winkful

Updated: June 26, 2025

Then began that strange lifetime of reminiscence; that trooping of sins and cruelties, in sure, unbroken continuity, through the reeling brain; that moment of years; that great day of judgment, in a thought; that last winkful of light, which flashes back upon time, and makes its frailties luminous.

George Alfred Townsend - Bohemian Days: Three American Tales

Forrest could have expressed the rallying, startling, almost thrilling recognition of an instrument of death, better than this actual criminal, whose last winkful of daylight was blackened by the guillotine. It reminded one of Damon, in the pitch of the tragedy: "I stand upon the scaffold I am standing on my throne."

George Alfred Townsend - Campaigns of a Non-Combatant,: and His Romaunt Abroad During the War