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Gleam   /glim/   Listen
Gleam

verb
(past & past part. gleamed; pres. part. gleaming)
1.
Be shiny, as if wet.  Synonyms: glint, glisten, glitter, shine.
2.
Shine brightly, like a star or a light.  Synonym: glimmer.
3.
Appear briefly.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Gleam" Quotes from Famous Books



... over his face as he watched the graceful figure balancing to the heave of the ship. It took on the same evil look which he had seen in his fall, while there was no mistaking the thought behind the gleam in his eyes. The mate looked up,—into Owen's face,—and saw something there which he must have understood; for he dropped his glance to the compass, snarled out, "Keep her on the course," and stepped into the lee alleyway, where the dinghy, lashed upside ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... that the pain was almost unbearable. I was strongly tempted to turn back, but having got so far, I resolved to go on. My teeth began to chatter. The man who had passed by me had already reached the ablution shed and I could see a faint gleam from his candle in the distance, so that I did not fear to ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... as we turned a bend in the road. Ours was an important journey, and many of the neighbors came out as we passed along and cried words of encouragement. On a hill-top we heard the gallop of a horse, and out of a lane dashed a girl—Millie. She smiled at us, nodded as her horse jumped, and gave us a gleam of her white hand as she sped off ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... to look at the sunshine of heaven. And she looked at the red sun, and she thought about it so deeply, and thought of the little one whom the stork was to bring, and the wife of the drummer was very cheerful, and looked and looked, and wished that the child might have a gleam of sunshine given to it, so that it might at least become like one of the shining angels over ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly she caught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Do please—please—let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't ever have any fun again when this ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... if nerving himself for what was to follow, and the priest gazed with strong interest on his features, over which swept many wild emotions, occasionally softened by a gleam of tenderer ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... with every passing cloud in the childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and puddles, and found himself on the shores ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... mattresses and pillows. Hurry! Help me down, quick! Oh, slow-coach! Keep out of the way and I'll jump! Give me the letter. I can run faster than you can.' And before the vestige of an idea had penetrated Philip's head, nothing could be seen of Polly but a pair of twinkling heels and the gleam of a curly head that caught every ray of the sun and turned it into ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... gleam of silver between two nearly perpendicular walls; and half an hour afterwards they were traversing a narrow ledge running some few feet above the dark blue waters of a lake shut in apparently on all sides by similar walls of rock, ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... the Lion replies, While rage and malignity gleam in his eyes; "Thy journey and life here must close: Thy castle's proud turrets no more shalt thou see; No more betwixt Blumenberg's lordship and me Shalt thou stand, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the Night. And as the golden ball rolled past the Fog suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it away. Hastily Inzana gathered ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... these streets, though these people are abroad much at night. All you see are stars overhead and the glowing eyes of cat ladies, of lithe silken ladies who pass you, or of stiff-whiskered men. Beware of those men and the gleam of their split-pupiled stare. They are haughty, punctilious, inflammable: self-absorbed too, however. They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you are lost. They take offense in a flash, abhor strangers, despise hospitality, and would think nothing of killing you ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... little weather gleam that lit The cloudy promontories - the real charm was That gilded hills and woods And walked beside me ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... trees, when they started forward at a run. Dane, hearing them coming, stopped and looked back. Instinctively the caution of the wild possessed him, causing him to stand on the defensive, and his eyes to gleam ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody

... that dropped out without name or place—made his flesh creep. He was afraid lest Letty should hear them, and was just putting out his hand for his hat, when Mrs. Batchelor gripped his arm again. Her face—so white and large-featured—had the gleam of something like ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... same moment a tall man, rising from the stool on which he had been seated, came forward. He was smoking a pipe, and the gleam of the fire in the bowl was what had been noted ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... strange gleam, the selfsame gleam that his friends had seen upon various occasions, when after a brief dispute or an insulting word, he raised his glove ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... courage!" Desmond flashed round on him, a gleam of the old fire in his eyes. "It's like you to put it that way, Paul. The real truth is that you had the courage to put mere passion under your feet. I should feel rather, in such a case, that she must go quite out of my life. There's the root difference ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... grating of the lock he turned. The gaoler had left him with no light but the rays of the moon, which, shining through a barred window some eight or ten feet from the ground, shed a gleam upon a miserable truckle-bed and left the rest of the room in deep obscurity. The prisoner stood still for a moment and listened; then, when he had heard the steps die away in the distance and knew himself to be alone at last, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the fair, the bright illumination in the distance, the twinkling lights in the fore-ground, dimly revealing dusky figures cowering round their fires, and the dark depths of the wood beyond, with now and then a gleam of moonshine streaming on its tangled paths, made up a landscape roll of scenic effects. Getting deeper and deeper into the wood, we came at last to a small modest mansion, standing in the corner of a garden, and shadowed by ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... charitable aid, their lives made bright and adventurous by the crumbs of sport that fall from the rich man's table. They will crowd to see the motor-car races, the aeroplane competitions. It will be a world rich in contrasts and not without its gleam of pure adventure. Every bright young fellow of capacity will have the hope of catching the eye of some powerful personage, of being advanced to some high position of trust, of even ending his days ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... touch of it in the disposition going on before my eyes. The knots of red on the bottom pathway drew together, and the red strings on the northern height were also approaching each other. They progressed warily, but I could see an occasional gleam of bare bayonets against the skyline, silhouetted by ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... her for a moment, smiling a little; and the Doctor, if he had been watching him just then, would have seen a gleam of fine impatience in the sociable softness of his eye. But there was no impatience in his rejoinder—none, at least, save what was expressed in a little appealing sigh. "Ah, well, then, I must not give up the hope ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... to Mr. Ross from prison are extremely good. They begin sombrely, but after a time the wit lightens, and towards the end it is playing continually. The first gleam of it is this: "I am going to take up the study of German. Indeed prison seems to be the proper place for such a study." On the subject of the natural life, he says a thing which is exquisitely wise: "Stevenson's letters are most disappointing also. I see that romantic surroundings ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... aught in him of evil; and though he was not what she would have chosen for the queenly Maggie she was satisfied if Margaret loved him and he loved Margaret. But did he? He had never told her so; and in Hagar Warren's wild black eyes there was a savage gleam, as she thought, "He'll rue the day that he dares ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... occurred. Either Alvah Moon had lost confidence in his chances and had sold the invention to some greenhorn for anything he could get; or else some one else had been so deeply interested in the affair as to risk a great deal of money in it. Mrs. Rushmore's gleam of intelligence was a comet; but her comet had two tails, which was ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... waste of land near the sea, the middle distance in deepest shadow, and richly colored storm-clouds racing overhead; the foreground in sunlight, enhanced by the artificial contrast of the rest of the picture; a wooden dyke on which, together with two white horses near by, the gleam of sunlight falls almost with a sound, so intensified is all the effect, make up the picture. Dupre's work is generally keyed up to the highest possible pitch, and it is no little merit that, with the constant insistence on this note, it is ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... with Peggy, and thought she might very likely find her there; but no one answered her call; only the trees rustled, and the hermit-thrush called in answer, deep in some thicket far away. Presently, as they walked, there shot through the dark oak branches a sunny gleam, a flash of green and gold. They pressed forward, and in another moment stood on the edge of the quaking bog. But they had not been warned; neither had they Peggy's practised eye, which would have told her even without the warning that ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... too sad—let us leave it. And amid this wild rush of war, let us not forget our individual duties and responsibilities. Carlyle truly says: 'Each of us here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a little life of his own to lead? One life—a little gleam of life between two eternities—no second chance to us for evermore.' Let us not forget the loves, the amenities and charities of social life. Let us not forget that the education of the world must go on as ever, that the great virtues of charity ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... rude, but homey room of the mountain cabin, lighted only by old-fashioned lamps and lanterns and the pulsating blaze of the fire in the cavernous fireplace, whose colorful gleam touched with gold the scoured copper of pot and kettle, the three workers, in the immaculate garments of a city sickroom, bent intently over the naked form of the nearly insensible child, to whose alabaster body the leaping flames imparted a simulated glow ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... that motor-chat was tossed back and forth, and it appeared that Mr. Tyndal was as proud of his car as a cat of its mouse. Mrs. Tyndal's mice are her jewels, and she has droves of them, which she displayed at dinner. Afterward she did lace-work, which made her rings gleam beautifully, and she said she didn't particularly like doing it, but it was something to "kill time." How awful! But I suppose frightfully rich people are like that. They sometimes get ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... in among the distant hills to the north. League after league, rising and falling and rising again into ever bluer distance, forest-covered, mysterious, other ranges and systems lifted, until at last, far out, nearly at the horizon-height of my eye, flashed again the gleam of water. And so the starfish arms of the little lake at my feet seemed to have plunged into this wilderness tangle only to reappear at greater distance. Like swamp-fire, it lured the imagination always on and on and on through the secret waterways of the uninhabited North. It was as though I stood ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... heard a clang and flapping, As of many wings assembling, Heard a screaming and confusion, As of birds of prey contending, Saw a gleam of light above him, Shining through the ribs of Nahma, Saw the glittering eyes of sea-gulls, Of Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, peering, Gazing at him through the opening, Heard them saying to each other, "'Tis ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... their rallying point, their inspiring hope, their guardian spirit; again he was on horseback, and still, still that fearful strife continued. Aided by the darkness, the Bruce in his secret soul yet encouraged one gleam of hope, yet dreamed of partial success, at least of avoiding that almost worse than death, a total and irremediable defeat. Alas, had the daylight suddenly illumined that scene, he would have felt, have seen that hope ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... quantity as if he were cutting down an enemy? Thomas Jack has departed into oblivion along with his Onomasticon: but this record of the friendly reception he and his book met with affords a delightful gleam of light upon ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... A cunning gleam crept into Whitley's eyes. "You'll put them on yourself at the same time. The evidence is just ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... certainly, but where was the stair-carpet? Happy Jack, however, was clearly as happy as usual. He had a round, red face; and, I will add, a red nose. But the usual sprightly smile stirred the red round face, the usual big guffaw came leaping from the largely opening mouth, the usual gleam of mingled sharpness and bonhomie shone from the large blue eyes. Happy Jack closed the door, and, taking my arm, walked me backwards and ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various

... forth the manuscript, and, sitting down by the dim light, tried vainly to read it; but he could not as yet settle himself to concentrated and regular effort; he kept turning the leaves of the manuscript, in the hope that some other illuminated sentence might gleam out upon him, as the first had done, and shed a light on the context around it; and that then another would be discovered, with similar effect, until the whole document would thus be illuminated with separate stars of light, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... definite place. One minute they would be quite indistinct and faint; the next they would stand out quite clearly; and it soon became plain that they were well-armed, for from time to time there was a faint gleam that Murray made out to be shed from ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... end it; but he could not bring himself to borrow from Flossie's husband. The last time he had dined with them he thought she had looked at him as if she were afraid he was going to borrow money. He knew it so well, that gleam of the black eyes, half subtle and half savage. For Flossie had realized her dream, and her little hand clung passionately to the purse that provided for Muriel Maud. He couldn't borrow from Spinky. From Jewdwine? Never. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... gleam of light could come, There, and there only, could I find relief; There might I ruminate on Edward's doom, And lose myself in luxury ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham

... amused, whimsical, mocking gleam in the Cossack's great eyes, but Millicent went gaily on, unconscious of anything ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... said Redhand, whose usually quiet eye appeared to gleam at the near prospect of a combat with the fierce and much-dreaded monster of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... rustle and the gleam of a thousand colors, lovely pale colors like the glints in running ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... this being his final version. Although it is an unusual piece of writing it flows very well, and the author could well have been unhappy about the poor printing. Let us hope that he is looking down upon us with a gleam of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... well that last sight of him—of his long, slim figure bending down for the entrance, woefully solitary, woefully weighted; remember so well the gleam of the carriage panels reflecting the murky light of the bare London terminus, the attitude of the coachman stiffly reining back the horse; the thin hand that reached out, a gleam of white, to turn the gleaming handle. There was something intimately ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... bandages. He had barely uncovered the maimed hand, however, ere Cleek sauntered over in company with the old seaman's son and stood beside him. He was close enough now to study the character of the eruption, and the sight of it tightened the creases about his lips, twitched one swift gleam of light through the darkness of his ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... the moment of her father's alarming seizure; she had taken quiet possession of the sick-room, and had only left it to follow her boy to the grave. Fern was there too, but Erle did not speak to her; the crape veil hid her face, and he could only see the gleam of her fair hair shining in the wintery sunlight. The two women had stood together, Fern holding her mother's hand; and when the service was over, Mrs. Trafford had gone back to Belgrave House, and some kindly neighbor had taken the girl ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... with the music, gliding slow, Far up the steep, their garments gleam; Now through the palace gate they go; And ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... father opened his eyes, and it seemed to George that there was a gleam of consciousness in them. He bent over the sick man, and said in low, clear tones, 'Father, I'll do my best to keep the mills going. That is your wish, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... want to cherish her, serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore

... tense silence while they told the victim what they had come for, and while the light of welcome in Stephen Marshall's eyes melted and changed into lightning. A dart of it went with a searching gleam out into the hall, and seemed to recognize Courtland as he stood idly smiling, watching the proceedings. Then the lightning was withheld in the gray eyes, and Marshall seemed to conclude that, after all, the affair must be a huge ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... as men who should stand gazing upon the ruins of Westminster Abbey, while the shadows of night crept into their dark caverns and into their yawning chasms of chaotic masonry, with a gleam of moon upon their riven towers and fingers of pale light touching the ribs of isolated arches. In the spaciousness of the Grande Place at Ypres my friend and I stood like the last men on earth in a city ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... pleasure as I watched them flash by like hopes vanishing and reappearing in endless succession. Every woman as she passed by left me with an impression of light and perfume. I think a man, if he is wise, will not ask much more than that of a beautiful woman. A gleam and a perfume! Many a love-affair leaves even less behind it. Moreover, that day, if Fortune herself had run with her wheel a-spinning before my very nose along the pavement of the Pont de la Concorde, I should not have so much as stretched forth an arm to pluck her by her golden hair. I lacked ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France

... tramp of the yeomanry horses, and the gleam and jingle of their arms, as they galloped into the yard. I caught a glimpse of the tall young officer, as his great grey horse swept through the air, over the high yard-pales—a feat to me utterly astonishing. Half a dozen long strides—the wretched ruffian, staggering across the field with his ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... of oppression and exclusion was broken by a transient gleam. Pitt died on the 23rd of January 1806, and Lord Grenville[34] succeeded him, at the head of the ministry of "All the Talents." In this place, perhaps, may be not unsuitably inserted the epitaph which Sydney Smith suggested for Pitt's statue ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... he saw the silk curtains drawn. The Prince stood aside to allow Edna to pass in first, and Olive, glancing up momentarily from the unfamiliar notes, saw the green gleam of an emerald on the strong brown hand as the brocaded folds were lifted up. Her own hands swerved, blundered, and ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... him a gleam of intelligence upon which to found a correct solution of his course. Tom knew that, in the ordinary course of events, the sun ought to rise in the east and set in the west. If he was going to the north, ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... Piedmont, however, the failure of the progressives was complete. The reformers proved to be lacking in unity of purpose, and when, under authorization of the greater continental powers, Austria intervened, every gleam of constitutionalism was promptly snuffed out. Similarly, in 1831-1832, there was in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, widespread insurrection, and with rather more evidence of a growing national spirit; but again, with Austrian assistance, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... A gleam of satisfaction pervaded the countenance of the Indian, as he eagerly bent his ear to receive the assurance that the fugitive was no more; but when allusion was again made to the strange warrior, his brow became overcast, and he replied with ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... in hand, till the night fell over land and sea, while the black glen shone with the gleam of their golden hair. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... stolen in while the captain has been sleeping, for he fears being seen going there by the honest sailor. There is a curtain hung up before the door to hide the light. A small candle lamp hung on gymbals is fixed to the woodwork, and throws a scanty gleam on the two figures which are engaged in earnest play. Yet how different are these two, spite of their companionship in evil! Frank, still beautiful in the refined cast of features, out of which intemperance has not yet been able ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... Pontifex drew a stranger; so did Mansfield. Then Cresswell drew, and, with a bound of delight, Dick heard his own name, and marked the gleam of pleasure which crossed his new master's face as he turned towards him. He forgot all about his legs, he even missed Heathcote's doleful look of disappointment, or the thankful sigh of young Aspinall. He felt as if something good had happened to him, and as if ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... now that the Scotchman was not the slow-witted blunderer he had appeared on board ship, looked at him with sudden suspicion. Was she deceived, or did there lurk a teasing gleam in those blue eyes? Had McEwan used the outrageous phrase "paint-slinging" with malice aforethought? She could not be sure. But if his object was to get a rise from Stefan, he was only partly successful. True, her ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... gleam of outright happiness shot into the eyes of John Mark. "Caroline? You came for that?" Suddenly he laughed heartily, but there was a tremor of emotion in that laughter. The perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... A certain gleam that had been in the old man's eyes went away and his brow grew black as thunder. Betty instinctively picked up the baby again and gathered up the ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... more oppressed; and Corinne, on her knees by the side of his bed, supported his head in her arms, though she was herself racked with more internal pain than he. This tender and affecting care made a gleam of pleasure visible through his sufferings.—"Corinne," said he to her, in a low voice, "read in this volume, which contains the thoughts of my father, his reflections on death. Do not think," he continued, seeing the terror of Corinne; ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... behave in the callous and indecent way in which certain of you—I need not mention who—have behaved to-day. You have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated the laws of hospitality and courtesy; you have shown that in St. James's there is not a gleam of patriotism, not a spark of interest in the school, not a touch of that ordinary common English manliness, that sense for the interests of the school and the community which makes Englishmen what they are. The boys who have been most guilty in this matter have already been punished, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... of the lady's cheek deepened by a shade. Within her pretty head, her mind rushed to and fro saying "Brumley? Brumley?" Then she had a saving gleam. "Are you George Brumley?" she ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... sunset—pylon and dusty bush, colossus and baked earth hovel, sycamore, and tamarisk, statue and trotting donkey. It looked like a mysterious finger pointed in warning toward the sky. The Nile began to gleam. Upon its steel and silver torches of amber flame were lighted. The Libyan mountains became spectral beyond the tombs of the kings. The tiny, rough cupolas that mark a grave close to the sphinxes, in daytime dingy and poor, now seemed made of some ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... the trade, but who had yet hitherto supported it, were on the point of conversion. Though the question had oscillated backwards and forwards, so that an ordinary spectator could have discovered no gleam of hope at these times, nothing is more certain, than that the powerful eloquence then displayed had smoothed the resistance to it, had shortened its vibrations, and had prepared it for a ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... like the glory of the morning—the transfigured woman. Through her I came to love the wee thing, as it grew strong; as its little soul unfolded itself in twitter and cry and half-formed word, and as its eyes caught the gleam and flash of life. How beautiful he was, with his olive-tinted flesh and dark gold ringlets, his eyes of mingled blue and brown, his perfect little limbs, and the soft voluptuous roll which the blood of Africa had moulded into his features! I held him in my arms, after ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... mind, of gloomy bent, In lonely tower or prison pent, Reviews the coil of former days, And loathes the world and all its ways, What time the lamp's unsteady gleam Hath roused him from his moody dream, Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat, His heart of pride less fiercely beat, And smiles, a link in thee to find That joins ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... glow of the fire made the woman's form by the hearth vividly distinct, and toward that Dick Travers went as if led by a gleam through a new and strange experience. He knelt by her side and, for a moment, buried his face against her clasped hands; then he looked up and she saw only intensified love and trust upon his young face. She waited for him to speak, her ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... stick. The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle. She places it on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like polished silver. The thunder rolls, and the rain comes ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... case, opened it, and showed me, lying on the crimson satin bed, a necklace like a wreath of light. There was no misunderstanding the preciousness of that. The shock of the realization of what they were sent the blood into my face. Her eyes laughed at me with a gleam that seemed devilish. She threw the box into my lap. She took out rings and covered my fingers with them, drops of blood, red, and brilliant green, and rainbow colors. I couldn't seem to speak or move. I thought she must ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... steppe presented itself to him strewn with the sparks of glow-worms. At times the night sky was illumined in spots by the glare of burning reeds along pools or river-bank; and dark flights of swans flying to the north were suddenly lit up by the silvery, rose-coloured gleam, till it seemed as though red kerchiefs were ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... this lady: and her husband, who is said in the Paston Letters to have been a "light, clever, and well-spoken, fair archer; devoutest, most perfect, and truest to his lady, of Knights," enjoyed a short gleam of royal favour. His vicissitudes, however, befel him whilst on an embassy in Denmark, his enemies undermined him at home: he was driven to wander in foreign countries, and died at Antwerp, where a magnificent monument was erected to his memory, by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... This gleam from the sinister vent-hole dazzled them; this puff of the sombre vapour inebriated them, and they were lost, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... the large sphere of metalloy. It had lost its original gleam and was stained and ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel

... crowded room, as though indeed they had found their way into some corner of the world where the things which make life lie. It was a lapse from which she recovered almost immediately, but when she looked at him, and with a little farewell nod withdrew her hand, the transforming gleam had passed away. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... not far off, the gleam of a light of some sort. If it belonged to the Judsons, they must have presumed that nobody was about, or not have realized that the place where they had left it was visible from ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... step-mother, and others borrowed or begged from the neighbors, or brought to me by the men, with whom I was a favorite, and who knew my passion for reading. My mother's books were mostly religious: a life of Brainerd, the missionary, whose adventures roused within me a gleam of religious enthusiasm; some sermons of the leading Methodist clergy, which, to her horror, I pronounced stupid; and a torn copy of the "Imitation of Christ," a book which she threatened to take from me, because she believed it had something to do with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... first gleam of light every eye was fixed upon the box which had contained the charter. It was empty! The charter ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... is what guilty Jean-Benoit saw at his feet, as, having finished his "labors" to his own satisfaction he was returning from Misericorde in the footsteps of his coadjutor Cuiller. O, as the poor body lay in the blood like a judgment before him, and those half-closed eyes seemed to gleam at him from their lids, what a fearful blow did Conscience strike that hypocrite, leaping from the lair in which it had long lain ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... everywhere gave the scene the appearance of a winter-denuded thicket; plaster hands, feet and torsos hung upon the walls; bull-headed Nero swelled upon a shelf beside the mutilated Venus which is a revelation of the glory that merely human beauty can attain without a gleam borrowed from the divine; fat Vitellius seemed to snore open-eyed beside lean and wakeful Julius Caesar; a mask of Medusa leaned lovingly upon the shoulder of Dante; Apollo Belvedere smiled upon an ecorche—in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... shutting; with the echo of voices giving commands and of others purring in sleepy accents of obedience. Then one by one the sounds died away; the lights went out in the bedchambers; faint flickerings stole through the chinks of doors and windows. The watchman cried out the hour, and the gleam of a lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the open court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into the night air. A halberdier turned in his sleep where he lay, on some straw beneath the coach-shed, his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. And over the whole—over the gentle slumber ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... canyon because he was afraid to stare at the Little Woman, and so his uncannily keen eye saw a bit of rock no larger than Babe's fist. It lay just under that particular clump of bushes, in the shade. And in the shade he saw a yellow gleam on ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the blood foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs; and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... grasped the battle-flag and rode before the band. Then were all the comrades arrayed in lordly wise for strife; nor had they more than a thousand men, and thereto Siegfried's twelve men-at-arms. Now from the road gan rise the dust, as across the land they rode; many a lordly shield was seen to gleam from out their midst. There, too, were come the Saxons with their troops and well-sharpened swords, as I since have heard. Sore cut these weapons in the heroes' hands, for they would fain guard both their castles and their land against ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... arrows. At last, on a bleak mountain-summit, the bear disappeared down a hole in the ground. The young man followed it in, and found himself in an immense cavern, at the far end of which was a gleam of light. Towards this he groped his way, and, on emerging, found himself in another world. Everything there was as in the world of men, but more beautiful. There were trees, houses, villages, human ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... He's afraid of Bill, all right! Any one would be who had seen the gleam in Cousin William's eyes when he ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... we watched, the grey sky seemed to be split in two by an invisible wedge, and a purple gleam of light shot— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various

... mind exceedingly, and it is likely he wouldn't have done it if she'd been less extraordinarily good to look at and if there hadn't been, in her very expressive blue eyes, a gleam that suggested she was capable of laughing at him for having trapped himself like that. She wasn't laughing at him now, be it understood; had made her request with a quite adorable seriousness. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... bulkheads, the whistling of the wind through the rigging, the loud dash of the seas against the vessel, and the numerous other loud wild sounds which are heard during a gale at sea, the boys slept on till a gleam of daylight found its way down to ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... baggage. But, as it unhappily chanced, whatever the academic conception, the maid held the lamp too close for my salvation: so close that her blue, shadowy eyes bewildered me, and her lips, red and moist, with a gleam of white teeth between, I recall, tempted me quite beyond the endurance of self-respect. I slipped, indeed, most sadly in the path, and ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... for nerve, coolness and caution. Tony reached the top of the hill. With a sigh he sat down, pulled out his pipe and commenced to smoke. The Turk also sat down, but at the foot of the hill. He too started to smoke. His face had the sense of ease, his eyes a humorous gleam. He, apparently, was in no hurry. What the devil did he mean? Tony wondered, and wondered. This torture was insufferable; so insufferable that the subaltern waved his arm, signalling the Turk to come up beside him. He obeyed. As he reached ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... whether the people at the nearest house would entertain a stranger for the night. When the figure approached nearer, he saw that it was a slender, barefooted girl, carrying a pail of water. As she emerged from the dim aisle of trees, a gleam of the setting sun shone across her face for an instant, and imparted a luminous glory to her large brown eyes. Shading them with her hand, she paused timidly before the stranger, and answered his inquiries. The modulation of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... trying circumstances. Surrounded by a raging fire, which the utmost exertions could not subdue, and which threatened momentarily the explosion of her well-supplied magazines, the officers exhibited no signs of fear and the men obeyed every order with alacrity. Nor was she abandoned until the last gleam of hope of saving her had expired. It is well worthy of your consideration whether the losses sustained by the officers and crew in this unfortunate affair should not be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... bed on the ground wherever chance might find him at night, but a mature man who had taken root in the soil of his own acres. Only twenty-five or six, his features were still touched with the last lingering mobility of youth; but the set of his mouth and the gleam of his eyes hinted at years of battle against storms, droughts and loneliness. He was already a veteran of the ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... thought, and suffer nature to intrance us. The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks almost gleam like iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and the immortal year. How easily ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and said, "It does not seem to me you miss me very much." But such a gleam of those dark, dangerous eyes! I looked down, but my breath came quickly and my face must have shown the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... Calonne took his place; a man of ready invention, unscrupulous, witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of promises, he succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a plan directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged the extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off pressing debts by contracting new ones. He pleased all classes by his captivating manners, brilliant conversation, and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... a glint under the wall," answered Kosmaroff. "There—there it is again. Steel. There is some one there. It is the gleam of those distant lights on ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... as you can. Your life, while thus engaged, is that of a gamester—call it by what smoother name you may. It is a life of constant anxiety, desire to overreach, and general gloom; enlivened now and then, by a gleam of hope or of success. Even that success is sure to lead to farther adventures; till at last, a thousand to one, that your fate is that of 'the pitcher to ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... unusual sound, rustling motion,—whether it were a waving bough, a dropping o'er-ripe pear, a footstep on adjacent walks. Nay, indeed, I saw now! I leaned against the beach-bole there, all wrapt in shade, and looked at them where they inadvertently stood in the full gleam of the lighted windows: 'twas Angus, and 'twas Effie. He spoke,—a low, earnest pleading,—I could not hear a word, or I had fled,—then he stooped, and his lips had touched her brow. Oh, had he but struck me! less had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of holy-week the church celebrates the funeral obsequies of her Divine Spouse: and hence there are numerous signs of mourning in her temples, in her liturgy, and in the dress of her ministers. On thursday however, a passing gleam of heavenly light irradiates the solemn gloom in which she is enveloped: for on this day Jesus Christ, having loved his own even unto the end, instituted the holy sacrament, the staff of our pilgrimage, our solace in affliction, our strength in temptation, the source ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... request, that when I was grown, or when at any time I should want a manservant, I would remember and send for him. He could do anything, he said; he could drive horses or milk cows or take care of a garden, or cook. It was said in a subdued voice, and though with a gleam of his white circle of teeth at the last-mentioned accomplishment, it was said with a depth of grave earnestness which troubled me. I promised as well as I could; but my heart was very sore for my poor people, left now without anybody, even so much as a child, to look after their comfort ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... was Ida Giles, and as Cora watched them she saw Sid hand Ida something that showed white in the gleam of an incandescent lamp. It was evidently ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose

... were seen to gleam from the windows of the house. Still more uncommon was it to find visitors assembled there. The old man had a place of business in the town, and anyone wishing to see him might find him there. He ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... last in that changeless voice, as he spoke? I thought so; and looked anxiously to catch the answering gleam of expression, which might now, for the first time, be softening his iron features, animating the blank stillness of his countenance. If any such expression had been visible, I was too late to detect it. Just as I looked ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... him princeliest of the lion tribe, Whose swords and coronals gleam around the throne, The guardian STARS of the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... she took the glass, but the thick black liquid of which it was full aroused such repulsion that she would have attempted a last appeal; but a horrible imprecation from the abbe and a threatening movement from his brother took from her the very last gleam of hope. She put the glass to her lips, and murmuring once more, "God! Saviour! have pity on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... from the south the swan came back, flying heavily, and about its neck was twined the golden snake, and with it came a raven. And it saw the eagle and loud it trumpeted, and shook the snake from it so that it fell like a gleam of gold into the sea. Then the eagle and the swan met in battle, and the swan drove the eagle down and broke it with his wings, and, flying to the dove, comforted it. But those in the house ran out and shot at ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... quarters are glorified for me. I've been fond of them before—they're the background to a good many inward struggles and a considerable amount of inward peace, but now—" He looked about him with new eyes, noting the dull gleam of gold with which the chestnut ceiling answered the searching flicker of the fire, the brighter sparkles which were struck out from the gilded lettering on the books which lined the walls, and the diamond-like flashes from the polished steel of the tools on the work-bench at the other ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... ship, so as to judge his direction. Several minutes passed before he allowed himself to recognize the truth of his situation: he could no longer see the gleam of Alpha Centauri on ...
— Satellite System • Horace Brown Fyfe

... spoke to her quite civilly; but I suppose she saw the savage gleam of delight in my eyes, for she was as cross as possible, and went away muttering that "Meess Jocelyn had the heart like the flint; if it had been Meess Sara, now—" and then she banged the door, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Hermes Trismegistus—the Pimandra, doubtless, which he is represented, on the floor of Siena Cathedral, as offering to a Jew and a Gentile—nine represents the sun and all beautiful bright things that draw their influence from it, as the gleam of beaten gold, the rustle of silken stuffs, the smell of the flower heliotrope, and all such men as delineate human beings with colours, or make their effigy in stone or metal; moreover, Phoebus ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... see a gleam of hope for them in the attitude of their prisoners—a people that cannot rebel. But perhaps it ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... . . . . Ah! here we are.' Captain Baskelett read to himself and laughed in derision: 'He calls our Constitution a compact unsigned by the larger number involved in it. What's this? "A band of dealers in fleshpottery." Do you detect a gleam of sense? He underscores it. Then he comes to this': Captain Baskelett requested Colonel Halkett to read for himself: 'The stench of the trail of Ego ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... streets. It poured in warm heavy masses and urgent streams; big frothy jets leaped from the corners of all the buildings; and it seemed as though whitish cloths hung dimly upon the walls, and the washed temple-roofs shone black in the gleam of the lightning. Torrents descended from the Acropolis by a thousand paths; houses suddenly gave way, and small beams, plaster, rubbish, and furniture passed along in streams which ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... great, great night. Its last hours before day were very dark and sorrowful, and by the time a golden gleam shot out of the east Quackalina knew that her first glance into the nest must bring her grief. The tiny restless things beneath her brooding wings were chirping in an unknown tongue. But their wiry Japanesy voices, that clinked together like little copper kettles, were very young and helpless, ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... more, and many hostile bayonets gleam ahead. A serious fight, this, perhaps—so back drops the advance, this time as a reserve; up gallops the column into single rank and dismounts, while the flank companies, deploying as skirmishers, cover the whole front, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... unperturbed. In his narrowed, squinting eyes as he watched the desert was a gleam of comprehension, of knowledge intimate and sympathetic. They glowed with the serene calm of confidence; and far back in them lurked a glint of grim mockery. It was as though they visualized the threatened dangers upon which ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... woman, receiving him and making him, as she could do such things, at once familiarly and gravely welcome, moved over her great room with her image almost repeated in its polished floor, which had been fully bared for summer. The associations of the place, all felt again; the gleam here and there, in the subdued light, of glass and gilt and parquet, with the quietness of her own note as the centre—these things were at first as delicate as if they had been ghostly, and he was sure in a moment that, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... beamed with tenderness: the pale cheek glowed, and a bright smile playing round her mouth, just parted her lips sufficiently to discover a set of teeth like pearls. I could have called her at that moment beautiful; but the change was as transient as sudden—it passed like a gleam of light over her face and vanished, and by the time the book was placed on the desk, she looked as plain, as stupid, and as statue-like as ever. I was the only person who had witnessed this little by-scene; and it gave me pleasant thoughts and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... empty-handed into another world, and saying, 'O Lord! I made a big fortune in Manchester when I lived there, and I left it all behind me'; or, 'I mastered a science, and one gleam of the light of eternity has antiquated it'; or, 'I gained prizes, won my aims, and they have all dropped from my hands, and here I stand, having to say in the most tragic sense: Nothing in my hands I bring.' And another ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... therefore, finding such consolation as I could in the jewelled gleam of rare old glass, the magnificence of bronze doors; tombs of kings and heroes; and all the wonders of gold, silver, pearls, and diamonds which, stored in the sacristy, do honour to the famous ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Edith, while the gleam of her eye, shining with sudden pleasure, indicated how little real satisfaction she had felt at the desertion of their conductor,—"perhaps it is the sour fellow, the guide, coming back, ashamed of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... a sharp gleam in the eyes of the Indian but he did not respond to the suggestion of the guide. Quietly seating himself he faced them both and evidently was waiting for Zeke to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... them only what belonged to the past, and nothing that represented modern freedom. The English emigrants retained what they called English privileges, but left behind in the parent country English inequalities, the monarch, and nobility, and prelacy. French America was closed against even a gleam of intellectual independence; nor did it contain so much as one dissenter from the Roman Church; English America had English liberties in greater purity and with far more of the power of the people than England. Its inhabitants were self-organized ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... the copious showers which were to succeed; their eyes ever fixed upon the coming storm; even the cattle appeared to be conscious that relief was at hand. All that day the clouds continued to gather, and the lightning to gleam. Night closed in, but the rain had not yet fallen; the wind rose up, and in less than an hour all the clouds had passed away, the stars shone out brightly, and they were left in a ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the sun, the parched earth stretched away in mile after mile of monotonous, life-ridden desert, a Sahara without sign of an oasis, a sandy barren shunned even by scorpion and centipede. Already the glow was dying from the western sky. The red rim of the distant range was purpling. The golden gleam that flashed from rock to rock as the sun went down had vanished from all but the loftiest summits, and deep, dark shadows were creeping slowly out across the plain. Over the great expanse not so much as the faintest spark could be seen. Aloft, the greater stars ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... taken place, than he affects to regard it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said. 'One highest hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, had recalled him as out of Death-shadows into celestial Life: but a gleam of Tophet passed-over the face of his Angel; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture,' adds he, 'whereby the Youth saw green Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters: a lying ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... it, by itself, lay a Pullman sleeper, on its side and apparently little harmed. Nearest to Banneker, partly on the rails but mainly beside them, was jumbled a ridiculous mess of woodwork, with here and there a gleam of metal, centering on a large and jagged boulder. Smaller rocks were scattered through the melange. It was exactly like a heap of giant jack-straws into which some mischievous spirit had tossed a large pebble. At one end a flame ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... the gleam of the faint light, over The print of themselves on the limpid gloom; And she lifted her full palm toward her lover, With her lips preparing the ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... uninteresting to him; and although what she saw through the smoky illumination of the dip was not attractive to her, the question remains whether it was really the man himself she saw, or only an appearance made up of candle gleam and gloom, complemented by her imagination. I will write what she saw, or ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Gleam" :   look, radiate, radiancy, seem, come along, appear, spangle, shimmer, refulgence, refulgency, effulgence, flash, radiance



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