"Flickering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subsided. At day-break a comparatively shallow grave was hastily dug near the edge of a little bamboo thicket on a slightly elevated piece of ground. As the flickering rays of the tropical sun began to shoot above the pale, ashen-gray hue of the eastern horizon, the prisoner was led to the foot of his prospective tomb. The firing squad took its ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... Christ from her nineteenth year, spending a long life to his honor and glory. It was the winter of the year, but a mild day, when on returning from school we were summoned to her bedside. The feeble lamp of life was flickering in the socket, and the pulses of the aged woman stood still. Her spirit passed quietly from earth, to enter into the presence of God who gave it. She fell like a shock of corn fully ripe, at the age of ninety-four years. There was no struggle; wearied nature resigned her burden without resistance, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... little way we began to see the light from the turf fires carried by the fishermen flickering on the water, and to hear a faint noise of angry voices. Then the outline of a large fishing-boat came in sight through the darkness, with the forms of three men who stood on the course. The captain feared to turn aside, as there are ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... written out and spread before the public will any idea be formed of the magnitude and importance of the work which it has done. Nor even then. Never, till every soldier whose last moments it has soothed, till every soldier whose flickering life it has gently steadied into continuance, whose waning reason it has softly lulled into quiet, whose chilled blood it has warmed into healthful play, whose failing frame it has nourished into strength, whose fainting heart it has comforted with sympathy,—never, until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store Of ivy too (Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know) The plate shines bright: the altar, strewn With vervain, hungers for the flow Of lambkin's blood. There's stir among the serving folk; They bustle, bustle, boy and girl; The flickering flames send up the smoke In many a curl. But why, you ask, this special cheer? We celebrate the feast of Ides, Which April's month, to Venus dear, In twain divides. O, 'tis a day for reverence, E'en my own birthday scarce so dear, For my Maecenas counts from thence ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... resounded in the vaulted aisle. The cruse lamps hanging from the high rafters shed their dim light upon the bare stone walls, where branches of red-berried holly were entwined with tufts of larch and spruce and sprays of mistletoe. The flickering light of many tapers shone upon the embroidered vestments of the abbot ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... by the distant muttering of thunder and the fitful flickering of lightning; and they went out together down to the shore to watch the gathering storm. It was a long time in coming, but by-and-by, as they stood together close to the water's edge, a sudden swishing sound, like that of wind stirring leaves, became audible, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... along the corridor through which Bobby had to pass on the way to his own room: their liveries of purple with canary facings—the heraldic colours of the family of Cambray de Brestalou—hardly showed, in the flickering light of wax candles, the many ravages of moth and mildew which twenty years of neglect had wrought upon the once fine ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... said, a cold smile flickering on his lips, "You were always unselfish! You wished me to be the greatest artist of my time!—and perhaps I shall be!—now ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... dark spaces beyond the flickering lights, lay the million acres of land for which the horde was clamoring, its ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... the fire, until, at the end of half an hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and then sat down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osmond's face, and she watched him while he kept his silence. Covert observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence, had made it habitual. She wished as ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... nature seems to halt in expectation of the coming of something unusual. The decreasing portion of sun becomes more and more narrow, until at length it is reduced to a crescent-shaped strip of exceeding fineness. Strange, ill-defined, flickering shadows (known as "Shadow Bands") may at this moment be seen chasing each other across any white expanse such as a wall, a building, or a sheet stretched upon the ground. The western side of the sky has now assumed an appearance ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... girls," said Mrs. Sherman, as she caught up the trail of her wrapper, and ran out to follow the flickering lanterns and Mrs. Cassidy's frantic cries. "It might give you your death of cold to expose yourselves ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... her low hammock, the shadows of leaf and bough flickering on her face, a hand parts the branches, and a man looks in ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... darkness seemed to cut it in two; the sea to swallow it. Yet, to get from a ship going to pieces under them, the sailors precipitated themselves eagerly on that black thread bellying to the sea and flickering in the wind. They went down it, one after another, and anxious eyes straining after them saw them no more: but this was seen, that scarce one in three ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... from the train which she had pictured, for night had fallen when they reached Washington likewise. As the train slowed down, she leaned a little out of the window and looked at the shabby houses and shabby streets revealed by the flickering lights in the lamp-posts. Finally they came to a shabby station, were seized upon by a grinning darky hackman, who would not take no for an answer, and were rattled away to the hotel. Although he had been to Washington but once in his life before, as a Lincoln ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... And there's the road! And there is Mother!" and stumbling and running Winifred appeared in the road only a short distance from the flickering ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... at Detton Magna presented, if possible, an even more dreary appearance than earlier in the day, as the time drew near that night for the departure of the last train northwards. Its long strip of flinty platform was utterly deserted. Around the three flickering gas-lamps the drizzling rain fell continuously. The weary porter came yawning out of his lamp room into the booking office, where the station master sat alone, his chair turned away from the open wicket window to the smouldering embers of the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... kindly sleep touched her heart with its gentle hand, and its breath swept every shadow of trouble from her soul. She slept, smiling and untroubled as a child whose eyes some guardian angel softly kisses, while her strange protector now turned the flickering wood on the damp hearth and with a reddening face blew up the dying charcoal-fire, and again walked restlessly up and down, and paused each time he passed the entrance to the cave, to throw a longing glance at the light which shone ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... house-door she urged them; with intent that they should devour the young child Heracles. Then these twain crawled forth, writhing their ravenous bellies along the ground, and still from their eyes a baleful fire was shining as they came, and they spat out their deadly venom. But when with their flickering tongues they were drawing near the children, then Alcmena's dear babes wakened, by the will of Zeus that knows all things, and there was a bright light in the chamber. Then truly one child, even Iphicles, screamed out straightway, when ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... characters, of these circumstances, are evidently things invented or imagined, not observed. And in addition to this the artist's magic glass, his Balzacian speculum, if we may so say (for none else has ever had it), transforms even the most rigid observation into something flickering and fanciful, the outline as of shadows on the wall, not the precise contour of etching or of ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... catch. He stooped, and took it from me. Then, holding it above his head, he went a few ratlines higher. In this manner, he reached to a level with the royal yard. From my position, a little below him, the lantern seemed but to throw a few straggling, flickering rays along the spar; yet they showed me something. My first glance had been to wind'ard, and I had seen at once, that there was nothing on the weather yard arm. From there my gaze went to leeward. Indistinctly, ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... never forget that journey through the passage, her light a flickering taper, for the electric illumination was no longer in operation. At the end of it she had literally to force her limbs to mount the narrow stairs. At the top, with her ear to the closed door, she could hear nothing save her pounding heart. There was no keyhole, no crevice whereby she might ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the brook still dripping from the spring, her wet black hair clinging to her shapely back and her tawny skin glistening in flickering light and shade, she was for all the world my conception of Mother Eve before even leaves were modesty. Her nudity was a custom only at this time, for when she reappeared to aid Exploding Eggs in preparing my breakfast she always ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... to them. Now and again they shook themselves, drank some coffee and stretched their necks in the direction of the little room, where the candle, which was not to be snuffed, was burning with a dull red flame, flickering the more because of the black soot on the wick. Towards morning, they shivered, in spite of the great heat of the stove. Anguish, and the fatigue of having talked too much was stifling them, whilst their mouths ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... you must know, were not of that bright hot colour which issue from a furnace, but were of a delicate pale red, flickering and playing about in the most curious way imaginable, sometimes blazing up to the height of a mile or so, and then sinking down to a few hundred feet. The heat at the distance I was then from it was rather pleasant than oppressive; it had not even melted ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... was severe, almost saturnine; but he was wont to destroy this effect with his thin-lipped smile that broke winningly over small white teeth and surprisingly hinted an alert young man behind these flickering shadows of age. When he sat he sat gracefully erect; when he stood to face the other two, or paced the length of the table, he stood straight or moved with supple joints. He was smoking a cigar with fastidious relish, and seemed to commune more with it ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... eyes . . . And lo! A flickering snatch of memory that floats Upon the face of a pool of darkness five And thirty dead years deep, Antic in girlish broideries And skirts and silly shoes with straps And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks Plain in the shadow of a church (St. Michael's: ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... enthusiasm now burned pale indeed, and all the efforts of popes and potentates were insufficient to rekindle it. At last, after flickering unsteadily, like a lamp expiring in the socket, it burned up brightly for one final instant, and was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... flickering off the ash of her cigarette with a finger of the small gloved hand. Then she said, with mock seriousness, "How can one be indiscreet with a friend of the good man Biard? Come, I will give you a lesson in sincerity. My husband is gone to fight a duel, I told you; yes, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... telegraphic operator tapped the pavement with his stick. It sounded quite meaningless, but the light in the house flared up and down in a triumphant kind of way. The flickering began once more ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... all was still and silent. At that time the massive columns, the majestic architecture, the strange figures of the gods exercised an influence upon his imagination which was wanting in the daytime. Upon the altars before the chief gods fire ever burned, and in the light of the flickering flames the ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... midst of all the strange laboratory instruments seemed Satan himself, and he repulsed the kindly arms stretched forth to sustain him; in the gloom, where danced here and there the little blue flames from the crucibles, lively as flickering tongues, he believed he saw Michael Nikolaievitch's ghost come to cry, "The arsenate of soda continues, and I am dead." He fell against the door, which swung open, and he rolled as far as the counter, and struck his face against it. The shock, that might well ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... fresh air the men had laid the tamer down gently, and a doctor was bending over him examining him by the flickering light of torches held by hands that found it hard to ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... tears of sorrow filled her eyes. "Here I am, laughing at our absurd talk," she said, "when I have just left the side of a poor girl, no older than myself, who is ghostly indeed in her flickering life. Is it heartless to seem to forget so soon? Oh, Graydon, you don't know what trouble is! You have only had vexations thus far. Let me tell you what happened last night, if only to make you grateful for your ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... become pale, deathly pale; later they turned yellow-brown; and then they went fluttering and flickering, so wearily, so slackly, like the wings of dying birds; and, one after the other, they began to fall, dancing gently downwards, in eddies. They whirled in the air, were carried on by the wind and at last fell dead and ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... them as he had stood when their spirits left, with the table between him and the bodies, and the bowl on the table which held the green flame, now low and flickering desperately, which the Professor watched as it leaped and failed, with an air of anxiety that seemed to pinch ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... beneath a mire of moral mud, accumulated in long years, and often in months only of association with the derelicts and "hard cases" of the world. Rarely enough, when Fortune's pendulum swings toward one more favored individual, a flickering desire to return to gentler paths will momentarily stir amidst the mire, but it seldom amounts to more than something in the nature of a drunkard's dream in moments of sobriety, and passes just as swiftly. The ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... and lay against the wall in the farthest corner. It took me an hour to run that one to earth; but afterwards I spent another hour on my hands and knees before I gave up the search, and, satisfied at last that I had collected all, sat down on my saddle on the trap-door, and, by the last flickering light of a candle which I had taken from my bag, gloated over my treasure—a treasure worthy ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... in, but, instead of advancing, he stood transfixed, gazing before him open-mouthed as though he had seen a spectre, for there, in front of the fire, sat a beautiful, refined-looking girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, gazing pensively at the flickering flames. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... clamour of appalling conflict on deck, this excitement grew at every moment stronger, until it finally became irrepressible, so that at length, when through the cabin windows there suddenly streamed a flood of yellow light, extinguishing that of the lamp that threw its flickering beams around the cabin, she flung herself impetuously from the berth, and, despite of the aged and trembling female who attempted to detain her, burst open the narrow entrance to the cabin, and rushed up the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... long night, he fights single-handed against Death. Behind him is no human help, no consultation, no wisdom of the colleges to call in; only his own unaided strength, and his own firm purpose and that strange instinct in the fight for a flickering life, that some higher power than that of colleges has planted ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... into compartments. One, and the largest, was filled with rouleaux of coin, packed as closely as possible. The others contained jewels, set and unset—diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires—which flashed back the flickering flame of the candle with glintings of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... death. Hortense opened the chapel door noiselessly, and we glided in. Darkness here too, and yet not darkness, for great giant shadows leaped over the vacant pews, and chased one another over the cold, white keys of the organ. The sanctuary light was flickering fitfully in its crystal bowl, and peopling the holy precincts with phantom worshippers. Gleams of silvery moonlight flooded the farther end, and brought out to advantage every hoary blade and tree and flower that lay upon the glistening ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... there was stuck in the wide gable of a two-storied building a lantern which, flickering, diffused but a dull, anaemic light from its dirty panes, while over the long strip of the broken signboard of the building there could be seen straggling, and executed in large yellow letters, the words, "Tavern and—" No more of the legend ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... from the north, so that all this country was new to him. He delighted in the feel of a horse betwixt his knees again; and the vagaries of the high-bred mare, who shied and danced at every flickering shadow, kept his pulses tingling and his heart aglow during the whole of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the slightest respect of a superstition in the Blue Ridge Country there is ever a firm believer eager to show proof of the like beyond all doubt. It was so with Widow Plater as we sat by the flickering light of the little oil lamp in her timeworn cabin that looked down on ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... bar this evening, drinking bitter ale. Apart from the new saloon counter, it is an old-fashioned place, full of wooden partitions and corners and draughts. The incandescent light was flickering dimly in the draught that the sea-wind drove through the window and the front door. Seated around the fireplace or against the painted partitions, and standing about in groups, were fishermen in guernseys, ex-fishermen, some bluejackets, and some solid-looking men ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... her soul flickering in her voice. Donald moved, his great form coming athwart her eager, kindling eyes. She stirred, her vision evidently hindered, and Donald stepped quickly from before her, gazing with passionate intentness, his eyes shaded by his ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... especially premature, and even ignominious. The Privy Council, as it stood, was then dissolved, and the new Council appointed, which consisted of only thirty-three members. Somers was one of this new Council, but in name alone; his growing years, his increasing infirmities, and the flickering decay of his once great intellect, allowed him but little chance of ever again taking an active part in the affairs of the State. Marlborough was named a member of it, as we have seen. The Lords Justices ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... physician, sat in his chamber with one light burning, making a mixing in a bowl that should drive the Pestilence away, when through his door there blew a draught that set the light a-flickering. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... outbreak from little Nelly Murphrey, calling for her mother. The camp-fire no longer blazed, but the dying coals were yet red, and gave sufficient light to see the nine dark forms stretched on the forest floor. Mayall now began to move forward with cautious steps. He soon discovered by the flickering of the embers that the Indian on the watch had fallen asleep, with the stolen child nestling between him and the Indian ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... incrusted with fading gems; and the ground was hard under foot; and the hedges were filled with frosted spider-webs; and winter had laid the tips of his fingers on the land, soon to cover it deep with the flickering snow-flakes, shaken from the folds of his outspread mantle. But long ere this, David and Margaret had returned with renewed diligence, and powers strengthened by repose, or at least by intermission, to their mental labours, and Hugh was as constant a visitor at the cottage ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the northeastern part of Utah and drove with the missionary to Ouray, where the older Indians were gathered for the monthly issue of rations by the Government. That evening in the log store, with some fifty or sixty Indians gathered around the stove on boxes or seated on the counters under the flickering light of the lanterns hanging from the roof, we spoke ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones
... a dark patch of trees, and a flickering light, told Pan they had reached his father's place. It gave him a shock. He had forgotten his parents. They entered the lane and cut off through the dew-wet grass of the orchard to the barn. Pan caught the round pale gleam ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... only know he stands Pale, at the touch of their long-severed hands, Then to a flickering smile ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... wall. And now rose sounds evil to hear, fierce-panted oaths, the trampling of quick, purposeful feet, and a dust wherein they swayed and smote each other in desperate, murderous fashion; sickened by this beastly spectacle I shrank away, then ran to catch up the flickering lamp and with this grasped in tremulous hands, waited for the end. They were down at last, rolling upon the floor; then I saw the shabby, weather-beaten figure was uppermost, saw this figure reach for and grasp the heavy cane, saw the long arm rise and fall, heard ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... falling; the sunlight had left long, faint, crimson streaks in the sky. The air was perceptibly cooler, and flights of waterfowl hurried overhead, making their way to the river. The Chinaman lighted a slush-lamp, by whose flickering light Charlie produced from his swag a small bundle of papers, and threw them ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... her, and Edith's hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair came springing next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly, with its bright eyes and its old-young face, gleaming as in the flickering of an evening fire. Again came Florence close upon it, and absorbed his whole attention. Whether as a fore-doomed difficulty and disappointment to him; whether as a rival who had crossed him in his way, and might again; whether as his child, of whom, in his ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... War, as the grand consummation of his historical labors,—for which all his other volumes seemed to him to have been but the preludes and overtures, —might still be accomplished. But such hopes, faint and flickering from his first attack, had well-nigh died away. They were like Prescott's hopes of completing his 'Philip the Second,' or like Macaulay's hopes of finishing his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... confound their politics; and each, with a sort of awful second-sight, when they viewed one another across the street, beholding her neighbour draped in a dark film of thunder-cloud, and with a sheaf of pale lightning, instead of a fan flickering in her hand. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... can my luck hold? Lewis Stillman wondered, as he bolted the door. He placed the box of tinned goods on a wooden table and lit the tall lamp nearby. Its flickering orange glow illumined the narrow, low-ceilinged room as Stillman seated himself on one of three chairs ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... back through the darkness to the tower window, opened it and leaned out. The rain beat upon his face, the wind blew his hair back, and fluttered the ends of his loose tie. Below him lay the storm-swept city, its lights faint and flickering. He remembered a test which he had chosen on a ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... us, and nearly opposite our camp, the scene was very pretty—in fact grand. In the foreground was our camp equipment with the party armed, ready to repel an attack. On the opposite side of the creek was a long line of flames, some mounting high in the air, others kept at a low flickering light. In the midst of the flames the natives appeared to be moving about, performing all sorts of antics; behind them came the old man with his women. At every high flame he seemed to be performing ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... set her mind at rest sent her straightway to her daughter's room. She found Valentine reading by the light of a flickering candle. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... river bank. An odd feeling of disloyalty crept over him and he became uncomfortable. The man's mouth was open and he snored lustily. From his greasy and threadbare clothing arose the smell of fish. Flies gathered in swarms and alighted on his face. Disgust took possession of Hugh. A flickering but ever recurring light came into his eyes. With all the strength of his awakening soul he struggled against the desire to give way to the inclination to stretch himself out beside the man and sleep. The words of the New England woman, who was, he knew, striving to ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... remembering never did. He has another mile or so, to linger out before the dinner-hour; and, when he walks over the bridge and by the river, the woman's words are in the rising wind, in the angry sky, in the troubled water, in the flickering lights. There is some solemn echo of them even in the Cathedral chime, which strikes a sudden surprise to his heart as he turns in under the archway ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... is dim with snow, The light flakes falter and fall slow; Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale, Silently drops a silvery veil; And all the valley is shut in By flickering curtains gray and thin. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... came the Goth-folk, and the spear-wood drew anigh, And earth's face shook beneath them, yet cried they never a cry; And the Volsungs stood all silent, although forsooth at whiles O'er the faces grown earth-weary would play the flickering smiles, And swords would clink and rattle: not long had they to bide, For soon that flood of murder flowed round the hillock-side; Then at last the edges mingled, and if men forebore the shout, Yet the din of steel and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... of man and beast; and when dawn came Sancho found that he was in a cave that had no outlet but which seemed to extend for miles underneath the ground. He crawled with Dapple from one cavern or compartment to another one; one dungeon was dark, the next one had a bit of flickering light; and as he proceeded he kept calling aloud, "God Almighty, help me!" at every step he took, fearing that he would be plunged still deeper into the insides of the earth, into still darker abysses. And then he wished that it had been his master instead ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with a plain white collar turned down over his doublet, his eyes dark with emotion, his voice vibrating hoarsely as he pleaded with the licensed highwayman of England. Around, is the ring of strong visages, rustic but brainy, frowning, agitated, eager, angry; and the flame of the candles flickering ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... hand resting on his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as he released it; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze, until the nurse appeared, to summon him ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... numbers of people, and at last sheds his own. Such persons assert what has never been investigated as certain facts, consider that to modify their opinion is as dishonourable as to be conquered, believe that institutions which are just flickering out of existence will last for ever, and, thus overturn great States, to the destruction of themselves and all who are connected with them. Living as they do in a fool's paradise, resplendent with unreal and short-lived advantages, they ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... ordered to bed that very day by Sir Oliver, who was considerate with those that served him. In the dining-room he found supper spread, and a great log fire blazed in the enormous cowled fire-place, diffusing a pleasant warmth through the vast room and flickering ruddily upon the trophies of weapons that adorned the walls, upon the tapestries and the portraits of dead Tressilians. Hearing his step, old Nicholas entered bearing a great candle-branch which he set upon ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... about her loins, but her limbs nearly bare, and her little breasts, scarce dimpled yet,—white,—marble-like—but, as wasted marble, thin with the scorching and the rains of Time. So she lay, motionless; black and white by the shore in the sun; the yellow light flickering back upon her from the passing eddies of the river, and burning down on her from the west. So she lay, like a dead Niobid: it seemed as if the Sun-God, as he sank towards gray Viso (who stood pale in the southwest, and pyramidal as a tomb), had been wroth with Italy for numbering ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to inquiring sinners. For many years he had been training himself in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and, being possessed of a good memory, he had got large portions of it by heart. Gathering together the embers of the scattered fire, he sat down again, and, gazing thoughtfully at the flickering flames, began to point out the way ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... when Nettie was away. Mrs Fred, screaming and terrified, began to recriminate. The pallid figure of the child on the table gave a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, to the sordid miseries of which the night air, coming in with a rush, chilling the group in their indoor dresses, and flickering the flame of the candles, added one other point of dismal accumulation. The child had dropped from his swing on the door, and was stunned with the fall. Both father and mother thought him dead in the excitement of the moment; but the accustomed ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... on this dreary monotony nothing stands out except the black stain of Arnold's treason. Yet it was the time of all others when Washington had most to bear. It was the time of all others when his dogged persistence and unwavering courage alone seemed to sustain the flickering fortunes of ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... All the work of the day was over, and Eli had gone to rest. The lamp in the temple was burning dimly, sometimes flickering as if it would go out altogether, and leave the holy place in darkness. Samuel, tired with his day's service, was fast asleep, when suddenly he woke up, startled and attentive. Some one had ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman
... entirely, that spirit of national liberty and personal freedom was transplanted to the shores of the New World, and nowhere was the spirit of freedom more cherished and fostered than in the bright and sunny lands of the South. The flickering torch of freedom, borne by those sturdy sons of the old world to the new, nowhere took such strong and rapid growth as did that planted by the Huguenots on the soil of South Carolina. Is it any wonder, then, that a people with such ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the turf blaze up when the praties were put on to boil." Saying this, Dan threw himself on the ground, and began blowing away with a vehemence which soon made the sparks fly, speedily followed by a flickering flame. The sticks caught and crackled, and the smoke ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... a strong effort, he examined the condition of his patient, and was grieved to find how greatly this shock had accelerated the work of disease. Her pulse was faint and flickering, her skin cold and clammy, but after swallowing a cordial, and inhaling the strong odor of hartshorn, a reaction took place, and she revived astonishingly; but when she spoke, her mind evidently wandered, sometimes ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... yet most eloquent silence, reigning in the abbey church of Scone. The sun shining in that full flood of glory we sometimes find in the infant spring, illumined as with golden lustre the long, narrow casements, falling thence in flickering brilliance on the pavement floor, its rays sometimes arrested, to revolve in heightened lustre from the glittering sword or the suit of half-mail of one or other of the noble knights assembled there. The rich plate of the abbey, all at least which had escaped ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... crossed the room, and stood by her father's side. As she turned her eyes upon the river, she gave a gasp of astonishment. Between the shore and the Isle of Vines the lightning was holding high carnival. For an instant there was intense darkness, followed by a succession of brilliant, flickering illuminations, bewildering to the senses. Several times she was forced to turn away her head, but only for a second, as she was compelled by some strange fascination to look upon the wonderful spectacle. ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... which the chevalier stood awoke in him a flickering energy, a feverish courage, and he crossed blades with his assailant. A strange combat ensued, of which the result was quite uncertain, depending entirely on chance; for no science was of any avail on a ground so rough that the combatants ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... but the brain that was over-tasked, and the frame that was outworn, would be tasked and worn little longer. The lamp of a life that had burnt too fiercely was flickering to its close. "If we are not taken off with the sword," he writes on February 5th, "we are like to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to conclude with a very bad pun, better martially than marsh-ally. The dykes of Holland ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... meet Mr. Twist before the steamer?" exclaimed the lady, the last of her smiles flickering out. "Not before the steamer, didn't you. Just a steamship acquaintance. Parents never seen him. H'm, ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... seem more like beings from some other world, than inhabitants of this. Many of them never recovered fully their memory or reason; the iron had entered the soul. Others lingered long on the confines of two worlds, now rallying a little and then falling back, till finally the flickering life went out suddenly; a few of the hardiest and toughest survived, and recovered partial though seldom or never complete health. During a part of the first year of Dr. Vanderkieft's administration, Mrs. Adaline Tyler ("Sister Tyler") was Lady Superintendent of the hospital, and the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... prejudice that the field and the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery and the garret. Not every casual idea caught from the flight of a shower or the fall of a sunbeam, not every glowing fragment of harvest light, nor every flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given to the world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete, and forgotten by the artist as soon as it has left his easel. That only should be considered a picture, in which the spirit, (not the materials, observe,) but the animating emotion of many ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... in the strange room with the flickering fire, how quickly Ellen's thoughts left Ventnor and flew over the sea. They often travelled that road, it is true, but now perhaps the very home look of everything, where yet she was not at home, might have sent them. There was a bitter twinge or two, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... to him, great shadowy forms in wool and leather, bulking over Cappen like storm-gods. Svearek nodded toward the flickering glow. "One of the islands, somebody must be living there. I cannot bring the ship closer for fear of surf, but one of ye should be able to take the boat thither and fetch us fire and dry wood. ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... superb in his strength and power. He was holding her cloak for her; helping to rid himself of her. The old half-dead, but vital call of the aboriginal woman rose in her, then ebbed away at birth in a feeble flickering jealousy. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... way, To sing their vigils for the ensuing day. 'Twas ebbing darkness, past the noon of night: And Phosphor, on the confines of the light, Promised the sun; ere day began to spring, The tuneful lark already stretched her wing, And flickering on her nest, made short ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... her. The match burned his fingers; he dropped it and hurriedly lighted another; and the flickering radiance brightened upon the face of a girl whom he had never ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... bury the dead and take care of the widows and orphans, and in Holy Week make the narrow streets of the old city delightful to the artistic eye by the bright mass of their vivid-colored raiment, the flickering of their tapers, and the gigantic crucifixes of gold and silver they carry in procession from church to church. Every morning there is a market held on the Corso of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Such magnificent baskets of camellias, japonicas and roses, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... like of which I had never before seen or heard of. It was probably the blue yellow-backed warbler, as I have since found this to be a common bird in those woods; but to my young fancy it seemed like some fairy bird, so unexpected. I saw it a moment as the flickering leaves parted, noted the white spot on its wing, and it was gone. How the thought of it clung to me afterward! It was a revelation. It was the first intimation I had had that the woods we knew so well held birds ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Tumbling over itself With pale Jacks, and violets— Blue and gold, and Baby ferns, tucked Within sheltering gnarled roots! And mossy mounds, starred With Trillium and Crane's bill; And patches of lavender sunlight, (No, it's wild Phlox, In the flickering light)— And fire-flies and flapping owls, At twilight, and furry rabbits, Bobbing ahead ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... draws down the visor of her helmet. Then, after covering her with her shield to protect her from all harm, he begins a powerful incantation, summoning Loge to surround her with an impassable barrier of flames. As this incantation proceeds, small flickering tongues of fire start forth on every side; they soon rise higher and higher, roaring and crackling until, as Wotan disappears, they form a fiery barrier ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... up our heads, seeing the redemption of the world draweth nigh? The bow in the cloud once spread its majestic arch over the smoke of the fat of lambs ascending as a sweet-smelling savor before God—a sign of the covenant of peace—and the flickering light of the Shechinah often intimated the good-will of Jehovah. But these did not more certainly show the presence of the Angel of the Covenant than does the shaking among the nations the presence and energy of God's Holy Spirit; and ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... hanging over his arm, his hands holding aloft the tall candle of virgin wax, while the Dean followed closely with feeble steps, looking frail and worn, but with a grave, sweet solemnity on his face. It was a perfectly still morning, and as they slowly paced along, the flame burnt steadily with little flickering, while the pure, delicately-coloured sky overhead was becoming every moment lighter, and only the larger stars were visible. The houses were absolutely still, and the only person they met, a lad creeping ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sedate, Intent upon it and deliberate. As she had been at first, so was she now When she had put behind her her old vow And had no pride but thinking of her new. But she was lovelier, of more burning hue, And in her eyes there shone, for who could see, A flickering light, half scare and half of glee, Which made those iris'd orbs to wax and wane Like to the light of April days, when rain And sun contend the sovereignty. She kept Beside the King, and only closer ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... twelve that night when a quiet band of riders dismounted at the Annersley cabin, separated, and trailed off in the darkness to look for Gary. One of them found him where he had fallen and signaled with his gun. They carried Gary to the cabin. In the flickering light of the open stove they saw that he was still alive. There was one chance in a thousand that he could recover. They washed his wounds and one of the men set out toward Concho, to telephone to Enright for a doctor. The rest grouped around the stove and talked in low tones, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... of wind swept through the room. The windows shook, the doors flew open, as if touched by a strong invisible hand—and the old man stood alone, holding the flickering ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... him time. They had punished him for robbing them of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... been talking, the car had receded to a great distance from the city, and now all but the tops of a few of the airy pinnacles were lost to our sight forever. But as we gazed, straining our sight for a last look, we perceived a familiar flickering of prismatic lightning on the horizon. We glanced at each other meaningly. It was the color speech again. But, oh, what must be the burden of their communications now! Suddenly, Edmund, whose eyes were fixed with intensity upon the scene, ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... were pronounced man and wife a very beautiful and symbolic thing happened. The sun suddenly burst through the gray and poured a flood of radiance on the happy bride. Instantly the garden was alive with dancing shadows and flickering lights. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... anything but timid or nervous, but when she was in bed in her own room at the south corner of the castle, watching the shadows cast up by the flickering night light upon the ancient tapestries, she realized that she was very lonely indeed, she and scarcely a dozen servants, in the vast fortress wherein a thousand men had once found ample room to live. Brave ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... angry when the failing light obliged her to pause. She tried to extract some light from the fire, but this was a worse offence than any; it was too bad of her, when she knew how he hated both the sound of poking, and that horrible red flickering light which always hurt his eyes. This dislike, which had been one of the symptoms of the early part of his illness, so alarmed her that she had thoughts of going to call Aunt Geoffrey, and was heartily glad to see her ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there in the shadow and shine Of the flickering fire of the winter night, Figures in colour and design Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, Half ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... pressure is excessive. Gas of the average quality is burned to the greatest advantage, as regards its light-giving properties, when its pressure is equal to that of a column of water half an inch high, or about 1/50 lb. to the square inch. With less it gives a smoky, flickering light, and with more the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... employed at this task, while the foreman, a broad-jawed, profane-spoken Irishman, his moustache a bristling red stubble, stood a little back, noisily directing operations, the yellow light flickering over him. The remainder of the fellows composing the party had largely disappeared farther down, although the sound of their ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into the moonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presently ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... crape, no parade—nothing of that imposing array of hat-bands and horses by which man, even' in the face of the mighty mystery, seeks still to glorify the miserable conceits of life; but the silent snow-laden pine-trees, the few words of prayer read in the flickering light of the lantern, the hush of nature and of night, made accessions full as fitting, as all the muffled music and craped ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness, but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... with fellows seeking copy. I was quite resigned to that. Incidentally, I was overcome by the conviction—perhaps it was no more than a sensation—that that girl was mixed up in this thing, that her shadow was somewhere among the others flickering upon the sheet. I wanted to ask Fox if he knew her. But, then, in that absurd business, I did not even know her name, and the whole story would have sounded a little mad. Just now, it suited me that Fox should have a moderate idea of my sanity. Besides, the thing was out of tone, ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... fantastic roots and creepers, shade the scene, and form one of the richest sylvan prospects I have ever beheld. The water, foaming and flashing, and then escaping amid huge gray stones on its troubled course—clear and transparent, expanding into tranquil pools, with the flickering sunshine through the dense foliage—all combine to form at scene such as Tasso ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney,—story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed, too, but for ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... he seemed exhausted, and fell asleep; and Barton and Wilson drew near the fire, and talked together in whispers. They sat on the floor, for chairs there were none; the sole table was an old tub turned upside down. They put out the candle and conversed by the flickering firelight. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... subdued manner that seemed fitting to the night, since the black shadows were creeping up closer, leaving only the fire, as a core of light with the dusky figures around it. During all the talk the Indians had been silent. They had eaten their food and remained now, sitting in Turkish fashion, the flickering flames that played across their faces giving to them a look sinister and menacing ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... and held it up. The scene was one of horror. All around was the gloom of night, the shadowy outline of trees and of the out-houses. A flickering light revealed a group of men surrounding some object on the grass, upon which they ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the sharp pain in his legs, a little because of fright at finding himself alone in the darkness of the field, the Marionette was about to faint, when he saw a tiny Glowworm flickering by. He called to her ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... in the big, stifling room, into the dark corners of which the light from the two flickering candles on the table could ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... progressed, facts follow of a different kind from those already related. Whereas everything hitherto was a reflection of outer life and feeling, there now begins a kind of inner life. In the Saturn world a life of light begins flickering here and there, and growing dim again. A quivering glimmer is seen in some places, something like flashes of lightning in others. The Saturn heat bodies begin to glimmer, to sparkle, and even to emit rays. This stage ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... the settled portion of the ruins Rynason had to step around a Hirlaji who crossed his path. He walked silently past, his eyes not even flickering toward the Earthlings. Crazy grey hidepiles, Rynason thought, and he and Mara hurried out across the Flat ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... fell the flickering flames, paler and paler grew the blaze, until finally the fire went out, and I rushed up to see ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... spearing fish by torchlight. Dim mountainous shapes would rise out of the sea and loom vaguely in the starlit distance, the curving beaches at their bases outlined by the torches in the bancas till they looked like boulevards with their lines of flickering lamps. I remember that we fell to singing, and that after we had sung everything we knew, an officer of the First Infantry who was going back to his regiment after a wound and a siege in hospital said enthusiastically: "Oh, don't stop. You don't know how it sounds to hear a whole lot ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... as almost impossible. Aside from the merits of the bill, there was another reason, a reason of policy, for the President to sign it. Had he done so, he would have greatly encouraged the conciliatory spirit which, in spite of all that had happened, was still flickering in many Republican bosoms, and he might thus, even at this late hour, have secured an effective following among the Republicans in Congress. But he did not. He returned the bill to Congress with a veto message so weak in argument ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... his coat and vest, and threw them on the wharf, saluted the general and stepped into the boat. Some one in the group lifted a lantern. The flickering light fell on the pale faces of the ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of the distant forest fires had diffused itself all day in the atmosphere more and more palpably. It was not a gloomy effect, and familiar to eyes accustomed to the Canadian August. All the sunbeams were very pink, and they fell flickering among the shadows of the pear tree upon Markham's grey wooden house, upon the path and the ragged green in front. Ann had pleasant associations with these pink beams because they told of fine weather. Smoke will not lie thus in an atmosphere that is molested with any currents of wind ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... lamp the boys had constructed for themselves, and which was much upon the principle of a modern bull's-eye, and could be safely carried through draughty passages without flickering or going out; and now the wondering monk allowed Edred to take him by the hand and lead him step by step along the narrow, tortuous passage. Julian closed the door behind them, showing how the cleverly-contrived spring acted; ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a swift passion of longing, "I wish you was my own kid!" He snuggled Lovin Child close in his arms and held him there, and stared dim-eyed at the flickering shadows on the wall. What he thought, what visions filled ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... twenty-seven feet. Let it be imagined that at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, which came rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up against the solid rock at its termination; while the light thrown from the flickering billows quivered in its arched roof above us, and the whole place was filled with the solemn sound of the ocean; and if any one can imagine to himself any situation more sublime, I should like to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... too late now to hope to meet anybody; there was not a single foot passenger about; the street was decidedly empty, dull and lifeless. Nothing was to be heard, except the whistling of sudden gusts of wind, and nothing was to be seen, except the flickering gas lights, which looked like dying butterflies. Well! The only thing was to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... sight of a life which I was never meant to see. The dishonesty of my invisible presence makes a gulf between my actual vision and my perception; and it seems to me that, in this case, I must withhold my judgment even as we hold our breath before a flickering flame. ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... a little later, is leaning against a pillar as a maid or friend induces her to descend. In the left-hand bottom corner, Krishna sits quietly waiting. The bower is hung with garlands and floored with lotus petals while lightning twisting in the sky and torches flickering in the courtyard suggest the storm of love. The figures with their neat line and eager faces are typical of Bundi painting after it had broken free from ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... candy from a baby," said Billy, when the flickering lights of Cuivaca shone to the south of them, and the road ahead lay clear to the rendezvous ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
