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Flash   Listen
noun
Flash  n.  (pl. flashes)  
1.
A sudden burst of light; a flood of light instantaneously appearing and disappearing; a momentary blaze; as, a flash of lightning.
2.
A sudden and brilliant burst, as of wit or genius; a momentary brightness or show. "The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind." "No striking sentiment, no flash of fancy."
3.
The time during which a flash is visible; an instant; a very brief period; as, I'll be back in a flash. "The Persians and Macedonians had it for a flash."
4.
A preparation of capsicum, burnt sugar, etc., for coloring and giving a fictitious strength to liquors.
5.
A lamp for providing intense momentary light to take a photograph; as, to take a picture without a flash.
Synonyms: flashbulb, photoflash, flash lamp, flashgun.
6.
Same as flashlight. (informal)
7.
(Journalism) A short news item providing recently received and usually preliminary information about an event that is considered important enough to interrupt normal broadcasting or other news delivery services; also called a news flash or bulletin.
Flash light, or Flashing light, a kind of light shown by lighthouses, produced by the revolution of reflectors, so as to show a flash of light every few seconds, alternating with periods of dimness.
Flash in the pan, the flashing of the priming in the pan of a flintlock musket without discharging the piece; hence, sudden, spasmodic effort that accomplishes nothing.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flash" Quotes from Famous Books



... in dismay, then pranced out into the hall. A scuffling noise struck upon his ear, and leaning over the banister, he saw David and Jack apparently hanging on to each other and whirling around in the hall below. He was down over the stairs in a flash. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... Now that she this upon her hand surveys, She is so full of pleasure and surprise, She doubts it is a dream, and, in amaze, Hardly believes her very hand and eyes. Then softly to her mouth the hoop conveys, And, quicker than the flash which cleaves the skies, From bold Rogero's sight her beauty shrowds, As disappears the sun, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... dawning of that day. He recognized the voice, and read clearly enough the meaning of the cry. He knew that this was a more considerable enemy than any he had faced as yet, and there was time in the moment of his waking for regret to flash through his mind that the challenge should have come now, while his whole body was scarred with unhealed wounds, and his left thigh was stiff from the punishing slash of the kangaroo's mailed foot. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... was walking in the opposite direction, looking down on the kerb-stones of the footpath, and touching them with his cane, as if counting them as he proceeded. Dangerfield nodded, and his spectacles in the morning sun seemed to flash two sudden gleams of lightning ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... to her father during the few minutes' delay, and once, as he saw the light flash on her face, he suddenly remembered something Victorine had said about the doctor. He watched her with a pang of alarm, and at the same time felt that she was stringing herself up for some effort. Everyone was greeting Jean, the first of the boat's crew that appeared, ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... roar in his train![595] let thine orators lash Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride— Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash His soul o'er the freedom ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... a pretty good shot," Harold said. "Your father told me, when I saw a stag's horns above a bush, to fire about two feet behind them and eighteen inches lower. I fired a foot below the flash, and I expect I hit him through the body. I had the sight at three hundred yards and fired a little above it. Now, Nelly, paddle out again. See!" he said, "there is a shawl waving from the top of the tower. Put your hat on the paddle and ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... eyes met mine, and with a yearning throb in the voice: "Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among us!" I felt a well-nigh uncontrollable desire to bend down and kiss her, under the compulsion of that yearning voice, those compelling eyes, but with a flash of the old unbending pride and an inward jeer at my own folly, I said a commonplace polite good-bye, and turned away with some inanely courteous and evasive remark. "Child," she said to me long afterwards, "your pride is terrible; you are as proud as Lucifer ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... thought he was approaching the earthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... studies at the college of Louis-the-Great should not be interrupted, even if she had to labor with her own hands. And when she spoke of manual toil, it was no wild, unmeaning exaggeration born of sorrow and a passing flash of courage. She found employment as a day-servant and in sewing for large shops, until she at last obtained a situation as clerk in the establishment where her husband had been a partner. To obtain this she was obliged to acquire a knowledge of bookkeeping, but she ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... door, he opened it and went out into the hall. All was dark and silent. He permitted himself here to flash on his electric torch for a moment, and he saw that the hall was spacious and used as a lounge, for there were several chairs clustered in its centre, opposite the fireplace. There were two or three doors opening from it, and almost opposite where he stood were the stairs, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... and strong and tender, When I shook a "how de do," They was loaded sure with something Seemed to thrill me through and through; Hair as black as fire-burnt prairie; Eyes that dance and flash and flirt; Every time she smiled she showed you Teeth as white's my Sunday shirt. Baked us biscuits light as cotton; I can't eat mine any more,— I must get some better breeches,— Kind o' 'shamed of those I wore; But I'm goin' there to-morrow, Like enough I'll stay all day, Seems to me too dry for ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... concerned, is a far more effectual presence than this; the house in which there is no more than such a faint sign of a divine inhabitant, is, in the language of the parable, empty. To no purpose of our salvation is the Spirit of God present in the house, when the light of his presence does not flash forth from every part of it, when it is not manifest, not only that he has not quite cast it off to go to ruin, but that he has been pleased to make it ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

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

... De Boer's face at that instant. But I saw his weapon come up—an act wholly impulsive, no doubt. A flash of fury! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... stands at the door of his lodge on a bright day and flashes a ray of light from his sun-glass on the face of his sweetheart far away. She sees the ray as it falls on her, and follows in the direction whence it is thrown, right or left. She understands the secret of these flash lights. Soon the lovers meet, each under a blanket; not a word, not a salutation is exchanged; they stand near each other for a time and then retire, only to repeat the affair ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... the Shadow, and a softened smile Seemed to illume the coldness, void of guile, Of those phantasmal features. "When from the City's gloom shall flash to light This truth: The sleek and selfish sybarite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... assertion than a question. Whilst he was speaking, the courage of despair had taken hold upon his hearer. Like the terrible flash of memory which is said to strike the brain of a drowning man, there smote on Hood's mind a vision of the home he had just quitted, of all it had been and all it might still be to him. This was his life, and he must save it, by whatever means. He knew nothing ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... him. 'Vantage in. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another Slam. 'Vantage out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood—I served. Fault. I served again—a beauty. He returned it like a flash into the corner of the court. With a supreme effort I got to it. We rallied. I was playing like a professor. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... them, the doomed plane crashed to the ground. As it struck there was a blinding flash followed by vivid flames as the gasoline from the bursted tank ignited. The two members of the crew were drifting to the east as they fell. It was evident that they ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... her through a flash like a man stupefied; and then, wheeling abruptly, walked away from her to the windows which overlooked the park. For some time he stood there, back determinedly toward her, staring with great fixity at nothing. But when he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... my gravity," thought she, contemplating the water, "I would flash off this balcony like a long white sea-bird, headlong ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... the engagement," he continued. "We will talk no more. Monsieur desires my address? It is here,"—scribbling on a piece of paper. "But monsieur may be warned," he added, with a lightning-like flash in his eyes as he became conscious of the observation of some passers-by. "I will not dance in England. I will not leave Monte Carlo before May. Half that sum—three hundred louis, mind—must come to me on trust; the other three hundred afterwards. Never fear but that I will give ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track 280 Was a flash of golden fire. ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... from the moment he had first caught sight of it, seeing the fugitive make for an opening in a wall, ran along at the foot of the wall on the other side, and, just as Francezet dashed through the opening like a flash of lightning, struck him such a heavy blow on the head with his hoe that the skull was laid open, and he fell bathed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... be sitting in the Fighting Room, the pin-set ready and the familiar Solar System ticking around inside his head. For a second or a year (he could never tell how long it really was, subjectively), the funny little flash went through him and then he was loose in the Up-and-Out, the terrible open spaces between the stars, where the stars themselves felt like pimples on his telepathic mind and the planets were too far away to be sensed ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith

... loud yet not declamatory, at first in a grumbling, grandfatherly, half-humorous, querulous accent that riveted every ear instantly. A sort of drollery of a contagious kind haunted it. Here and there a member tittered in expectation of a flash of wit. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... a violent ball of purple fire reared and boiled into the darkened sky. The flash bathed the entire ranch headquarters and the packed cars and throngs outside the fence in the strange brilliance. The heat struck the dumfounded scientist and young rancher like the suddenly-opened door of a ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun—the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle-fire ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... steadily approaching the doomed vessel, which had struck, and over which the waves dashed; a flash of lightning for an instant revealed one of the men standing in the bows of the boat in the act of throwing a rope to those on board, and another showed that some were being transported from the vessel ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce

... have no reason to complain; and I think that as a very interested spectator of New York I have reason to be content with the veracity with which some phases of it have been rendered. The lightning-or the flash- light, to speak more accurately—has been rather late in striking this ungainly metropolis, but it has already got in its work with notable effect at some points. This began, I believe, with the local dramas ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... chaplain was simply nowhere. He had his innings for one brief hour in the cathedral, where the judges were compelled to sit as meekly as so many jurymen under a lengthy summing-up; but after that one bright flash he sank into insignificance, and dragged out the remainder of the assize like the stick of a burnt-out ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... Jr., saw the ball streaking toward him! The paralyzed youth felt like a man about to be shot by a burglar. He could feel the bail thud against him, feel the terrific shock; and yet—a thought instinctively flashed on him, he remembered, in a flash, what a tortured Monty Merriweather had shouted, as ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... and listen to thy waves, As they run rippling past our feet, and see That lake lit up by dancing sunbeams—and Those light leaves quivering in the summer air; Or linger some sweet eve just on this spot Where now we seem to stand, and watch the stars Flash into splendour, one by one, as night Steals over yon snow-peaks, and twilight fades Behind the steeps of Jura! here, O here! 'Mid scenes where Genius, Worth and Wisdom dwelt,[D] Which fancy peopled with a glowing ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... down the length of his body. The flash gun was gone from his belt. That was hardly unexpected. But the belt was gone too. So were his clothes. He was clad in a loose robe of shimmering ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston

... repose, as I was smoking my pipe, with my camels kneeling down around me, I perceived a herie [a swift dromedary] coming from the direction of Cairo, at a very swift pace; it passed by me like a flash of lightning, but still I had sufficient time to recognise in its rider the maribout who had prophesied evil if my camel was employed to carry the Koran on the pilgrimage of the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... sketched the stiff and limping figure he had seen. It was over in a flash. He dropped ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... made two hundred dollars this mornin' in little less than half no time. There's a Carolina lawyer there, as rich as a bank, and says he to me arter breakfast, "Major," says he, "I wish I knew where to get a real slapping trotter of a horse, one that could trot with a flash of lightning for a mile, and beat it by a whole neck or so." Says I, "My Lord," for you must know, he says he's the nearest male heir to a Scotch dormant peerage, "my Lord," says I, "I have one, a proper sneezer, a chap that can go ahead of a railroad steamer, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... dans la tete." One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye, setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face, and the person of the soldier who had given him the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... hung low in the south-east, and sent a pale rusty pathway across the sea to where, behind the sand-bar, rippling waves broke in soft flash and sparkle. Its light was not strong enough to quench that of the stars crowding the western and the upper sky. Tom could distinguish the black mass of the great ilex trees on the right. Could ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... spectacles. Mrs. Muir was not one to quail easily, but she had been at fault, and she realized how her small sin of omission was leading up to consequences more momentous than anything which had happened in this house for seventeen years. In a flash she remembered, too, that it was just seventeen years ago this month of August since the first wearer of the coral satin had ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... attention from the little vessel herself, save the shoals of flying-fish which now and then sparkled out from under our forefoot and went skimming away through the air to leeward, until they vanished with a flash, only to reappear, perhaps, next moment, with their inveterate foe, a dolphin, in hot pursuit. The moment we showed ourselves above the companion the skipper rose to his feet—he had been sitting cross-legged on the deck, under the weather bulwarks—and joined us, evidently ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... flash, he remembered everything, up to the time when he had been hurt, and after the moment when he had at first come to himself in the room where he now was. His eyes opened again, and he saw and recognised the Mother Superior, whom he had often seen and spoken with during his brother's ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... tedious." Over the DE BENEFICIIS and the DE IRA one is sometimes moved to say, as the essayist does[130] over Cicero, "I understand sufficiently what death and voluptuousness are; let not a man busy himself to anatomise them." For the swift and penetrating flash of Montaigne, which either goes to the heart of a matter once for all or opens up a far vista of feeling and speculation, leaving us newly related to our environment and even to our experience, Seneca can but give us a conscientious examination of the ground, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... Three hours? He could never do it in three hours! She went back and knelt beside the bed, and prayed as her mother had taught her to pray. And not all of her petition was for her mother. Every lightning flash, every crack, every distant boom of the thunder made her cringe. Lance—Lance was out in the storm, at the mercy of its terrible sword-thrusts that seemed to smite even the innocent. Her mother—even her own mother, who had ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... the blood mount to Mr. Ten Broeck's dark cheeks, and the fire flash in his eyes. But the Dutch gentleman kept tight bit ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... were not three times as many as one man. No! no! not at all! Quite the reverse! Lee wouldn't lift a finger to keep Grant from getting into the wilderness, but quick as a flash he was, to keep him from getting out. This, was why he had been marching the legs off of us, rations or no rations. This, was why he couldn't wait for Longstreet, but tore off with the men he had, to meet Grant and fight him, before he could disentangle himself from The Wilderness. ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame

... experience in the future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and the "I" that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according to Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash of "present feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present feelings."[240] If, then, there be no permanent substance or reality which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives and retains the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... been harder but for Madame Jacobus. She understood; and she sympathized; and there was a kindly element in her nature which disposed her to side with the lovers. Her smile,—quick and short as a flash of the eyes—revealed to Hyde her intention of favour, and without one spoken word, these two knew themselves to be of the same mind. And, in parting, she held his hand while she talked, saying at last the very ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... sipping a glass of wine-and-water, and finally we all went off to our rooms. It was past twelve o'clock when I composed myself to sleep, and I could not have slept long, when a tremendous clap of thunder woke me just in time to see a vivid flash of lightning. I saw no ghosts, though Mrs. ——— tells me there is one, which makes a disturbance, unless religious services are regularly kept up in ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of his reason. But his looks, the looks of those pale, cold, clear, blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of lightning, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... control surfaces to bite, the autopilot steered into the safe corridor. It began the slow, tedious process of landing safely. The ground was still a long way down. The kinetic and potential energy of the ship, if instantly transformed into heat, was enough to flash the entire ship into vapor. This tremendous store of energy had to be dissipated without harm to the ship and ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino

... than a month after Lincoln's inauguration, April 12, 1861—was the firing on Fort Sumter, and its surrender to the South Carolinians. This aroused both the indignation and the military enthusiasm of the North, which in a single day was, as by a lightning flash, fused in a white heat of patriotism and a desire to avenge the dishonored flag. For the time all party lines disappeared, and the whole population were united and solid in defence of the Union. Both sides now ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... the arena, he saw that Messala's rush would, if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall; that the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and, further, it came to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let drop at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could safely reach that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more Roman-like than for the official ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... around the house. A moment later there was a loud call for the door to be opened. Before the overseer could comply with the request, the door was broken in. A dozen men crowded into the house, demanding that a light be struck instantly. As the match gave its first flash of light, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... quieting down, the pony became more violent and it was impossible for Jack to hold the steed. The pony broke away and like a flash whirled around and disappeared ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... stare and wheeled away to stride down the path. Once he turned to flash his convulsed face at Lucy. Then he passed out of sight among the trees in search ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... sleep, and Plank, heavy head on his breast, feigned it, too. Then Siward bent over stealthily and opened a drawer in his desk; and Plank was on his feet like a flash, jerking ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... interval thus gained, Captain Williams called upon the gunner to ascertain how many guns could be brought to bear upon the enemy. 'Five,' was the answer. 'Then fire, and shift the colors,' were the orders. The cannons poured forth their deadly contents, and, with the first flash, the American flag took the place of the British ensign at ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... had only carried the pack, and was badly bogged; he was the only one that did not appear distressed when filled with water, the other two lay about in evident pain until morning. About the middle of the night thunder was again heard, and flash after flash of even more vivid lightnings than that of the previous night enlightened the glen; so bright were the flashes, being alternately fork and sheet lightning, that for nearly an hour the glare never ceased. The thunder ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... watch in silent pain the little figure beside him. Once at some violent term of abuse she looked up, and glanced for a moment at the speaker; he just caught a swift, indignant flash from her bright eyes, then her head was bent lower than before over her notebook, and the carnation deepened in her cheek, while her pencil sped over the paper fast and furiously. Presently came a sharp retort from Raeburn, ending with the perfectly warrantable ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... aghast. The cattle blocked the road, their moving backs like the waves of a sea. The dust would irreparably soil the clean frock fresh from the hands of her black mammy. She made as if to turn, and knew with a flash of horror ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... A flash of triumph crossed her face. Her heart beat hard. Had it come at last, the edict to put down slavery? Had the Khedive determined to put an end to the work of Kingsley Bey in his desert-city-and to Kingsley ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... through the darkness, had now approached much nearer, so that the canoes could be plainly distinguished. They were quite small, and each contained two men, one sitting down in the stern, a dark undefined shadow, scarcely seen except for the occasional flash of his paddle in the light; the other standing at the prow in the full glare of the fire which burned there, and lit up his wild half-naked figure and the long fish-spear in his hand. As the canoe moved ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... remained behind, alone, old Kandur, the robber, burning with rage. He caught a glimpse of Lorand's face by the flash of the second discharge, recognized in him the man he sought, whom he hated, whose blood he thirsted after: that foe, whom he remembered with curses, whom he had promised to tear to pieces, to torture to death, who was here again in his way, and had with his unaided ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... summer eve, The air did gently heave While yet a low-hung cloud Thy eastern skies did shroud; The lightning's silent gleam, Startling my drowsy dream, Seemed like the flash Under thy dark eyelash. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of all these huge crawling reptiles. From the road came creakings and grumblings as some surly guns were ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... in a flash. Wearing his gray felt hat and his coat, the pursuers would mistake her for him. They would follow her—perhaps shoot her down. Anyhow, it would be a diversion to draw them from him. Meanwhile he would climb the cliff and ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... scenes which would then take place, drew Jules away into another room. At this moment the husband looked at the father, and Ferragus looked at Jules. The two sorrows arraigned each other, measured each other, and comprehended each other in that look. A flash of fury shone for an instant ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... illusion about her was quite gone. She was not less handsome, but she was not the same, somehow. The light was gone out of her eyes which used to flash there, or Pen's no longer were dazzled by it. The rich voice spoke as of old, yet it did not make Pen's bosom thrill as formerly. He thought he could recognise the brogue underneath: the accents seemed to him coarse ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray of blue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk—a clump of five rays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half a mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to float more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... fog, which, like a wall, Falls down and is rotten. And the rain Crumbles like rubble in the grip—thick—gray— As though the whole contaminated darkness Wanted at every moment to sink. Down in a swamp you see an auto flash, Like a strange, drunken plant. The oldest whores come crawling Along out of wet shadows—tubercular toads. There goes one creeping by. Over there a pig is being stabbed. The gushing rain wants to wipe out everything. But you are wandering through the waste lands. Your dress hangs ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... screamed in mortal terror as the monster darted at him. With all the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the Snake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat over the helpless little baby bunny he had ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... to many as a dawning knowledge—the light is just rising from behind the hills. To others it has come gradually and slowly, but fully, and they now live in the full light of the consciousness. Others it has burst upon like a flash, or vision—like a light falling from the clear sky, almost blinding them at first, but leaving them changed men and women, possessed of that something that cannot be understood by or described to those who have not experienced it. This last stage is called "Illumination" ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... lifeless, as it seemed, and speechless. Upon coming to himself again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead, and exclaimed aloud—that for him all was over. In this agony of mind, it strikes across the utter darkness of the scene with the sense of a sudden and cheering flash, recalling to us the possible goodness and fidelity of human nature—when we read that one humble creature adhered to him, and, according to her slender means, gave him consolation during these trying ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... burns slow away, Hiding itself in ashes gray, I'll think,—As inward Youth retreats, Compelled to spare his wasting heats, When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about, And my head's gray with fires burnt out, While stays one spark to light the eye, With the last flash of memory, 'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B., Who sent ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... Divine narrative,—had waited for solution. The world is big with expectation. The long-expected time at last arrives. Up springs the Sun of Righteousness in the Heavens; and lo, the cryptic characters of the Law flash at once into glory, and the dark Oracles of ancient days yield up their wondrous meanings! "GOD, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets,"—in these last days speaks "unto us by His SON:" and lo, a chorus of Apostolic ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... in which every day was tedious, and when they were gone it was as if they had gone in a flash. But now Mr. Polly had good looks no more, he was as I have described him in the beginning of this story, thirty-seven and fattish in a not very healthy way, dull and yellowish about the complexion, and with discontented wrinklings round his eyes. He sat on the stile above Fishbourne and cried ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... from the Duke—to see a prisoner! Come to-morrow then, and, meanwhile, depart to Gehenna. Must a man be forever at the beck and call of every sleepless sot? 'Urgent'—is the Duke's mandate. Shove it through the lattice then, that a lantern may flash ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... was standing beside her, and they were deep in talk—serious talk apparently, to judge by her quiet manner and the charmed attentive interest of his look. Occasionally, however, there was a sally on her part, and an answering flash of laughter on his; but the stream of conversation closed immediately over the interruption, and flowed ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... page, quick, solemn, and noiseless, glided round the table with his tray.—"Ah, you young devil! You're another weird one, you atom. See those bead eyes watching us, eh? A Gilpin Homer, you are, and some fine day we'll see you go off in a flash of fire. If you don't poison us all ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... long before I reached him I could catch the tones of his full, sonorous voice, and see his waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he held the looped sceptre which, by his express wish I send to you with the drawings. I could see the flash of the jewels strung upon the wires, and in the great stillness, hear the tinkling ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... sank ahead of us with a fiery and angry glow, while the clouds swept by rapidly overhead, and every now and then a flash of lightning and a loud roar of thunder made us anxious to find ourselves on board a more seaworthy craft than the frail boat in which we floated. We had no firearms with us, for the pirates had carried away or thrown overboard all they found on board the schooner, so ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... swayed, Fearlessly and unafraid,— Tiger and lovely maid, Fair and beguiling; Flash'd she her sunny smiles, Flash'd o'er the sunlit miles; Then they rode back, but ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... poker. There was a flash, a fizz, and a puff of smoke from the touch-hole, and that was all. No, not all, for a puff of wind followed that of smoke, and the ship began to glide onward again, while the men gave a cheer, and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... come—and all was done Swifter than I have spoken—I beheld Their red swords flash in the unrisen sun. I rushed among the rout, to have repelled That miserable flight—one moment quelled 2375 By voice and looks and eloquent despair, As if reproach from their own hearts withheld Their steps, they stood; but soon came pouring there ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean, what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch, the pouf! And there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some. But that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? 'Yes' and 'No.' You, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... swallows over the surface of the level plain rather than to touch the ground; but they were some distance from the road when they first realized my terrifying presence, and I am within fifty yards of the band when they flash like a streak of winged terror across the road. These antelopes do not cease their wild flight within the range of my powers of observation; long after the mousy hue of their bodies has rendered their forms indistinguishable in the distance from the sympathetic ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... with a flash of remembrance of the time she had last seen him, which made her almost sorrowful. "Well, dear—we'll do the best we can," she added in a tone which was sweet at least as tenderness could make it. The child looked ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... a mere flash! One of memory's swiftly effaced pictures, when she shows us for the fraction of a second, indelible pictures from out our past. Chauvelin, in that same second, while his own eyes were closed and Robespierre's fixed upon him, also saw the lonely cliffs of Calais, heard the same voice singing: "God ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... hit the young chuck on the nose and turned him over. The other jumped in surprise and stood up. So did the mother. 'Tsip! another bolt and the second chuck was kicking. But the old one dashed like a flash into the underground safety of her den. Quonab knew that she had seen nothing of him and would likely come forth very soon. He waited for some time; then the gray-brown muzzle of the fat old clover-stealer came partly to view; but it was not enough for a shot, and she seemed ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash; and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucy laugh, "And as long as she lives, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... of the high priest in his vestments. What come vividly back on my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories of Joseph and of David; and of my keen appreciation of the chivalrous kindness of Abraham in his dealing with Lot. Like a sudden flash there returns back upon me, my utter scorn of the pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, "Hast thou not a blessing for me also, O my father?" And I see, as in a cloud, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... disappear; the animal continuing on the surface crunching his prey with his teeth, and digging at him with his jaws, as if trying to gorge a morsel too large to be swallowed, and making the water flash up in foam over the boats in pursuit, by the powerful strokes of his tail, but without ever letting go his hold. The poor lad only cried once more—but such a cry—oh, God, I never shall forget it!—and, could it be possible, in his last shriek, his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... Then the light passes and the colours die. Though even then, if there be room enough for me to fall back so far as that I can gaze up to the top of the Church Tower, I see the rusty vane new burnished, and seeming to look out with a joyful flash over the sea of smoke at the distant shore ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... crisped, moustache springing thick and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as is commonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a pupil well contracted, and a mouth that opened frankly with a white flash of teeth that looked as if they could serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to serve their owner,—to draw nails with. This is the kind of fellow to walk a frigate's deck and bowl his broadsides ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... scowled. He was very angry. But the savage woman is nothing if not quick-witted and politic. In a flash of intuition, Ula saw at once he was more frightened than hurt; he was afraid of the effect of this strange revelation upon his own reputation for supreme godship. With every mark and gesture of deprecatory servility the woman sidled ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... ice was crunched and swallowed, she laughed joyously, showing him that the teeth he had cried pity on were sound as ever; so that he raked his mind for jest and anecdote just that he might see them flash yet again. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... left ajar, there came, like a lightning-flash, a streak of light with an accompaniment of the crescendo of the orgy and the fragrance of a banquet of ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... is I who tell lies, is it?" cried Sylvie, looking at Pierrette and blasting her with a fearful flash of anger ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

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

... a flash while his bus crossed Broadway on its way to the Avenue. His eyes had become accustomed to this brilliance in the weeks that had passed since his descent upon New York, but familiarity had not yet dulled the wonder ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... as sleep came upon her eyelids, she saw in her memory the bright flash of that other lover's countenance, when he first astonished her with the avowal of his love, as he walked beside her under the elms, with his horse ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope



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