"Flicker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... last pathetic flicker in his "John, don't let the awkward squad fire over me," was he thinking of actual brother-volunteers, or of possible biographers? Did his words betray only the rhythmic sensitiveness of poetic nerves, or were they a ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... patter of Dustbin's baby but quite enormous feet. A stove-pipe belching smoke and savoury fumes protruded itself through the pavement on my right. Through the chinks in the gaping slabs there came the ruddy flicker that bespoke a "home from home" beneath my feet; and then, still listening for signs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... to the rescue of the pheasants about four in the afternoon, and all of us, men and women, were sitting at afternoon tea in the firelit study, drowsily watching the flicker of the flame on the black panelling. The characters will introduce themselves, as they ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... of hell!" cried the cripple with frantic energy. "Already the first pale streaks of dawn begin to flicker in the east. A little time, and thy power to curse will be no more; a little time, and nothing will remain of thee but a heap of noisome ashes; and a name, which will be mingled with that of the arch-enemy of mankind, in the execrations of thy victims—a name ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... sky burned bright with stars that seemed to flicker like candle-flames in the wind. A half-grown moon rode down the west and threw a faint radiance across the heaving seas. It was blowing harder now. The wind boomed loud in the taut stays and the rising waves broke smashingly over the bow at ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... A flicker shot over the skies, another and another. A brilliant ray of intense green like that of a distant searchlight swept to the zenith, hung for a moment and withdrew. Up came pouring the lances and the streamers of the aurora; faster ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... foot, and then I envy every soul in it,—so tranquil it seems, so cool, so careless, so morrowless. I cannot see the faces of that luxurious society, but there I imagine is the local albino, and a certain blind man, who resorts thither much by day, and makes a strange kind of jest of his own, with a flicker of humor upon his sightless face, and a faith that others less unkindly treated by nature will be able to see the point apparently not always discernible to himself. Late at night I have a fancy that the darkness puts him on an equality with other wits, and ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... and in a way lived on a while; but its life was so feeble, and, so to say, illogical, that it could not resist any change in external circumstances, still less could it give birth to anything new; and before this century began, its last flicker had died out. Still, while it was living, in whatever dotage, it did imply something going on in those matters of daily use that we have been thinking of, and doubtless satisfied some cravings for beauty: and when ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... a bell that was a signal to the stable (the stable was very near the house), and in almost a moment's time two men, beside Kilian, were following him out into the tempest. We saw their lanterns flicker for an instant, and then they were swallowed up in the darkness. The fury of the storm increased every moment. The flashes of lightning were but a few seconds apart, and the roll of thunder was incessant. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... coincidental collective hallucinations, as when two or more people at once have, or profess to have, the same false perception of a person who is really absent and dying, is next disposed of by Herr Parish. The same points de repere, the same sound, or flicker of light, or arrangement of shadow, may beget the same or a similar false perception in two or more people at once. Thus two girls, in different rooms, are looking out on different parts of the hall in their house. 'Both heard, at the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... and sometimes it faded, but it got larger, and when they went to bed a red reflection played about the sky. In the morning there was no wind and a heavy trail of smoke stretched across the hills. In places, a bright flicker pierced the dark trail, and Carrie noted a smell of burning when she filled the kettle. Then she saw Jim watching ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... her uplifted paw. Then, shying away from the light, they entered a street which was like a canal of shadow. The houses bounding it were all dark, except the steep roof slopes of the southern row, which seemed to palpitate in the bonfire's flicker. ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... sympathizing yet questioning glance that was fixed on her. It was curious how Eleanor's eye met it; how her eye roved over Mrs. Caxton's face and looked into her quiet grey eyes, with a kind of glinting of some spirit fire within, which could almost be seen to play and flicker as thought and feeling swayed to and fro. Her eye said that much was to be said, looked into Mrs. Caxton's face with an intensity of half-speech,—and the lips remained silent. There was consciousness of sympathy, consciousness of something that required sympathy; and ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... peepul's leaves go flicker, flicker: The banyan's leaves are thick and fleshy: Of the fan palm's leaf, brother, make a cup. And we will drink the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... print. Hurriedly he thrust it aside and rang for a fresh galley. But the red spots rose between his eyes and the work, like an accusation, like a prophecy. Of a sudden he beheld this great engine of print which had been, first, the caprice of his last flicker of irresponsible and headlong youth, then the very mould in which his eager and ambitious manhood was to form and fulfill itself—he beheld this vast mechanism blazingly illumined as with some inner fire, and now become a terrific ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... he could plainly perceive the flicker of torches moving about the wharves and piers of Chhung-ju, and presently a few of those same lights appeared on the bosom of the river. The rebels had evidently rowed out in small boats, and were towing the barges left anchored in mid-stream to the shore. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... when a breeze comes, the leaves flutter and dangle idly about, as if with a languid protest against all disturbance of their perfect rest. The mocking-birds absolutely refuse to sing before twelve o'clock at night, when the air is somewhat cooled: and the fireflies flicker more slowly than I ever saw them before. Our whole world here yawns, in a vast and sultry spell of laziness. An 'exposition of sleep' is come over us, as over Sweet Bully Bottom; we won't wake till winter. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... flicker and, turning, she saw that it was spending its last dying flame. It was impossible to write. She lay still, watching the glimmering dark square of the window. She could not see another candle there. All she could see was the little phial of tabloids. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... streets in that suburb were lonely: he went down them, the new-fallen snow dulling his step. It had covered the peaked roofs of the houses too, and they stood in listening rows, white and still. Here and there a pale flicker from the gas-lamps struggled with the ashy twilight. He met no one: people had gone home early on Christmas eve. He had no home to go to: pah! there were plenty of hotels, he remembered, smiling grimly. It was bitter cold: he buttoned up his coat tightly, as he walked slowly along as if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... The light gave a great flicker. "What the bloody hell!" exclaimed John Widger. The day-dreamers awoke, as if from a light sleep. An everyday look came quickly into their eyes and each one shifted in his seat. Some even shook themselves like dogs. A joke was made ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the two women was the second to enter the car. As she stood waiting, she glanced round quickly. Her eyes met Anthony's, rested a moment of time, and then swept on without a flicker.... A second later the door had slammed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... lingered for a moment on the big-shouldered figure of Drew, erect in his box. At last his glance came back with an intent frown to Woodbury. Something in the keen eyes of the laid raised a responsive flicker in ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... impatiently, his hand moving feebly to tweak his nose, but failing by the way. "There I been an' gone an' made another mistake! Sure, 'tis awful! Will you tell me, Davy Roth, an you can," he demanded, now possessed of the last flicker of strength, "how I could be wicked without hurtin' some poor man? Ecod! I'm ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... met mine without a flicker. The full mouth was curved at the corners in a tolerant, unsuspecting smile. It was hard to have to make an enemy of so handsome and good-humoured a woman. And was it necessary, was it even wise? As I hesitated she turned ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... his chair around to face the screen let into a side wall, and colors began to flicker and run in the field almost immediately. They steadied and sharpened, and the ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... from Mrs. Dudgeon's he is astonished to find the room apparently empty and almost in darkness except for the glow from the fire; for one of the candles has burnt out, and the other is at its last flicker. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... at a cafe downtown today," Herr Domber said without the flicker of an eye. "I have a special cafe in mind where the sea food is excellent and ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... that Tommy couldn't help opening one eye the least bit, just to see him. That was when Mr. Gray Squirrel noticed that his eyelid quivered. And Tommy saw at once that Mr. Gray Squirrel had caught that flicker of his eyelid, and that he was frightened. Tommy knew then that he ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... picture of his childhood come to life, smiling drowsily in the morning sunlight with shuttered windows that were its sleeping eyes—the great white house of Fairfield. Its high pillars reached to the roof; its big wings stretched away at either side; the flicker of the shadow of the leaves played over it tenderly and hid broken bits of woodwork, patches of paint cracked away, window-panes gone here and there. It stood as if too proud to apologize or to look sad for such small matters, as serene, as stately as in its prime. And its master, looking at ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... reached the women and children. Yielding to a professional instinct, he stooped, and saw that the prostrate form was that of old Aunt Jane Letlow. She was not yet quite dead, and as Miller, with a tender touch, placed her head in a more comfortable position, her lips moved with a last lingering flicker of consciousness:— ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Divine trust, I regard your appeal as a call from God Himself. Besides, you could not have demanded from me a more congenial service. You shall have all the help I can give; and between us," he added, with a reviving flicker of his previous facetiousness, "we shall ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the river, and I swam the flooded bend With a little cash and comfort for my literary friend. Brown was sitting sad and lonely with his head bowed in despair, While a single tallow candle threw a flicker on his hair, And the gusty wind that whistled through the crannies of the door Stirred the scattered files of paper that were lying on the floor. Charlie took my hand in silence — and by-and-by he said: ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... sluggishness of mind and body the next day. It is very dangerous to risk them before a hard match. The moving pictures immediately before playing tennis are bad, owing to the eye strain caused by the flicker of the film and the strong light of the camera. Lead a normal, healthy life, and conserve your nervous force wherever possible, as you will need it in the ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... the brunt of the situation on her husband's hands, as if too absorbed in a grievance of her own to suspect that she might be the object of one herself. To Lily this attitude was the most ominous, because the most perplexing, element in the situation. As she tried to fan the weak flicker of talk, to build up, again and again, the crumbling structure of "appearances," her own attention was perpetually distracted by the question: "What on earth can she be driving at?" There was something ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... gave a last flicker, spluttered, and went out. Someone, it must have been Merik, came into the room and sat down on the bench. He puffed at his pipe, and for an instant lighted up a dark cheek with a patch on it. Yergunov's throat was irritated by the horrible fumes of ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the little kitchen, where on the hearth a fire was crackling and flashing its red flicker over the walls. He sat down on a rough wooden bench by the door, wondering if his uncle could really have forgotten that he was coming, and feeling not all light-hearted, while Hagar clattered away to "see Mas'r Dick." She came ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... bedchamber, and softly approached the bedside by the dim flicker of the night-lamp, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Nuthin immediately released their hold on Ward. The last flicker of the expiring match showed that the recent prisoner was scowling most hatefully, as if angry at the way he ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... windows. Sometimes a vagrant puff of air would find its way in, and suddenly the ball-room dimmed and the dancers moved like phantoms. The flames of the candles would struggle and, with many a flicker, right themselves, and the radiant colors and ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... thought that Naomi, daily handling sick little Three Legs, might have caught the malady that first darkened the vision of the poor little animal, and then caused the frail life to flicker out altogether. ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... eyes swept the eager face and slim figure of the girl at Jimmy's side. There was the barest flicker of her lids before she raised them ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... dim recesses, mid tresses, green tresses. Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high, High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird. And when the night came with a flicker of wings I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow Like a pulse in the tiny, wild ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... answer, he brushed past Mary and strode up to his house. The girl stood motionless for a little while, gazing after him with a flushed face, twitching lips and a flicker of amusement in her ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... something besides smoke makes itself visible, as also audible. Here and there flames flicker up, with a sharp crackling noise, which continues. The one is not flashes from the guns, nor the other a snapping ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... light—such expedients precisely as a man in the perturbed sleep occasioned by opium would be apt to fall upon for a similar purpose—each and all of which appear by turns to the dreamer the most reasonable and the most preposterous of conceptions, just as the reasoning or imaginative faculties flicker, alternately, one above the other. At last an idea occurred to me which seemed rational, and which gave me cause to wonder, very justly, that I had not entertained it before. I placed the slip of paper on the back of a book, and, collecting the fragments of the phosphorus matches ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... distinct advantages of the Horse Show. It had three rings and two platforms; and, for another thing, the drivers and riders in the races, when they won, bore the banner of victory aloft in their hands, instead of poorly letting a blue or red ribbon flicker at their horses' ears. The events were more frequent and rapid; the costumes infinitely more varied and picturesque. As for the people in the boxes, I do not know that they were less distinguished than these at the Horse Show, but if they were ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... its words, but I know that it tells me of coming disaster, unknown but inevitable, mysterious and inexorable as death. The future is lugubrious as a cemetery full of open graves, ready to receive the dead, with here and there a flicker of pale torches which I can scarce distinguish, and I know not if they are there to lure me on to destruction or to show me ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... which border the bunch upon the back denote sunbeams penetrating storm clouds. The black circle zigzagged with white around the head is a cloud basket filled with corn and seeds of grass. On either side of the head are five feathers of the red shafted flicker (Colaptes cafer); a fox skin is attached to the right side of the throat; the mountain sheep horns are tipped with the under tail feathers of the eagle, tied on with cotton cord. The horns are filled with clouds. The rainbow goddess, upon which these gods ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... or pranced, Murmex not built for such antics, Palus by nature steady on his feet. But, except that their feet moved cannily, every bit of the rest of either's body was in constant motion and moved swiftly. The gleam and flicker of thrust and parry were inexpressibly rapid. Even the upper tiers craned, breathless and fascinated; and we, further forward, were numb and quivering ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... woman had asked me such a question there would have been short shrift with her. Charmion herself had never before attempted such personalities; but now, when she deemed it necessary, she spoke without a flicker of hesitation, her grey eyes staring full into mine. It would have seemed ridiculous ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... burrowed with mines; the breath of pit and factory, out of sight, thickens the lower sky, and lies heavily over the sands of Dee. It leaves the upper blue clear and the head of Orion, but dims the flicker of Sirius and shortens the steady ray of the evening star. The people scattered about are not mining people, but half-hearted agriculturists, and very poor. Their cottages are rather cabins; not a tiled roof is in the country, but the slates ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... not answer. He lifted the latch and pulled the door open. A howling gust of wind-driven rain beat in upon him, drenching the carpet and causing the lamp to flicker and smoke. For a moment Solomon gazed out into the storm; then he relinquished ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... them over—not counting them, he was too much amazed and excited to do that—when the candle in the lantern gave a final flicker and went out, leaving the boys and the mystery of the compass and the money and Rad's pantaloons enveloped ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... jaw somewhat heavy, his eyes exceedingly keen, and he carried with him an indefinable air of authority. He observed, also, that the voice had in it something peculiarly clear and incisive. With a little thrill and a sudden flicker of the flame of hope, he pointed down the street that ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Japan, White butterfly moon! Where the heavy-lidded Buddhas dream To the sound of the cuckoo's call.... The white wings of moon-butterflies Flicker down the streets of the city, Blushing into darkness the useless wicks of round lanterns in the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... his hot brow, laid her head on his heart to see whether it was still beating. He was alive! Beckoning to two of his comrades, Molly commanded them to carry him to the shade of a near-by tree. And soon she had the satisfaction of seeing a faint smile flicker over his face as she bent above him. At that moment her keen ears heard General Knox give ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... faintest flicker of a smile moving about her lips now; she had turned a little and the light was playing ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... anything; the look of his eyes was always so strange. Newman paused again, and then went on. "You and your mother have committed a crime." At this M. de Bellegarde's eyes certainly did change; they seemed to flicker, like blown candles. Newman could see that he was profoundly startled; but there was something admirable in ...
— The American • Henry James
... with distinguished grace. Not a flicker of relief had disturbed the calm serenity of his aspect, yet when a moment later, he stepped among his shouting admirers in the street, his air and glance betrayed a bounding joy for which another source must be found than that of gratified pride. A chain had slipped from his spirit, and ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... closed, revealing the squalidness of the interior in which we were quartered. Then someone, growling and stumbling through the darkness, lit a slush lantern, dangling from a blackened beam, its faint flicker barely discernible. The hole became foul and sickening, men tossing and groaning in their uneasy sleep, or prowling about seeking some measure of comfort. There was no severe wind accompanying the storm, and the flurry of rain soon ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... of a job too, but they managed to get me up somehow or other, and I found myself in a large sparsely furnished hall lit by one ill-burning gas jet. There was a door half open on the left, and through the vacant space I could see the flicker of a freshly ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... elms, which I spare to that end, bring us the flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream and laugh close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a few days ago I had the satisfaction of studying him through the blinds as he sat on a tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... shudder of death Flicker'd fast through the wood:— And they found the Red King Red-gilt in his blood. What wells up in his throat? Is it cursing, or prayer? Was it Henry, or Tyrrell, Or demon, who there Has dyed the fell tyrant Twice crimson in gore, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... smallest hole it went (like the thrill in a troublesome tooth) that here was a chance come of feeding, a chance at last of feeding. For the man on the cliff, the despairing watchman, weary of fastening his eyes upon the sea, through constant fog and drizzle, at length had discovered the well-known flicker, the glassy flaw, and the hovering of gulls, and had run along Weighing Lane so fast, to tell his good news in the village, that down he fell and broke his leg, exactly opposite the tailor's shop. And this was on St. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... marvellous little family circle of children of genius in Charlotte Street, he had also the power of looking at it from the outside. It would be strange, indeed, if this or any other power should be found lacking in him. I have often heard Rossetti—by the red flicker of the studio fire, when the gas was turned down to save his eyesight—give the most graphic and fascinating descriptions of the little group and the way in which they grew up to be what they were under the tuition of a father whose career can only be called romantic, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... awake again, and Miss Dare, satisfied with her success, allowed herself to become more reasonable, until a slight shade of sentiment began to flicker about their path. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... paraffine on the scullery floor, and instantly a nest of snaky, wavering blue flame became agog for prey. He went up the stairs three steps at a time with one eager blue flicker in pursuit of him. He seized the lamp at the top. "Now!" he said and flung it smashing. The chimney broke, but the glass receiver stood the shock and rolled to the bottom, a potential bomb. Old Rumbold would hear that and wonder what it was!... ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and then turned to see what had startled him so. But all he saw was an old feathered acquaintance headed towards the Old Orchard. He seemed to bound along through the air much as Peter bounds along over the ground when he is in a hurry. It was Yellow-Wing the Flicker. ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... folks may well marry) for sometimes a man hath most need of a wife, according to Puccius, when he hath no need of a wife; otherwise it is most odious, when an old Acherontic dizzard, that hath one foot in his grave, a silicernium, shall flicker after a young wench ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... When the flicker of summer falls faint on the Clubroom's gold and green, The sons of Adam sit them down and boast of strokes unseen; They talk of stymies and brassie lies to the tune of the steward's cough, But the Devil whispers in their ears, "Gadzooks! But that's ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... union of male and female who find enough in common to warrant that union. In a word and in the fullest sense of the word, it is sex comradeship. Pre-nuptial love cannot survive marriage any considerable time. It is doomed inexorably to flicker out, and when it has flickered out it must be replaced by affection, or else the parties to it must separate. We well know that many men and women, unable to build up affection on the ruins of love, do separate, or if they do not, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... it a matter of extreme danger. His medical skill was small, but he contrived to wash and bind the wound roughly. Then he quietly reloaded his guns, and, with the aid of a stiff horn of whisky, roused some life in his patient. He knew it would only be a feeble flicker, but while it lasted he wanted to get him on to the Lady ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... outset he was confronted by a condition that was not only disappointing, but exerted a most depressing influence. There was no draught, such as he had believed would issue from the winze. In vain did he hold up a wetted finger, in vain watch for the slightest flicker in the flame of his candle. The air was as stagnant as that of a dungeon. And yet there certainly had been a decided current at that very place only a few hours before. Puzzled and disheartened, he was still determined to press forward, and, stooping ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... and were peering upwards at the black vault overhead, when an indescribable rushing sound filled the air of the cavern, and caused the flame of our torches to flicker with such violence that we could not see any object distinctly. We all came to a sudden pause, and I confess that at that moment a feeling of superstitious dread chilled the blood in my veins. Before we could discover the cause of this strange effect, several large black objects passed through ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... on Hanson's arm pleadingly, and he shrugged. He groped about for some answer that could be phrased in their language, letting his mind flicker from the modern electronic gadgets back to the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... as he could be—you could feel that, you know, and so you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners —everybody was always good-mannered where he was. Everybody loved ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... but they no longer ruled him. One thing was paramount, his determination to know everything of the crime that had been perpetrated in the main drive of the Silver Stream. Fragments of thoughts seemed to flicker up like flames within him and die out again instantly, and he repeated constantly under ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... spoke, was foolishly vacant. Then, a lurid blaze began to flicker behind his ice-blue eyes, and a brickish color surged into his face. Wheeling on Gavin, he cried, his voice choked ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... rain was falling heavily, as the woman, pail in hand, emerged from the mouth of the alley, and turned down the narrow street, that stretched out, long and black, miles before her. Here and there a flicker of gas lighted an uncertain space of muddy footwalk and gutter; the long rows of houses, except an occasional lager-bier shop, were closed; now and then she met a band of millhands skulking to or from ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the trustworthiness of the latter as on that of the former. To refute this charge Mr. Bell had insisted that both he and Watson carefully write out whatever they heard that the two records might afterward be compared and verified. 'That is,' Mr. Bell had added with the flicker of a smile, 'if we succeed in talking at all!' Well, they did succeed, as you have heard. At first they held only a stilted dialogue and conscientiously jotted it down; but afterward their exuberance ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... though something told him that the hour was noon; the gold put out the sun. "All mine!" he thought, and was preparing to gather it, but some one stopped him with an iron hand; and then he woke, to hear his mother's snores and see the flicker of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... very slightly. If she felt any flicker of interest, of surprise, that Hume was here, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... that his outline was lost in darkness; but I saw that round his neck was a short white ruff, and that heavy leather boots hung in folds, cavalier-fashion, from his knees. He wavered there in the dark, against the flicker of the bamboo shadows, like a picture by that Dutch fellow—What's-his-name-again—a ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... he bent over her, he thought Dalla had been killed, an assumption justified by his knowledge of the deadliness of Akor-Neb bullets. Then he saw her eye-lids flicker. A moment later, he had the explanation of her escape. The bullet had hit the game bag at her side; it was full of spools of metal tape, in metal cases, and notes in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring fastened into metal binders. Because ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... the outer edge of discussion and anxiety, leaving all analysis of their question to the ladies alone and now only feeling his way toward some small droll cynicism. It broke out afresh, the cynicism—it had already shown a flicker—in a but slightly deferred: "Well, hanged if I would if I ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent importance. Mrs Manderson would see Mr Trent. She walked to a mirror, looked into the olive face she saw reflected there, shook her head at herself with the flicker of a grimace, and turned to the door as ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... that we regularly count upon in winter, there are more or less irregular visitors at this season, some of them summer birds also,—as the purple finch, cedar-bird, gold-finch, robin, the flicker, or pigeon woodpecker, and the yellow-bellied and hairy woodpeckers. Others, again, linger on from the autumn, and sometimes through the winter,—as the snow-bird, song-sparrow, tree-sparrow. Still others ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... journey it seemed as if the child were really rallying; the air, the sunlight, the novel motion, the smiling mother by her side, the big black horses she had already learned to love, all roused her to an animation she had not shown for days. But it was only the last flicker of the expiring flame. The eyes drooped, closed; a strange pallor came over the face. Alessandro saw it first. He was now walking, Ramona riding Benito. "Majella!" he cried, in a tone which told ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the neighborhood, at four o'clock in the morning, was always the golden-winged woodpecker, or flicker. Though he scorned the breakfast I offered, having no vegetarian proclivities, he did not refuse me his presence. I found him a character, and an amusing study, and I never saw his tribe so numerous and so ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... noble way, and in unity find strength. I should have loved to be a Milton—like one of your English cathedrals, austere, breathing sacred memories, resonant with the roll of a great organ, with painted windows, on which the shadows of the green boughs outside wave and flicker, and just hint of Nature. Or one of your aristocrats with a stately home in the country, and dogs and horses, and a beautiful wife. In short, I should like to be your husband. Or, failing that, my own wife, a simple, loving creature, whose idea of culture is cabbages. Ach, why was my soul wider ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... coins on a table before him, and he would sit for hours together with his eyes fixed upon them, like a child who, at the moment it first begins to see, gazes in stupid contemplation at the same object, and like the child, a distressful smile would flicker ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... as we were soon to find out, for it was but a few minutes after the last flicker had died away, and left the night looking all the blacker after the bright light to which our eyes had become accustomed, when we all distinctly heard the approaching of many feet. Apparently the impi was about to attack us ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... conscience, such as it is, to declare that the birds on it alone are worth more than it cost: wood-thrushes and robins, golden orioles, scarlet tanagers, blackbirds, bluebirds, oven-birds, cedar-birds, veeries, vireos, song-sparrows, flycatchers, kinglets, the flicker, the cuckoo, the nuthatch, the chickadee and the rose-breasted grosbeak, not to mention jays or kingfishers, swallows, the little green heron or that cock of the walk, ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... and it struck me that even on his iron nature the events of the night had made some impression. I read, or thought I read, in his countenance, signs of emotions not quite in accordance with what I knew of him—emotions strange and varied. I could almost have sworn that as he looked at us a flicker of kindliness lit up his stern and cruel gloom; I could almost have sworn he smiled with a curious sadness. As for Louis, riding with a squad who stood in a different part of the yard, he did not see us; had not yet seen us at all. His side face, turned ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... thought of this as the weird flicker of the candle-light showed him her unflinching face, for the next moment, with another muttered curse, and a careless shrug of the shoulders, he turned on his heel, and slowly went ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... her neck, obediently sipped hot milk from a teacup. Mrs. Carr had surrendered to the conquering spirit of her daughter, but her surrender, which was unwilling and weakly defiant, gave out presently a last feeble flicker ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... say that for her. There is not a man in town who dare look me in the eye and take a rise like that out of me, but she did it without a flicker. So I know I had her mad or she wouldn't have said it, but wasn't she smooth ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... a trifle more sternly than usual, his handsome head was held high with fine military bearing. He came forward without faltering for even so much as the fraction of a waver. There was not a flicker in his eyes set straight ahead. One would never have known from his looks that he recognized the oncoming man, or had so much as realized that an officer was approaching, yet his brain was doing some rapid calculation. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... that must not be either misunderstood or misquoted. At such times oratory is unhappily elbowed to a back bench, the manuscript is solemnly withdrawn from the capacious inner pocket of the new frock coat, and everyone settles himself resignedly, with only a feeble flicker of hope that the so-called speech may not be as long as it is thick. The words may be golden, but the hearers' (?) eyes are prone to be leaden, and in about one instance out of a hundred does the perpetrator really deliver an impressive address. His excuse is his apology—he is not to be blamed, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... from the south urged them on their way. The sun soon set and a long night began, but what of that? The moon and snow lighted the earth as if by day, and with a silvery glory. And now the Northern Lights began to flicker, flash and shoot across ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... it. Obstinate one, you saw the look on your husband's face as he left you. It is the studio light by which he paints and still sees to hope, despite all the disappointments of his not ignoble ambitions. That light is the dower you brought him, and he is a wealthy man if it does not flicker. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... ever-steepening trail, ceasing his song only when he needed the breath to climb. A cottontail waved its beacon for a minute before him, then darted into the underbrush; the mountain jays called out a wailing cry; and the flicker clucked above. Sharp turns were in the trail, else it had faced an upright cliff or overshot a precipice; but it was easily followed and, at length, he was above the cedars. Here the horse trail ended, but a moccasin path went on. It turned abruptly from a sheer descent, then followed a narrow ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... darkened its faces, and crowded its recesses. The line of sky, seen through the jagged and sinuous opening above, changed slowly to gloom and then to blackness. There was no light in this rocky intestine of the earth except the red flicker of the camp-fire. It fought feebly with the powers of darkness; it sent tremulous despairing flashes athwart the swift ebony river; it reached out with momentary gleams to the nearer facades of precipice; it reeled, drooped, and shuddered as if in hopeless horror. Probably, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... describes the Hindoo ascetic sitting by the bank of the sacred stream and watching the legions as they pass while cannon roar and bayonets gleam. To him they are disturbing phantoms, and he longs for the time when they will flicker away like the smoke of the guns on the windswept hill. He meanwhile sits 'musing and fasting and hoping to die.' Fitzjames is the precise antithesis: his heart was with the trampling legions, and for the ascetic ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... him he wronged Fight for her, who should have her! We stood Upon the walls, and she with her hood Close to her cheek. But I saw the flicker ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... There was a furtive flicker of the Wyandotte's eyes which seemed to include everybody before him, then he said very coolly that he had seen no riffle that might indicate shallow water, but that there was a ford not far below, and we ought to strike it ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Lights flicker out in the gloom, like diminutive goblins that beckon; Onward we stagger and gasp in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... spade, one writing in a large book, and one shaping a jewelled box to hold the book; and among the rushes at their feet lay the scholars, who would one day be Brothers, and whose school-house it was, and for the succour of whose tender years the great fire was supposed to leap and flicker. One of these, a child of eight or nine years, called Olioll, lay upon his back looking up through the hole in the roof, through which the smoke went, and watching the stars appearing and disappearing in the smoke with mild eyes, ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... the folds of his long robe, and, while he feeds her with bread and sweetmeats, keeps up a running comment of remarks and laughter at all around her, and the unspeakable solemnity of old Father Abraham's face is lit up, now and then, with the flicker of a ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... her sisters stopped her, and even Billiard had to smile, though he felt grateful toward the little twin who was sorry he was hurt. By this time the pale candle flame had ceased to sputter and flicker uncertainly, but burned with a steady light, and with a thrill of exultation Billiard looked curiously about him, relieved to find no snakes or crawly things in the abandoned shaft, and pleased beyond measure to think he had actually braved the terrors of the dark to ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the children watched, Toby gave his tail a flicker and a twist, and the fly, which had been biting ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... Vera, as she approached. "Aha! Now I know why you left us all of a sudden!" She smiled winningly at Marjorie's companion, who allowed the barest flicker of a smile to touch her slightly ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... turned, saw El Tigre, and charged him straight. El Tigre was not even facing him, for the bull was approaching from his left. But there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the flicker of an eye lid, still as ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... roar of burning fuel above me, and immediately after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the flames flicked upward and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... tried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied, the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the glaring gaslights of the "salon" to the dim, quiet flicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfully the restorative effects of cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little like a reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of sleeping all night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk of trying ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... not hear me! Where are they going that they do not hear me? Nay, then, dear Gran'am, rest on me. Step slowly. They've left off dancing at the maypole, and gone I know not whither. Will you not rest you, while I blow this flicker o' fire? (Leads Goody Gleason to bed of pine.) I'll make thee broth, and season it right pleasantly when the lads come back from their traps; for, now that I think on it, it may be to their traps they have gone. (Sees Goody Gleason placed in comfortable fashion ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... had reduced every stick within reach of his hand to a mass of shavings—a beaming childlike glow of satisfaction resting on his handsome face all the while, until the embers of the fire began to sink low, and only an occasional flicker of flame shot up to enlighten the increasing darkness. Then he laid the two implements down and covered them carefully with a piece of deerskin, while his countenance resumed ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... serious; but presently he regarded her with a flicker of humor in his eyes, she thought. "You didn't say that as if you meant it, Sylvia," he declared. "You didn't say it as if you quite believed it. But I'm going to show you that you're right. What we've been together, Sylvia, you ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... chance of meeting a man like Sir Lionel. I don't think there is another in the world. And to-morrow I am to have the honour of informing him that I'm in love with that little worm, Dick Burden. Having seen the sun, I love a flicker of ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... river teem with varied forms of animal life. From the caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of many-colored plumage. The cormorant, the pelican, the heron, floated on the water, or stalked along its pebbly brink. Among the sedges, the alligator, foul from his native mud, outstretched his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... know, mamma," said the boy gravely. "I will do ridiculous things if He command me"—and again a flicker of a smile that came like a flicker of light passed over his face. "The first thing I thought I had to do was to tell you all; he says his servants must confess him; and to-morrow I will go to my uncles." The smile had faded and ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... retired, and he was all by himself in this large room, with the subdued twilight all through it, and the flicker of the flames on the ceiling. He went to the fire more from habit than anything else, and suddenly came on a big armchair, drawn up close to the side, in which ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... With a palpable flicker of interest Zillah Forsyth looked back across her shoulder. "Engaged? How many times?" she asked ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays her knitting on her knee for an instant, that she may the more readily let her tapered fingers droop until they touch the pale brow of the child at her feet; then she resumes it again, with a face ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... swish in the leaves like thet. His whiskers quivered, his tongue come out. C'u'd think o' nuthin' but his big empty belly. The boy was scairt. He up with his gun quick es a flash. Aimed at his eyes 'n let 'er flicker. Blew a lot o' smoke 'n bird shot 'n paper waddin' right up in t' his face. The panther he lost his whiskers 'n one eye 'n got his hide fill' o' shot 'n fell off the tree like a ripe apple 'n run fer his life. Thought he'd never see nuthin' c'u'd growl 'n spits powerful es thet boy. Never ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... been of late so joyful, were now grown old with sorrow in but an hour or two; for they feared that the fresh coming of the Earth-Current had been but the final flicker and outburst before the end. And, even in this short while of our speech, did it seem to me that the voice of Naani grew further off from me; and I felt like to have broken my heart with the trouble of ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... would be dark and still, except for a belated guest going to his banquet, a Scythian constable, or perhaps a cloak thief. For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... let her gain confidence. When he was silent she sang from memory. It was a song of flourishes: one of those be-flowered arias in which the notes flicker and leap like young flames. Others might have sung it; and though it spoke favourably of her aptitude and musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy, merely critical audiences, it won no applause from these men. The effect produced ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was time for the girls to return to school. They took a hansom, Bob accompanying them. As they drove, Laura sitting sandwiched between the other two, it came over her with a rush what a miserable failure the day had been. A minute before, her spirits had given a faint flicker, for Bob had laid his arm along the back of the seat. Then she saw that he had done this just to pull at the little curls that grew on Tilly's neck. She was glad when the cab drew up, when Tilly ostentatiously took the fat half-crown from her purse, and Bob left them at the gate with a: "Well, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... she said; "and—and this time I will not ask for the bill." The faintest flicker of a smile crossed her lips, and then was gone, and he thought that in its place a look of weariness and unhappiness ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... least believed so. And when at Elizabeth's knock she woke with a start, and saw—not the sweet sea-shore and Robert Lyon, but the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the fire, she thanked God that her dream was not all a dream—that, sharp as her misery was, it did not touch this—the love of her heart: she believed ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... scarce—only obtainable in the East, and even in the East months might have passed before I could have increased my supply. I had no months to waste. Replenish, then, the light only when it begins to flicker or fade. Take heed, above all, that no part of the outer ring—no, not an inch—and no lamp of the twelve, that are to its zodiac like stars, fade for one moment ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... for many sleepy minutes while her light fell dimmer and dimmer, lower and lower. When it was just a tiny flicker he dropped to sleep. ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... time, the situation began to affect him personally. In the hours after midnight, as the forces of the physical body ebbed toward the lowest point, those of the mind seemed to increase. Staring at the low night light, that by its feeble flicker exorcised the thousand phantoms that beset him, he could think clearly. In a rocking chair, across the room, the night nurse dozed, with a white shawl wrapped around her. He could hear her deep, ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... when the case was opened and the array of tubes and transformers was revealed, that expression disappeared; and when he added a super-power stage by cutting in a heavy-duty transformer and a five-kilowatt transmitting tube, Seaton thought that he saw an instantaneously suppressed flicker of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... discordant mirth. Their owner also possessed a cockatoo with a great musical reputation, but I never heard it get beyond the first bar of "Come into the garden, Maud." Ill as I was, I remember being roused to something like a flicker of animation when I was shown an exceedingly seedy and shabby-looking blackbird with a broken leg in splints, which its master (the same bird-fancying gentleman) assured me he had bought in Melbourne as a great bargain for only 2 ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... day, going the rounds of the dry-goods stores, giggling with the men clerks—a picture of sin that made men wet their lips. She was big, oversexed, and feline; rattling in silks, with an aura of sensuousness around her which seemed to glow like a coal, without a flicker of kindness or shame or sweetness, and which all the town knew instinctively must clinker into something black and ugly as the years ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... flicker round his lips. It wasn't everybody who could crawl on his belly for nearly a quarter of a mile with a bullet through his leg, and come up smiling at the end of it. A cast-iron constitution! If he had only known it fifteen, even ten ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo's lenient goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... old men tottering away to their final resting place be enthusiastic on the reception of a stranger? What could Mr. Quiverful be to them, or they to Mr. Quiverful? Had Mr. Harding indeed come back to them, some last flicker of joyous light might have shone forth on their aged cheeks; but it was in vain to bid them rejoice because Mr. Quiverful was about to move his fourteen children from Puddingdale into the hospital house. In reality they did no doubt receive advantage, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... noted anything unusual in my request, he did not show it, not so much as by a flicker ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... flicker of light as the spark was struck, and at the same moment Roger and Harry grasped hands for a second, for bloody ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... yellow windows shadows drink hot tea. Yearning people sway on a hardened pond Workers find a soft woman's corpse. Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness. On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs. Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows, In front of which human bodies move like ghosts. Students carve a frozen girl. How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning! A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses. Next to green lanterns under ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein |
