The current sense of “glimpse” – a passing view – blends with the archaic meaning of “a flash” as Tolkien uses it in The Hobbit.  Glimpses of treasure – was that the twinkle?  or the dwarves’ view of the twinkle?  I am, as ever, delighted.

• 03.018 Soon Bilbo caught glimpses of them
• 05.124 a glimpse of endless unmarked days
• 05.130 a glimpse of light.
• 06.001 and plains glimpsed occasionally between the trees.
• 08.003 he could catch glimpses of them whisking off the path
• 09.062 Also he had caught a glimpse of a fire through the trees,
• 11.021 in which he sometimes thought he could catch glimpses
• 11.029 he could see a glimpse of the distant forest.
• 12.076 that the hobbit had already caught a glimpse
• 13.023 and caught a glimpse of great passages
• 13.032 The mere fleeting glimpses of treasure

“glimpse, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 11 May 2015.