Literary notes about flow (AI summary)
In literature, the word flow serves both as a vivid metaphor and a precise literal descriptor that enriches the narrative’s momentum. Authors harness it to evoke continuous movement—be it the convergence of minds described as “two streams that flow but to unite” [1] or the unstoppable passage of blood and tears, as illustrated when a character’s “blood resumed its flow” [2] or “tears…flow” [3]. It also functions as a marker of language’s effortless progression, with characters noted for a “wonderful flow of words” [4] or an “excellent 'ear' for the flow of sentences” [5]. Moreover, the term bridges the concrete and abstract, appearing in discussions of natural phenomena like water joining in a single stream [6] and in philosophical expositions on the necessary progression of events in human thought and emotion [7].
- It was because across the infinite, like two streams that flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had driven us towards each other.”
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - Thus St. Bernard burst out in bitter grief at the loss of a brother monk:— “Flow, flow, my tears, so eager to flow!
— from English Villages by P. H. Ditchfield - Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - She has an excellent 'ear' for the flow of sentences."
— from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - Among them are the five which water the territory of the Panjāb, and, after uniting in a single stream, flow into the Indus.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - But both kinds of result flow with equally fatal necessity from their conditions.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
