space with that, and except for past pleasures no empty corner was ever left for what was done with.[57] He says he was too young to take the desertion deeply to heart. Where he found subsistence we do not know. He was fascinated by a flashy French adventurer,[58] in whose company he wasted many hours, and the precious stuff of youthful opportunity. He passed a summer day in joyful rustic fashion with two damsels whom he hardly ever saw again, but the memory of whom and of the holiday that they had made with him remained stamped in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... "Precisely! I wonder I didn't do or say the same thing myself." Whenever you hear such criticisms upon any performance, you may be sure that it has been directed by a sound instinct. It is not a sort of criticism any one is apt to make upon flashy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... among the Hollanders; there is no shadow of it in their life nor any hint of it in their literature; the very language rebels against translating any of those numberless expressions which constitute the dubious, flashy, easy speech of that class of society in the countries where it is found. On the other hand, neither fathers nor mothers close their eyes to the conduct of their unmarried sons, even if they be grown men; family discipline makes no exception of long beards; and this ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... leading from the front door were covered with fine carpeting, which also stretched away to the street, to the spot where the guests were to alight from their carriages. On both sides of the carpet stood serried ranks of the Stadtholder's lackeys in their flashy gold-trimmed liveries. They were headed by the count's two stewards, with golden wands in their hands, broad gold bands about their shoulders, and monstrous three-cornered hats upon their heads. It was very fine ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... purple silk, which was smartly trimmed, but by no means fresh, and she had dressed her hair, and refreshed her complexion by a liberal application of violet powder. She had a look which can only be described as "flashy"—a look that struck Clarissa ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... be made to conform to modesty in all other respects also. Useless things added to one's apparel for the purpose of display and show do not conform to modesty. "Loud" and flashy colors are not modest. The Bible does not forbid us to wear any particular shade, but there are shades and combinations that are showy and gaudy, and by their extremeness violate modesty, for modesty is the avoidance of extreme. Whatever we wear, it should be modest in color just as well ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... and Co. I looked forward to Sunday Church Parade, for there I could wear my sword. It was my grandfather's sword, and I'm afraid I thought less of the romance of bearing it in defence of the Britain that he loved and the France where he lay buried than of its flashy appearance and the fine finish it gave to my uniform. I was a strange mixture, for, when the preacher, looking down the old Gothic arches, said: "This historic church has often before filled with armed men," I ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... honesty and sterling qualities which the country teaches her children in the hard, but successful, school of experience, to offset the flashy supercilious lessons which the city teaches hers; for the city is a careless nurse and teacher, who thinks more of the cut of a coat than of the habit of mind; who feeds her children on colored candy and popcorn, despising the more wholesome porridge and milk; a slatternly nurse, who would rather ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... manifest itself later; but that was not Dan's affair. Bassett was beyond doubt able to take care of himself in emergencies; Dan's admiration for his patron was strongly intrenched in this belief. The bulkier Thatcher, with the marks of self-indulgence upon him, and with his bright waistcoat and flashy necktie transcending the bounds of good taste, struck him as a weaker character. If Thatcher meditated a break with Bassett, the sturdier qualities, the even, hard strokes that Bassett had a reputation for delivering, would count ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... which led him to turn from poetry to prose fiction are well known. His poetical vein was really exhausted when in 1812 and 1813 Byron's 'Childe Harold' and flashy Eastern tales captured the public fancy. Just about as Scott was goodnaturedly confessing to himself that it was useless to dispute Byron's supremacy he accidentally came across the first chapters of 'Waverley,' which he had written ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... great reputation in their day, and in contemporary criticism we find their praise sung and their immortality predicted. But, while they illustrate, on the one hand, the temporary vogue an author may acquire by highly-wrought clap-trap and flashy flights of imagination, they show very plainly, in the oblivion which has overtaken them, how little such characteristics avail in the race for ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... in, and a few minutes afterwards I had the honour of receiving on my quarter-deck a gentleman who seemed a cross between the German student and swell commercial gent. On his head he wore a queer kind of smoking-cap, with the peak cocked over his left ear; then came a green shooting-jacket, and flashy silk tartan waistcoat, set off by a gold chain, hung about in innumerable festoons,—while light trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his costume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in question ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... articles to the hands of the consumer should be a simple business. Every member of the public must feel that his clothes will be as good, coming from a wareroom on a third floor at L.30 a year, as from a flashy corner shop which costs L.300. He will feel that to make him buy a new hat when he needs one, it is not necessary that an advertising van should be continually rumbling along the streets. His tea and sugar from the nearest grocer cannot be any better because of there being fifty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... knowledge which he had at command, and thus his work never grew stale, and he was ready instantly with a hundred illustrative lights on any point which chanced to crop up either in conversation or in the course of his reading. The cheap and flashy writer is inclined to disdain the men who are thorough in their studies; but, while his work grows thin and poor, the judicious reader's becomes marked by more and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... so had Gerard Maule. That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough satisfaction. On his way back ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... him: for one who can look forwarder than the nine days of wonder, can easily despise so flashy and so transient a glare. And were I fond of compliments, it would not, perhaps, be the way to be pleased, in that respect, if I ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and with diligence and attention. Some books also may he read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... little artificial graces belonging to high civilization. Some of her evening dresses were elegant, the colors harmonizing, and the style picturesque and becoming. If she had the good taste not to disfigure her classically-shaped head, or to load herself with flashy jewelry, so much ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... his time. He had never lied, never seduced, never stooped to anything which seemed to him demeaning. He was splashed with vice from head to foot, but he was neither unnerved nor warped by it. A subject of constant gossip, of frequent scandal, with his teams of half-tame horses, his flashy clothes, his furious passions for worthless women, his moroseness and violence, he was still, so far, a very negative character, a mere mass of rough material, out of which a man might be made. But who should mould that ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... they list their lean and flashy songs, Harsh grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw." —Jamieson's Rhet., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... brains," Marchmont went on, "though of rather a flashy sort, I think. Dick Benyon's been caught by them. But a more impossible person I never met. You don't ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... thousand tons, while a Yankee thousand-tonner could sail them out of sight with forty. The British excuse was that East Indiamen required a fighting crew as well as a trading one, and that British vessels were built to last, not simply put together to make one flashy record. But after the Napoleonic wars the British Navy could police the world of waters; so double numbers were no longer needed; and if East {96} Indiamen were built to last, how was it they only went an average of six times out and six times ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... fingers, and feasted his eyes upon the precious lid. The doctor scarcely gave the elegant bawble a glance as he helped himself. The Don, however, examined it with the eye of a connoisseur, and not only that, but he threw a spark at the captain's flashy waistcoat, and thought he detected some other article in the capacious pockets vice the handkerchief. Perhaps he may have been mistaken and perhaps not, though he was so very suspicious an old villain that he sometimes ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... "It's too flashy," Barby explained. "Too bright. Really nice people wouldn't have a boat that color. You wait and ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... and saw that the voice and hand belonged to the same person—a short, stout man, with sallow complexion and glistening black eyes. His dress was a curious compound of broad, glazed hat and blue shift of a sailor and the flashy check vest and pantaloons ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... and dignified than he had supposed; the story was well known in the county and in most respects was obvious enough. Hawker, the old squire, had been a loose, unsatisfactory sort of person, had been on bad terms with his first wife (who died, as some said, of neglect), and had then married a flashy South American Jewess with a fortune. But he must have worked his way through this fortune also with marvelous rapidity, for he had been compelled to sell the estate to Verner and had gone to live in South America, possibly on his wife's estates. But Fisher ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. Deans, indeed, denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents for expounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to the Laird's capacity of understanding them. He said, "Dumbiedikes was nane of these flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails, that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefooted to heaven. He wasna like his father—nae profane company-keeper—nae swearer—nae drinker—nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, or dancing-house—nae ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... people waiting for the midnight train stared in unenvious wonder—Italian women with shawls, old weary men with broken shoes, roving road-wise boys in suits which had been flashy when they were new but which were ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Patterson, who was not only a rogue but also a fool—a flashy one, who turned the head of a lone, lorn young widow, who certainly was not infallible in judgment. In two years the wife got a divorce from him, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion, at Salem, Massachusetts. Her third marital venture was Doctor Asa G. Eddy, a practising physician—a man ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... but they might have conspired to assemble on the Cambuscan as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised land. The protest, let me add, was an entirely passive one. They stood aloof, watching the flashy gaieties of the hurricane-deck from their own sad penumbra—a dejected, wistful, whispering throng. "They simply don't occur," one of the be-diamonded ladies remarked to me, and went on to praise the U— Line for arranging it so. With nightfall—or a trifle ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the door, as I went in, were occupied. On one side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom I had seen from time to time in the domino room and elsewhere. On the other side sat Soames. They made a queer contrast in that sunlit room—Soames sitting haggard in that hat and cape which nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... never a grasping trader, but I provided myself before setting out with every worthless gew-gaw and flashy trifle that could tempt the native to betray Indian secrets. Lest these should fail, I added to my stock a dozen as fine new flint-locks as could corrupt the soul of an Indian, and without consideration for the enemy's scalp also equipped ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... way, stopping the traffic as far as I could see. Dustmen, and sweeps, and even beggars, jostled you on the corners, bullies tried to push you against the posts or into the kennels; and once, in Butchers' Row, I was stopped by a flashy, soft-tongued fellow who would have lured me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very flashy style. He wore a black velvet jacket with silver buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, trousers with broad blue stripes, a Cashmere shawl for a girdle with ends loosely floating, and a chimney-pot hat covered with flowers and streamers. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... are useful for aiding, they are still more useful for correcting each other; for as they have their particular merits severally, so they have their defects, and the most extensive acquaintance with one can produce only an intellect either too flashy or too jejune, or infected with some other fault of confined reading. History, for example, shows things as they are, that is, the morals and interests of men disfigured and perverted by all their imperfections of passion, folly, and ambition; philosophy strips ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... some traces of Peters. As Tom had said, the man was too prominent not to be noticed. He might have disguised himself, though it seemed that the promoter was a proud man, and liked to be seen in flashy clothes, a silk hat, and with a ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... Dance became popular with pianoforte virtuosi, being better known under its German title of Hexentanz. MacDowell grew to detest its shallow outlook and the appeal it made to the flashy pianist, although he himself played it in public as late as 1891. He revised both the Two Fantastic Pieces some years ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... standing. The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of feature—handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength—of grace and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body: then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... I saw of Brown only two or three pictures at the exhibition in Florence; they were coarse, flashy things. I was told he could do better; but a man who indulges himself with such, coarse sale-work cannot surely ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... part, he brought them books and chocolates, watered the garden, mowed the tennis ground, mended the bells, and made himself generally useful. At first this flashy, muddling, free-and-easy household had disgusted him; and his cool assured manner and critical air irritated his relatives; whilst his attitude of superior comment had proved a vexatious restraint. But week by week Douglas came to see that it was to this particular class he now belonged. These ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... not answer at once. He knew well the locality Dr. Chrystal had in mind, and the class of people that inhabited it. For square after square, tenement houses, tall, grimy, and repulsive, alternated with groggeries, flaunting, flashy, and reeking with iniquity. The residents were of the lowest and poorest order. Filth, vice, and poverty, held high carnival the whole year round. In the day time crowds of tattered roughs played rudely with one another in the streets, and after dark, drunken soldiers, sailors, and wharf men, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... cloth top-hat, except when motoring; then he would have a brown deer-stalker cap and a fur suit of esquimaux cut with a sort of boot-end to the trousers. Of an evening he would wear white waistcoats and plain gold studs. He hated diamonds. "Flashy," he said they were. "Might as well wear—an income tax-receipt. All very well for Park Lane. Unsold stock. Not my style. Sober ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the civil history, is not flashy or whiffling. The slow, deep English mass smoulders with fire, which at last sets all its borders in flame. The wrath of London is not French wrath, but has a long memory, and in hottest ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... may be my ideas are rather crude, but really I cannot imagine I could ever make butter! Do you think I could, Mr. Desmonde?" leaning forward to catch Louis' eye, and plying her flashy fan with renewed energy and great care to show the ring of emeralds and diamonds that ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... FAITH. MRS. CROMBIE is a well-preserved, rather flashy woman. FAITH is a very pretty girl, perhaps a shade too self-assured. She is all right when by herself, but when compared with the Dermott girls, there is ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... between the seats groups of girls were talking excitedly. Several lights burned in the darkening room, and Myra saw swiftly the strange types—there were Jewish girls, Italian girls, Americans, in all sorts of garbs, some very flashy with their "rat"-filled hair, their pompadours, their well-cut clothes, others almost in rags; some tall, some short, some rosy-cheeked, many frail and weak and white. At a table in the rear Giotto was receiving money from Italians ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... hastiest of flying shots at his author, naturally he demanded a very conspicuous mark to fire at. But the author could not, in so brief a space, be always sure to crowd any very prominent objects on the eye, unless by being audaciously oracular and peremptory as regarded the sentiment, or flashy in excess as regarded its expression. "Come now, my friend," was Lord Chesterfield's morning adjuration to his author;" come now, cut it short—don't prose—don't hum and haw. "The author had doubtless no ambition to enter his name on the honorable and ancient ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... The great bug-bear ever present in the mind of an Englishman, is the dread of not being thought sufficiently "respectable." Professional men and tradesmen depend for their subsistence upon appearances. To be flashy is as bad as to be shabby; the great object is to appear substantial. If you are rich, you have less temptation to be dishonest, and may consequently be trusted. Every man, therefore, who depends upon the opinion of others, is compelled to assume the appearance of being comfortably ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... husband about having their baby's life insured according to a wonderful plan an agent had described to her. As she spoke she was frowning anxiously—and she saw no harbor. Not far away a plump flashy young creature was smiling down on the bootblack who was busily shining her small patent leather shoes. Her bright blue petticoat lifted high displayed the most enticing charms, and as now she turned to look off toward the lights of the city ahead, she smiled gaily to ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... here throughout the twenty-four hours. People wander aimlessly about the streets, eternally discussing quartz and placer-claims, and recent strikes, which here form the sole topic of conversation, like a run on zero or the cards at Monaco. Port Said is suggested by the dusty, flashy streets and cosmopolitan crowd, also by the fact that gambling saloons and even shops remain open all night, or so long as customers are stirring, which is generally from supper until breakfast-time, for at this season of perpetual daylight no one ever seemed ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... to say that this man De Vere with his flashy get-up and imposing name is not an English gentleman. He may deceive you and the men we have just left, but he doesn't deceive me. I once lived in England a long time ago, Mr. Deighton," here Blount turned his face away, ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... much surprised, but repeated my refusal, with all customary civilities to soften it. He was leaving me with this answer, when this most flashy young officer, choosing to trust his cause to himself, came forward, and desired to be introduced to me. Mr. Metcalf performed that ceremony, and he then, with as much respect and deference as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... with terrific realism the inevitable depravity that awaited her. Rudely torn from every ideal which she had so weakly endeavored to grasp, she had been, thrown back into the mire and slime at the very moment when her emancipation seemed to be assured. Standing before the tall mirror, with her flashy dress on one arm and her equally exaggerated type of picture hat in the other, she recognized in herself the type of woman depicted by the vulgar street melody, and the full realization of her ignominy came to her now, perhaps for the ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... everybody discovers a temper always flashy, and often false and insincere. Therefore as I have proceeded straight onward in my conduct, so I will proceed in my account of those parts of it which have been most excepted to. But I must first beg leave ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... of the square begins a broad, flashy-looking street, stretching away to the northward, crowded with pedestrians, street cars, and wheeled vehicles of all kinds. This is The Bowery. It begins at Chatham Square, and extends as far as the Cooper Institute, on Eighth street, where the Third and Fourth avenues—the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... suffer; it would be as dead here as a grasshopper after a prairie fire while readjustment to new conditions shaped. It might be a year or two before healthy legitimate trade could take the place of this flashy life, and it might never rebound from the operation. A man would want the people who are calling for law and order here to be satisfied with the new conditions; he wouldn't want any whiners at ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... entered the house. Philippina had a box full of ribbons in Eleanore's cabinet. She set a chair against the door leading into Jordan's room; and when her hands were tired from rummaging around in the ribbons and her eyes weary from looking at all the flashy colours, she pressed her ear to the door to see if she could find out what the old ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... chose. His eyes bulged like gooseberries. They were colourless, and lustreless in comparison with the diamond pin in his neckcloth. His frock-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers were of superfine material and flashy cut. They fitted him like a skin in all the wrong places. Get it into your heads—Here was a prosperous reach-me-down person of the sort you will find on any political platform, standing for Parliament or seconding a ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... window the name Reuben Murgatroyd—Watchmaker and Jeweller. There were few signs of jewellery in Reuben Murgatroyd's window—some cheap clocks, some foreign-made watches of the five-shilling and seven-and-six variety, a selection of flashy rings and chains were spread on the shelves, equally cheap and flashy bangles, bracelets, and brooches lay in dust-covered trays on the sloping bench beneath them. At these things Pratt cast no more than a contemptuous glance. But he looked with interest at the upper part of the ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... it was the day of the party and we were plunged in gloom. Archibald got out his Etons and put his clean shirt ready, and a pair of flashy silk socks with red spots, and then he went ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... occasions, especially round Christmas time, she might have been seen accompanied by some silent, dull-eyed, stupid-looking girl, who would follow her dumbly in and out of stores, stopping now and then to admire a cheap comb or a chain set with flashy imitation stones—or, queerly enough, a doll with yellow hair and blue eyes and very pink cheeks. But, alone or in company, her appearance in the stores of our town was the signal for a sudden jump in the cost of living. The storekeepers mulcted her; and she ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... opened and a little answering breeze flickered in the flame of the lamp. A girl near Nan, her nerves on edge, gave a cry. A man stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was a figure of fashion evolved from cheap models and flashy materials. Tall, quick in his movements, as if he found life a perpetual dance and self-consciously adapted himself to it, with mocking blue eyes, red hair and a long nose bent slightly to one side, he was, in every line and act, vulgar, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... ruin, has a charm all its own, and it is better to leave it frankly as it is now than to partly hide it. There are some, no doubt, who would restore it, but it is to be hoped that funds will not be forthcoming. Restoration has effectually marred the beauty of the pavement of the choir, and given us a flashy reredos there, of which the less said the better; but every one with a particle of feeling must feel that restoration and decoration of the Lady Chapel reredos would ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... his wife, inasmuch as he regarded society as a great bore. Mrs. Chapman, however, was not a little disappointed at the way things had turned. They were flashy and rather fast people who came to her reception; people whom nobody of established respectability knew or cared to know—thoughtless young men, overdressed young women with matrimonial expectations, and a few needy foreigners with small titles. To make the matter ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... was a very high price in those days, of course she accepted. Then the papers throughout the country were full of advertisements—"Read the Thousand Dollar Story in the Ledger." "Read The New York Ledger"—Some people said, "Well, first-class journals don't use such flashy ways of inducing people to subscribe; they rely on the merits of their paper." Bonner heard this and began to study how to overcome this tide of sentiment. There was Harpers Weekly—no one questioned its respectability. The Harpers never indulged in any flashy advertising, but soon the people ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... lowered. They are all indications of a great subterranean activity, of a something being pushed up, and therefore naturally the land either gives way and lets it come through, or else is raised up by its violence. And so Mr. Darwin, being desirous not to merely put out a flashy hypothesis, but to get at the truth of the matter, said to himself, "If my notion of this matter is right, then atolls and encircling reefs, inasmuch as they are dependent upon subsidence, ought not to be found in company with volcanoes; and, 'vice versa', ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... were fixed upon the Marvel. For this remarkable performing man was scratching in a tub of earth to find a bone—just like a real dog; and that was his greatest trick. When he had successfully performed it, his master (the Little Wonder) presented him with a twopenny cigar clothed in a flashy cummerbund, to show how generously he rewarded achievements. Then, as the curtain fell, he retired with many bows—and in the wings gave the Marvel a hot time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... after the concert, they had invited some of the performers to supper in a private room, and Vinson, in the course of the entertainment, was attracted, fascinated, by a tall girl with dyed hair, emaciated cheeks, and brilliant eyes, whose flashy manners smacking of some low suburb, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... fell upon my pool of sunshine and, looking up, I perceived a handsome, flashy young man of the clever, almost Satanic type that is so common below Fourteenth Street; and he stood looking cynically over the cheap furs in my window and working his thin jaws. Then I saw him take, with his right hand, from a bunch that he carried in his left, a great white grape and ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... diamond ring around a glaring red necktie; and a loud checked suit that matched his voice perfectly. In fact, his whole make-up harmonised remarkably with the unearthly noise that issued from his throat. He was standing before a flashy-fronted building, on which was painted in large yellow letters, intended to be gold, the legend "Dime Museum." In the front entrance were several cheap wax figures of a theatrical nature, and some still cheaper scenes, showing the figure of a nude savage without arms, biting ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... the stedfast eye; And seen, and vanishing, and seen again, Like dying tapers smoth'ring in their sockets, Appear at last shut from the face of heav'n; Whilst every lesser flame which shone by night, The flashy meteor from the op'ning cloud, That shoots full oft' across the dusky sky; Or wand'ring fire which looks across the marsh, Beaming like candle in a lonely cot, To cheer the hopes of the benighted trav'ller, Till swifter than the ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... only thinks himself, but makes you think ... wise and witty.... Whether dealing with death and immortality, or riches and Socialism, he always contrives to be pungent and interesting and yet urbane, for there is no attempt either at flashy cynicism or cheap epigram.... We advise our readers to read carefully the admirable passage about Socialism and Bagshot's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... you. 'I wonder what has become of him,' I said to myself." He did not remember my name, or perhaps he had never known it, so I had to introduce myself afresh. The contrast between his flashy clothes and my frowsy, wretched-looking appearance, as I saw ourselves in the mirrors on either side of me, made me sorely ill at ease. The brilliancy of the gaslight chafed my nerves. It was as though it had been ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... windows and on the counters has lost that freshness which it once may have had, and is, in fact, if one must use the term, fly-specked, like the cakes in the grocery windows on the side streets. There are old illustrated newspapers from the States, cheap novels from the same, and the flashy covers of the London and Edinburgh sixpenny editions. But this is the dull season for literature, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... few people, but on approaching the centre of the City they saw numbers in front of the cafes and even going to the theatre. Flashy carriages of thievish men who had enriched themselves under the new conditions, rolled frequently by. The basis of their power, the squalid element with jealous, insolent eyes, also increased ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... was barely acquainted with Goring. Sir John Ireton and the newspapers informed him that George Goring was a flashy, untrustworthy politician; and the former added that he was a terrible nuisance to poor Lord Ipswich and Lady Augusta. That such a man could attract Mildred would never have ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... strong-man act?" Ed said. "Not a sideshow talker, nothing like that; this guy had an act of his own, full tent and flies. Gondo, his name was, and I can still see those flies: Eighth Wonder of the World up on top, red on blue, and just Gondo underneath, pure white with red outlining. Class, but flashy, if you see what I mean. You ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... to an unnaturally early sexual life. Late hours, children's parties, sensational novels, 'flashy' papers, love stories, the drama, the ball-room, talk of beaux, love, and marriage,—that atmosphere of riper years which is so often and so injudiciously thrown around childhood,—all hasten the event which transforms the girl ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... integrity, economy, and rigorous business habits, here again came into play. I found myself driving a flourishing trade, and soon became a marked man upon 'Change. The truth is, I never dabbled in flashy matters, but jogged on in the good old sober routine of the calling—a calling in which I should, no doubt, have remained to the present hour, but for a little accident which happened to me in the prosecution of one of the usual business operations of the profession. Whenever ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 'Varsity men were thrown like Daniels into a den of mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons—full corporals with a few days' service. Motor-cycling gave superlative opportunities of freedom. Our duties were "flashy," and brought us into familiar contact with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing possessed the privileges that a professional ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... pepper—ten spoonsfuls of the former and one of the latter. Have it always where you can lay your hand on it; you will come to use it daily in camp, and if you ever get lost, you will find it of value. Fish and game leave a flat, flashy taste eaten without ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... man, no great inroad upon his purse would have resulted from a few entertainments thus bestowed upon his sponging acquaintances,—who, as he really supposed, were reversing the order of the obligation, by the light and flashy touches they gave him of high life in Europe,—relating, with great particularity, their adventures in France,—dining with the Dukes of Chartres and Angouleme, and attending the opera with the Duke of Berry and the Countess de Chausel,—visiting ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... beautiful add to the dislike we conceive for them. Yet a magnificent, and suitable, dress adds authority to man; but an effeminate dress, the garb of luxury and softness, lays open the corruption of the heart without adding to the ornament of the body. In like manner, translucent and flashy elocution weakens the things it clothes. I would, therefore, recommend care about ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... poor, then it is better to be poor, and to enjoy; that if one has no other way of being humble except being imbecile, then it is better to be imbecile, and to enjoy. That is the deep unconscious truth in the character of Toots—that all his externals are flashy and false; all his internals unconscious, obscure, and true. He wears loud clothes, and he is silent inside them. His shirts and waistcoats are covered with bright spots of pink and purple, while his soul is always covered with the sacred shame. He always ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... dagger as you might be sure he would, and informing himself in a growling soliloquy that his heart is consumed with envy and hate because he is not captain. The captain, one Issachar, comes in, a superbly handsome young fellow, named Mario, to my thinking the first comedian in Spain, dressed in a flashy suit of leopard hides, and announces the arrival of a stranger. Enters Demas, who says he hates the world and would fain drink its foul blood. He is made politely welcome. No! he will be captain or nothing. Issachar laughs scornfully ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... in fine, such as he could write only at that moment of his evolution as a man, and such as the Events could publish only at that period of its development as a newspaper. The report was flashy and vulgar and unscrupulous, but it was not brutal, except by accident, and not unkind except through the necessities of the case. But it was helplessly and thoroughly personal, and it was no more philosophized than a monkish chronicle ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... because I think it is vulgar but because I know it is wicked; and Jeanette I have a young brother for whose welfare I am constantly trembling; but I am not afraid that he will take his first glass of wine in a fashionable saloon, or flashy gin palace, but I do dread his entrance into what you call 'our set.' I fear that my brother has received as an inheritance a temperament which will be easily excited by stimulants, that an appetite ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... perturbed, forgot her anger; at least it was dimmed. Coming to Spruce Street she saw the usual crowd of men hanging about the door of the Ardmore. They always stood there, clustered about on the steps, with their cigarettes and their half-burned cigars and their flashy clothes and their burnt-out eyes and their appraising looks. For a moment she contemplated crossing the street to avoid running the gauntlet of their inspection. Where would she go then? Farther south it was darker and more unfriendly, with ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... out of the cabin, sprang into the cutter, and started toward the transport that lay alongside of the bank, a short distance below the flag-ship. As he stepped on board, he was met by a flashy-looking young lieutenant, dressed in a brand-new uniform, who greeted him with ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... 'Orator') Hunt (1773-1835), hero of the 'Peterloo massacre,' were the most conspicuous. They were supported by Cobbett, the greatest journalist of the time, and various more obscure writers. The Utilitarians held them in considerable contempt. Burdett was flashy, melodramatic, and vain; Hunt an 'unprincipled demagogue'; and Cartwright, the Nestor of reform, who had begun his labours in 1780, was, according to Place, wearisome, impracticable, and a mere nuisance in matters of business. The Utilitarians tried to use such men, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... nation was then a great people,—to point out how and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar level, and to take that lead which they assumed among mankind. To qualify us for that preeminence, we had then an high mind and a constancy unconquerable; we were then inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were durable as well as warm, such as corresponded to the great interests we had at stake. This force of character was inspired, as all such spirit must ever be, from above. Government gave the impulse. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... African Christianity. On one side the rough benches are filled with men clad, for once in the week, in clean cotton shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats, which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas," with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... filled with ladies in black dresses and black veils. The gentlemen of the Pope's guard, in red coats, leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all this reserved space, with drawn swords that were very flashy in every sense; and from the altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept clear by the Pope's Swiss guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and striped tight legs, and carry halberds like those which are usually ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... been a handsome woman, was now stout, laced till she could scarcely breathe, always over-dressed, and fond of wearing a number of flashy gold chains ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... withered to a parchment hung over the campfires, cooking. And at the loopholes pressed the braves and the bucks and the chief men exchanging beaver-skins for old iron, or a silver fox for a drink of gin, or ermine enough to make His Majesty's coronation robe for some flashy trinket to trick out a vain squaw. From dawn to dusk ran the patter of moccasined feet, man after man toiling up from river-front to fort gate with bundles of peltries on his back and a ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... from his trousers pocket, and looked down at the white bit of money in his hand till it was wet with the falling rain. Then he went into a flashy tavern, and, standing by a sloppy bar, drank sixpenny-worth of cheap whisky. It went to his head at once, owing to his want of food, and with a dull warm feeling in his body he lurched off to his first lecture for the day. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Burton indeed who, an hour or two later, issued forth into the streets. Gone was the Cockney young man with the sandy moustache, the cheap silk hat worn at various angles to give himself a rakish air, the flashy clothes, cheap and pretentious, the assured, not to say bumptious air so sedulously copied from the deportment of his employer. Enter a new and completely transformed Alfred Burton, an inoffensive-looking young man in a neat gray suit, a lilac-colored tie ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said Mr. Harpworth, "that this crowd came here to-day only to eat Julia Templeton's auction luncheon. What's the matter with this here generation? You don't want things that are well made and durable, but only things that are cheap and flashy. Put 'er aside, Jake. We'll sell 'er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and customs of ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... barber—the heavy, sandy mustache, freshly waxed by the same hand, the bellicose nostrils of the Roman nose, the broad, split chin, and mean, deep lines of a most unpromising face. Sandusky's brown shirt sprawled open at the collar, and de Spain remembered again the flashy waistcoat, fastened at the last buttonhole ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... a human beehive. Here was human life intensified and yet lowered in tone by aggregation, by the strain of organized effort that suppresses initiative and makes the value of a man merely a question of dynamics. The number of shops, especially of drinking-shops—sordid cafes and flashy buvettes, where the enterprising poisoners of the coal-miner stood behind their zinc counters pouring out the corrosive absinthe and the beetroot brandy—told of the prosperity of Cransac. Evidently ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... blatant crudity. It hangs to this day in its cheap frame above the chimney-piece, the one bright spot relieving those damp-stained walls; dull eyes stare and stare again at it, catching a vista, through its flashy tints, of the far-off land of art. Christmas Waits annoy me, and I yearn to throw open the window and fling coal at them—as once from the window of a high flat in Chelsea I did. I doubted their being genuine Waits. I was inclined ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... "Why then, Flashy," continued the poor victim, unconsciously warming with his theme: "why then, I'd draw my chair up and call for Betty, the gal wot tends to customers. Betty, my dear, says I, you looks charmin' this mornin'; ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... "Plerumque minuta voce cantillare."—Wyttenbach. What Milton would have called "a lean and flashy song." ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch |
