"Thunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sublime passage in the Psalms of David, where the lightning is said to be the arrows of God. Psalm lxxvii: 17, 'The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. 18. The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.' [W. H. S.] The passage is quoted from the Authorized Bible version; the Prayer Book version ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... shipping, the officer of the boat was asked which of these several ships was the cartel—"There," said he, pointing to an old 44, "is the ship which is to take you to old England." Heavens above! What a stroke of thunder was this! We looked at each other with horror, with dismay, and stupefaction, before our depressed souls recoiled with indignation! such a change of countenance I never beheld! Had we been on the deck of a ship, and been ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... a very agreeable lunch by the roadside, all arranged and prepared by the boys, with endless burned potatoes down on the menu as "fresh roasted," when the lowering clouds gave Dame Nature's warning. Next the thunder roared about what it might do, and then our friends hurried away from the scene. The run brought them some way on the direct road to the Berkshires, and in one of those spots where it would seem the ark must have tipped, and ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... spoken when, out of the wood, And buffeting all around, Rooting our sea-boots where we stood, There rumbled a marvellous sound, As a mountain of honey were crumbling asunder, Or a sunset-avalanche hurled Honey-comb boulders of golden thunder To ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... spirits and most vigorous condition. Despite the general talk during the entire afternoon, among officers and rank and file alike, of a possible attack down the pike, all but a few are happily unsuspicious of the thunder-cloud gathering on their flank. There is a general feeling that it is too late to get up much of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... the circle, followed by Ambrose and Ambrose's guard. Several of the leading men, including one that Ambrose guessed from his size to be Myengeen, joined Watusk in front, and the main body made a soft thunder ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... full and faithfull; And for the Burgers, they are well affected To our designes. The Arminians play their parts too, And thunder in their meetings hell and dampnation To such as ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Jerry shouted, "Now, then, genl'men, I can't hear them hands come together smartly as I'd wished, not like a row of Jarsey cider bottles a poppin' one arter the other, but all at once. Now, then, SQUAD! 'SHUN!" in a voice of thunder, "Stan' at parade rest! No—no—them lef futs adwanced! Well if ever!" And Jerry in his indignation gave himself such a thump on his chest that he knocked all the breath out of his body, and had to wait some moments before he could go on; while the boys, bubbling ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... a single shelf to break the fall, and down, down it sheets; at first like glass, then like the broken avalanche of snow, and lastly!—we cannot see more—the mist boils from the ruin of shattered waters and conceals the bottom of the fall. The roar vibrates like thunder in the rocky mountain, and forces the grandeur of the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... Street. After consulting his watch several times in the course of a few minutes, he decided that, early as it was, he would go on at once to Mrs. Toplady's. Was he not privileged? Moreover, light rain began to fall, with muttering of thunder: he ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... shining surface, some covered with stunted trees and some quite bare. The rocks about the beach were curiously worn, but Agatha knew they had been ground smooth by drifting floes. Behind the beach, the forest rolled back in waves of somber green to a bold ridge that faded into leaden thunder-clouds. ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... cave, the wave-washed golden sands of the bays, or the line of foam fretting ever at the foot of these granite crags. And beyond is the sea; from every hilltop the eye turns to it, in the sheltered orchards the air is salt with it, the thunder of its great breakers on the coast can be heard far inland, an undercurrent beneath the singing of birds and the hum of bees; it is never far from the eyes or from the mind, blue as faery under a June sun, when the wheeling gulls are dazzling ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... but that should be less than nothing in comparison of devils and of other damned, for they ben more than an hundred thousand thousands, the which all together unto them doeth noysaunce, and all in one thunder crying and braying horribly."—Thordynary of Crysten Men, 1506, 4to., k k. ii., rect. Again: from a French work written "for the amusement of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Morar! as a roe on the desert: terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle as lightning in the field. Thy voice was as a stream after rain, like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm: they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow. Thy face was like the sun after rain: like the moon in the silence of night: calm as the ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... was hot and sultry. The distant roll of thunder added to the tenseness of the atmosphere. And hearing it, ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... low roll of distant thunder, and gradually the storm drew nearer and nearer. Raeburn asked to be raised in bed that he might watch the lightning which was unusually beautiful. It was a strange, weird scene the plainly furnished hotel room, sparsely lighted by candles, the sad group of watchers, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... gentlemen and ladies in them; and the gay scene, as the flotilla proceeded toward the city, was enlivened by vocal and instrumental music. At the wharf he was met by the governor and other civil officers, amid the thunder of artillery; and by the Cincinnati and a civic and military escort he was ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... I believe it's 198, any how, since my great grandfather's grand-uncle's ould mare was swept out of the 'Island,' in the dead of the night, about half an hour after the whole country had been ris out of their beds by the thunder and lightning. Many a field of oats and many a life, both of beast and Christian, was lost in it, especially of those that lived on the bottoms about the edge of the river: and it was true for them that said it came before something; for the next year was one 'of the hottest summers ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Helen was born of an egg, And scarcely ten years had gone by, When Theseus beginning to beg, Decoyed the young chicken to fly. When Tyndarus heard the disaster, He crackled and thunder'd like Etna, So out gallop'd Pollux and Castor, And caught her a furlong from Gretna. Singing rattledum, Greek Romanorum, And hey classicality row. Singing birchery, floggera, borum, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... the man began to run, and at the corner ran into a file of soldiers, who were coming into the yards. Sommers turned up the street and walked rapidly in the direction of the city. The first drops of a thunder-shower that had been lowering over the city for hours were falling, and they brought a pleasant coolness into the sultry atmosphere. That was the end! The "riot" would be drowned ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... give me my shawl, Henry Ireton. (He does so.) There's Oliver coming. Now you can all be thunder. ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater
... keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... that, spoiled with praising, tries At every step to win admiring eyes,— No favourite mountebank, whose acting draws From gaping crowds loud thunder of applause, Was vainer than the King: his only thirst Was to be hailed, in every race, the first. When tournament was held, in knightly guise The King would ride the lists and win the prize; When music charmed the court, with golden lyre The King would take the stage and lead ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... over the park he dances in, surely there is thunder brooding. His figure stands out, bright, large, and fantastic. But all around him is sultry twilight, and the clouds, pregnant with thunder, lower over him as he dances, and the elms are dim with unusual shadow. There is a tiny river in the ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... principle, and having learnt his knowledge of the world in the hard school of adversity, hastily claimed the microphone as a variety of his invention, but imprudently charged Professor Hughes and his friend, Mr. W. H. Preece, who had visited Edison at Menlo Park, with having 'stolen his thunder.' The imputation was indignantly denied, and it was obvious to all impartial electricians that Professor Hughes had arrived at his results by a path quite independent of the carbon transmitter, and ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... man, I know thy perplexity; listen to thy father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain. Ortogrul looked, and saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noise of thunder, and scattering, its foam on the impending woods. Now, said his father, behold the valley that lies ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... held up his pen, saying, "That is the First Consul, who has arrived with his army." The foreign commanders were much taken aback, but after a long pause it was realised that the sound was that of thunder, and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... with rollicking laughter. "That's a good un. Ere's a kid ain't eard where we been. Been!" the sudden thunder in his voice. "Why, in Boulong Arbour among Boney's craft. H'in and h'out, under Nap's nose. Stormed the Arbour Battery; set the gun-vessels afire; and came out under their guns, colours at the truck, and the bosun's boy in ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... object we saw is also attributed to the fairies, the great menhir, called Men-er-Groach, or stone of the fairies. It is the largest menhir known, but it has been broken into three pieces, some say by thunder. Put together, it measures about 67 feet in length, and is 16 feet in diameter. The wonder is how it was placed there, for it is little less than the obelisk of St. Peter's, which took 800 to 900 men and 70 horses nearly a year to raise,—a work which ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... with a horse between his knees, his easy body swaying in the saddle as he rode among the villages and towns. The friendly people ran (so his fancy continued) to their close-mouths to look upon his regiment passing to the roll and thunder of the drums and the cheery music of the pipes. Long days of march and battle, numerous nights of wearied ease upon the heather, if heather there should be, the applause of citadels, the smile of girls. The smile ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... awaiting the power that was to give them direction and greater force. The flashes from the heavens were not in quick succession; but the few that did break upon the gloominess of the scene came in majesty, and with dazzling brightness. They were accompanied by the terrific thunder of the tropics in which it is scarcely profanation to fancy that the voice of One who made the universe is actually speaking to the creatures of his hand. On every side, was the appearance of a fierce and dangerous struggle in the elements. The vessel of the Rover ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... away Jeremiah Stokes left his loom forever. It didn't put him out any. It was a stormy night for the flitting—thunder and lightning and wind and rain—but ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... heavily, and the north wind blew, and there was thunder also. Lampblack, out in the storm without his tin house to shelter him, felt that of all creatures wretched on the face of the earth there was not one so ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... with the job!" he snarled, addressing Mr. Atkins, who, partially dressed, emerged from the bedroom in bewilderment and sleepy astonishment. "To thunder with it, I say! I've had all the gov'ment jobs I want. Life-savin' service was bad enough, trampin' the condemned beach in a howlin' no'theaster, with the sand cuttin' furrers in your face, and the icicles on your mustache so heavy you got round-shouldered luggin' ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... peaceful and silver streams. There no harsh and boisterous winds are permitted to shake and disturb the air, and ravage the beauty of the groves; there prevails no melancholy, nor darksome weather, no drowning rain, nor pelting hail; no forked lightning, nor rending and resounding thunder; no wintry pinching cold, nor withering and panting summer heat; nor any thing else that can give pain or sorrow or annoyance; but all is bland and gentle and serene; a perpetual youth and joy reigns throughout all nature, and ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Papacy of Rome, founded by the Devil, surpassed Cicero and the humanists and all that had ever been known in the virulence of its invective against "the most hellish father, St. Paul, or Paula III" and his "hellish Roman church." "One would like to curse them," he wrote, "so that thunder and lightning would strike them, hell fire burn them, the plague, syphilis, epilepsy, scurvy, leprosy, carbuncles, and all diseases attack them"—and so on for page after page. Of course such lack of restraint largely defeated its own ends. The ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... our lives, like the gates that give upon an arena, gates giving on a darkness—through which anything might come. Even death. Suppose suddenly we were to see one of those great Zeppelins in the air, or hear the thunder of guns away towards the coast. And if a messenger came upon a bicycle telling us to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... worthy of itself on great occasions, but is apt to discover the absurdity of staking existence on small ones. Ariosto did not care to travel out of Italy. He preferred, he says, going round the earth in a map; visiting countries without having to pay innkeepers, and ploughing harmless seas without thunder and lightning[40]. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... bombilation[obs3], roar, uproar, racket, hubbub, bobbery[obs3], fracas, charivari[obs3], trumpet blast, flourish of trumpets, fanfare, tintamarre[obs3], peal, swell, blast, larum[obs3], boom; bang (explosion) 406; resonance &c. 408. vociferation, hullabaloo, &c. 411; lungs; Stentor. artillery, cannon; thunder. V. be loud &c. adj.; peal, swell, clang, boom, thunder, blare, fulminate, roar; resound &c. 408. speak up, shout &c. (vociferate) 411; bellow &c. (cry as an animal) 412. rend the air, rend the skies; fill the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... A vivid flash of lightning shot across the open window, and a crash of thunder followed it immediately. The storm was ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... them, however, was a professed social reformer, a bold bad man of doubtful extraction, who was leagued with the aunt in a plan to marry Magdalen to himself and secure control of the cash. So Magdalen gave a Venetian Carnival in her great house, and it came on to thunder, and she found herself alone in a gondola with the painter (favourite hanger-on), who attempted, too vigorously, to improve the shining hour, and it was all rather awkward, when—romantically opportune arrival of the hero (name of Denvers), ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... A clap of thunder that seemed to make the park quake broke over their heads, followed by some thick drops. The Castle was close at hand; Oswald had avoided entering it; but the impending storm was so menacing that, hurried on by Coningsby, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... question, my brother and cousin were on their way homeward. They were just mounting one of the long, low swells, into which the prairie was broken, when they heard a low, muttering, rumbling noise, like far-off thunder. It grew steadily louder, and, not knowing what it meant, they hurried forward to the top of the rise. As they reached it, they stopped short in terror and amazement, for before them the whole prairie was black ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Under the burning satire and mellowing pathos of his tremendous appeal for heathendom, tears welled out from every eye in the house. I leaned over toward the reporter's table; many of the reporters had flung down their pens—they might as well have attempted to report a thunder storm. As the orator drew near his close, he seemed like one inspired; his face shone as if it were, the face of an angel. Never before did I so fully realize the overwhelming power of a man who has become the embodiment of one great idea—who ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... two companies had placed their pikemen in the front line, Charlie had placed his in the rear, in order to repel any attack of cavalry from that direction. He now formed them in a close clump, taking his place among them. The Russian squadrons came along with a deep roll like that of thunder. They were but thirty yards away when they perceived the little cluster of men with levelled lances. A few, unable to check their horses, rushed upon the points, but most of them reined in their little steeds in time. In a moment, the Swedes were surrounded by ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... roused the Genius of the Lake! He heard the groaning of the oak, And donned at once his sable cloak, As warrior, at the battle-cry, Invests him with his panoply: Then as the whirlwind nearer pressed, He 'gan to shake his foamy crest O'er furrowed brow and blackened cheek, And bade his surge in thunder speak. In wild and broken eddies whirled, Flitted that fond ideal world, And, to the shore in tumult tost, The realms of fairy ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... edge of the porch, a fierce yell, an outburst of Indian war-cries, a surging forward of the escort at the chieftain's back, a rush and scurry in the offices, the slamming of doors, the flash and report of a dozen revolvers, a distant roar and thunder of a thousand hoofs and chorus of thrilling yells, a scream from the women and children in the cellars below, a ringing cheer from the stockade, followed by the resonant bang, bang of the cavalry carbine, and all in an instant a mad, whirling maelstrom of struggle right at the steps, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... you so!" I heard C. muttering like distant thunder, and asked him mildly if he preferred to take the wheel; but his finger was even more painful than his temper. I felt his glare like a gimlet in the back; but Pat more loudly than needful expressed her delight ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... "Thunder 'n' Moses!" ejaculated the sharp, pulling out his watch—an elegant affair, of pure gold, and studded with diamonds—and laying it ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... of ages these mammoth falls may have receded so far as to open with one terrific plunge the eastern end of Lake Erie. Long before the Falls are reached we hear the mighty roar which made the Indians call the cataract Niagara, or "the thunder of the waters." On leaving here, we cross the river by a suspension bridge, which, from a short distance, looks like a mere spider's web. Over this the cars move slowly, affording a superb view of the Falls and of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... heavily, persistently, provokingly. Now and then came a crash of thunder which seemed to shake the earth; vivid lightning cut zigzags in the murky sky. The little islands of the Babuyan group in the Balintang channel seemed to rock in the arms of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to destroy his rebellious people. Samuel, that lovely example of early piety, and the judge and deliverer of Israel, was given in answer to the prayer of his mother. When the children of Israel were in danger of being overthrown by the Philistines, Samuel prayed, and God sent thunder and lightning, and destroyed the armies of their enemies. Again, to show their rebellion against God, in asking a king, he prayed, and God sent thunder and lightning upon them in the time of wheat harvest. In order to punish the idolatry and rebellion of the Israelites, Elijah prayed ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... so loud," whispered Pollnitz, "it will be you who will wake this hero, and the thunder of his ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... gaze, when danger is in the wind—and then their antlers to unpractised eyes seem but boughs grotesque, or are invisible; and when all at once, with one accord, at signal from the stag, whom they obey, they wheel off towards the Corries, you think it but thunder, and look up to the clouds. Fortunate if you see such a sight once in your life. Once only have we seen it; and it was, of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... a clergyman, preaching honesty and moral conduct, and living fairly well up to his preaching, too, as far as he himself was concerned! The Captain almost thought that the earth and skies should be brought together, and the clouds clap with thunder, and the mountains be riven in twain at the very mention of his father's wickedness. But then sins committed against oneself are so much more sinful ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes came across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When the tramontana blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms also came frequently, with the roar of heaven's artillery reverberating from peak to peak, and enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like the smoke from Napoleon's cannon; after which they would career down the valley of the Arno to Pisa, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Leverage with a slight touch of exasperation in his manner—"who in thunder could have killed Warren if she ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... sometimes called the thunder fish, an inhabitant of African rivers, occurring in the Nile and Senegal. It possesses considerable electric power, similar to that of the gymnotus and torpedo, ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... possible, crossed the Rhine under Ehrenbreitstein, and so to Castel, over against Mayntz, in which city his Grace, his generals, and his retinue were received at the landing-place by the Elector's coaches, carried to his Highness's palace amidst the thunder of cannon, and then once more magnificently entertained. Gidlingen, in Bavaria, was appointed as the general rendezvous of the army, and thither, by different routes, the whole forces of English, Dutch, Danes, and German auxiliaries took their way. The foot and artillery under General Churchill ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... awe. Early in the morning we crossed the Rappahannock on a pontoon bridge and marched up the hill to an open plain. The roar of the battle was simply terrific, shading off from the sharp continuous thunder immediately about us to dull, heavy mutterings far to the right and left. A few hundred yards before us, where the ground began to slope up to the fatal heights crowned with Confederate works and ordnance, were long lines of Union batteries. From their iron mouths puffs of smoke issued incessantly, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... parties," while Mr. Berger was lately predicting that Senator La Follette would be "told to get out" of the Republican Party. The reformer who was so recently "retrogressive" had now become a rival in reform. Mr. Berger, however, claims that he does not object when reformers "steal the Socialist thunder." If both are striving after the "immediately attainable," how indeed could there be any lasting conflict, or serious difference of opinion? Or if there is to be any difference at all between Socialists and "Insurgents," is it not clear that the Socialists must reject, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... not fail to record their deeds of faithfulness and heroism. The least we can do for such is to bring to light their actions and preserve their history. When beneath the shade of the forest, on the trackless desert, on the rushing river, in tempest and thunder, or when watching in the vicinity of an old fort or near the log cabin of the early colonists, the Red man has been found a faithful friend and guide; should not his deeds of kindness, faithfulness and bravery ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... at first like a dark line, or low cloud, or fog-bank, on the sea-ward horizon. The day was fine though cloudy, and a gentle breeze was blowing; but the sea was not rougher, or the breaker on the coral reef that encircled the island higher, than usual. It was supposed to be an approaching thunder-storm; but the line gradually drew nearer without spreading upon the sky, as would have been the case had it been a thunder-cloud. Still nearer it came, and soon those on shore observed that it ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... turned into all kinds of shapes, and assumed strange and terrible forms, but when they found that they were unable to escape, they told Numa much of the future, and showed him how to make a charm against thunder-bolts, which is used to this day, and is made of onions and hair and sprats. Some say that it was not these deities who told him the charm, but that they by magic arts brought down Jupiter from heaven, and he, in a rage, ordered Numa to make the charm of "Heads"; ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... in a moment, the whole heavens above them and the forest around were illumined by a flash of lightning so near them that it made each of them start in his saddle, and made the horses shudder in every limb. Then came the roll of thunder immediately over their heads, and with the thunder rain so thick and fast that Harry's "ten thousand buckets" seemed to be ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... was nought but—'Little children, love one another'; and who yet could denounce the liar and the hater and the covetous man, and proclaim the vengeance of God against all evildoers, with all the fierceness of an Isaiah? It was enough for him—let it be enough for us—that he should see, above the thunder- cloud, and the rain of blood, and the scorpion swarm, and the great angel calling all the fowl of heaven to the supper of the great God, that they might eat the flesh of kings and valiant men, a city of God eternal in the heavens, and yet eternally descending among men; a perfect order, justice, ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... a small boy danced and yelled and firmly to one of the capering feet was hung a large mud turtle which was flapped this way and that by the strenuous young leg, but which held on with apparently every intention of letting only the traditional thunder loosen its ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... civil and military functionaries to their homes. It was not a great pageant, but was an impressive gathering. Society, in which the Southern element predominated, sneered at the tall ruler who had learned so few of its graces and insincerities, and took but little note of the thunder-clouds in the political atmosphere,—the distant rumblings which heralded the approaching storm so soon to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... were laughing not at his wit, but at the ridiculous incongruity of the two voices—the gigantic feeble fife, and the petty deep, loud drum, the mountain delivered of a squeak, and the mole-hill belching thunder. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... chance to hear great singers before I went to South Africa," he added, reflectively, "and this swallows me like a storm on the high veld—all lightning and thunder and flood. I've missed a lot ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... them," Olaf said. "He rides through the sky and hurls his hammer at clouds and at mountains. That makes the thunder and the lightning and cracks the hills. His hammer never misses its aim, and it always comes back to his hand and is eager to ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... had been in a ferment ever since that mad action of the frantic fifth-monarchy men, and was not yet settled; but storms, like thunder-showers, flew here and there by coast, so that we could not promise ourselves any safety or quiet in our meetings. And though they had escaped disturbance for some little time before, yet so it fell out that a party of horse were appointed to come and break ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... don't know which. But just as you said, Max, they are coming this way full tilt. Whew! sounds like there might be a round dozen in the bunch, and from a yapping ki-yi to a big Dane, with his heavy bark like the muttering of thunder." ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... valuable account of the island; but from that time to the present, no Englishman has written on Corsica except Mr. Robert Benson, who published some short “Sketches” of its history, scenery, and people in 1825. During the war of the revolution, Nelson's squadron hung like a thunder-cloud round the coast, and for some time an expeditionary force of British troops held possession of the island. Our George the Third accepted the Corsican crown, but his reign was as ephemeral as that of ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Thursday. The wedding-dress is being fashioned, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen have arrived. Edith has requested me to be special mistress of ceremonies on Thursday evening, and I have told this terrible little rebel, who talks nothing but blood and thunder, yet faints at the sight of a worm, that if I fill that office no one shall mention war or politics during the whole evening, on ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... rather chuse, Arm'd with Hell flames and fury, all at once O'er Heavens high tow'rs to force resistless way, Turning our tortures into horrid arms Against the Torturer; when to meet the Noise Of his almighty Engine he shall hear Infernal Thunder, and for Lightning see Black fire and horror shot with equal rage Among his Angels; and his throne it self Mixt with Tartarean Sulphur, and strange Fire, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Sliding down a heap of sand and stones, I stood under an arch eighty feet high; in front the breakers dashed into the entrance, flinging the spray half-way to the roof, while the sound rang up through the arches like thunder. It seemed to me the haunt of the old ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... up the great cavern of the chimney, telling stories of past exploits, speculating as to the present, praying perhaps for the future, and pausing now and then to listen to strange noises abroad in the night-ridden sky—strains of ghostly music playing a march or a charge, or the thunder of phantom guns. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... occasional juniper scrub. It was covered with mossy hillocks, and with a short grass, meagre but sweet. There in the chilly gloom, straining her ears to catch the lightest footfall of approaching peril, but hearing only the hushed thunder of the surf, stood a lonely ewe over the lamb to which she had given ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "What in thunder has that got to do with the case? Paper is paper, printing is printing, and pictures ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... there not some hidden curse, Some chosen thunder in the stores of heaven, Red with uncommon wrath to blast the man That seeks his greatness in ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... in her mind, Miss Eastman went hurrying through the streets. Twilight had set in, close and sultry, with low grumblings of thunder, and there was that stillness in the air, that strange sense of waiting, which precedes the storm. Gray, scarf-like films were speeding across the black-purple sky, and were suddenly rent by a zig-zag ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... cup, leaving not a single drop, but as the goblet was not yet full, he poured more of the same wine into it from another bottle, and finally drank it off to the prosperity of the married pair. The toast was enthusiastically received; the music again began to play and the cannon to thunder. The cup went the rounds of the table, and its virtue was such, that a hundred bottles of old wine were emptied before it had made the entire circuit. After this crowning honor, each left the table as best ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... dogs, and hammer handles" as Tom Rover expressed it. All was dark, the only light being that given forth by the lantern which had not been blown out. Occasionally came a flash of lightning, followed by the distant rolling of thunder. ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... cancer in the throat. And now the silver-tongued von Bethmann-Hollweg has also discovered the political virtue of silence. The people have been loudly clamouring for a few words of comfort, but above the thunder of the distant guns we only hear the scribblers of a servile Press, who are beating the air with ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... lonely barns that nearly always had a board ripped out—the tramps' door. I tried to avoid the gang, but I was not always successful. I remember still with a shudder an instance of that kind. I was burrowing in a haymow, thinking myself alone. In the night a big storm came up. The thunder shook the old barn, and I sat up wondering if it would be blown away. A fierce lightning-flash filled it with a ghostly light, and showed me within arm's length a white and scared face with eyes starting from their sockets ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... moment the eerie darkness quivered and broke into startling light. Twigs and leaves and bluebell spears and tiny patterns of moss seemed to leap at him and vanish as he ran: and two minutes after, high above the agitated tree-tops, the thunder spoke. No mere growl now; but crash on crash that seemed to be tearing the sky in two and set the little hammers inside ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the cliffs and the meadow, the stream and the groves were darkening fast. Black masses of cloud were swelling up in the south, and the thunder was growling ominously. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... One while the spectacle, conjured up by a word or two was that of—"Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white characters." Another, with startling effect, it was—"An earthquake, with thunder and lightning, going up express to London." Here it is that Barbox Brothers, in the midst of these ghostly apparitions, is eventually extricated from the melancholy plight in which he finds himself saturated and isolated in the middle of a ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Light is, in reality, more awful than darkness—modesty more majestic than strength; and there is truer sublimity in the sweet joy of a child, or the sweet virtue of a maiden, than in the strength of Antaeus, or thunder-clouds ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the lightning leaped upward and forward, striking straight and low, sometimes, as though it were ripping up the horizon to let into the conflict the host of dropping stars. Then the artillery of the thunder crashed in earnest through the shaking heavens, and the mists below pitched like smoke belched from gigantic unseen cannon. The coming sun answered with upleaping swords of fire and, as the black thunder hosts swept overhead, Chad saw, for one moment, the whole east ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... deep problems of divinity which, as he confessed, had puzzled even his royal mind. Barneveld modestly disclaimed the power of seeing with absolute clearness into things beyond the reach of the human intellect. But the honest Netherlanders were not abashed by thunder from the royal pulpit, nor perplexed by hesitations which darkened the soul of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Jasper; what in the name of thunder are you making all that row about? And what are you doing waking up a man this time o' night! Hold on! You're an obstinate man, and I guess you'll bust my door unless I let ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... announced from head-quarters that an attack at that time was impracticable. It would have cost the lives of hundreds of the prisoners, and perhaps the capture or destruction of the whole of us." So the storm blew over, without the leaden rain, and its usual accompaniment of thunder and lightning. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... cracked their finger-joints quickly or slowly and so were able to communicate with each other over immense distances, for by dint of long practice they could make great explosive sounds which were nearly like thunder, and gentler sounds like the tapping of grey ashes on a hearthstone. The Thin Woman hated her own child, but she loved the Grey Woman's baby, and the Grey Woman loved the Thin Woman's infant but could not abide her own. A compromise may put an end to ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... power); but of what proof did such a supposition admit? The leaders of the people were themselves members of the senatorial order and scions of the nobility of office. Marius the "new man" might thunder his appeal for a purer atmosphere and a wider field; but it would be long, if ever, before the councils of the State would be administered by men who might be deemed virtuous because ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... A wagon rumbles over the bridge, and the farmer and his wife, jogging along, do not know that they have startled a lazy boy into a momentary fancy that a thunder-shower is coming up. John can see as he lies there on a still summer day, with the fishes and the birds for company, the road that comes down the left bank of the river,—a hot, sandy, well-traveled road, hidden from view here and there by trees and bushes. The chief point of interest, however, is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... A thunder-storm sometimes clears the air; and the passion of resistance into which Christian had been goaded apparently cooled the family atmosphere for a few days. But she herself felt only a dead-weight—a ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the slaying of Halulu in the legend of Aukelenuiaiku is a close parallel to the Indian account of the adventure with the thunder bird. (See Matthews's "Navajo legends.") The thunder bird is often mentioned in Hawaiian chants. In the "Song of Creation" the last stanza of the third or bird era ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or, at length, by His exterminating thunder, manifest His attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... the north and east there was nothing but ice, piled-up masses and grinning mountains of it, white at first, of a somber gray farther off, and then purple and almost black. There came to him now the low, never-ceasing thunder of the undercurrents fighting their way down from the Arctic Ocean, broken now and then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like a great knife, through one of the frozen mountains. He had listened to those sounds for five months, and in those five months he had heard no other voice ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... stooped to examine the man's huge and hairy carcase that to me looked only half human, with a thunder of feet our Amahagger rushed down upon us and thrusting me aside, fell upon the body of their ancient foe like hounds upon a helpless fox, and with hands and spears and knives literally tore and hacked it limb from limb, till no ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the thunder spoke and the lightning flashed,—then a hurried catching of his breath and the ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and we have sped, Pull away, gallant boys! Where the rolling wave was red, Pull away! We 've stood many a mighty shock, Like the thunder-stricken oak, We 've been bent, but never broke, Pull away, gallant boys! We ne'er brook'd a foreign yoke, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... paper, which made an incredible noise, and let off a Waterloo cracker, which reverberated along the walls like thunder, and done other deeds of the same kind below, we ascended, and walking over the back of the cavern, presently came upon the passage which leads to its inner opening; and there, leaning over a parapet wall, (in doing which we almost exclude the feeble light ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... offices. The events that he had lately seen had not induced him in any way to modify his opinion. He had heard Pitt thundering away against Carteret in exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country." He had seen the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... from the dark roadside, felt their hearts stop. There was a long pause, then the final count, followed a second later by a gush of flame. The man dropped, his breast riddled. At the same instant the thunder-storm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled wildly, believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... music began again with such violence that the painted canvas trembled. The clown, having seized the sticks of a drum fixed on one of the beams of the scaffolding, mingled a triumphant rataplan with the bombardment of the bass-drum, the cracked thunder of the cymbals, and the distracted wail of the clarionet. The ringmaster, roaring again with his heavy voice, announced that the show was about to begin, and, as a sign of defiance, he threw two or three old fencing-gloves among his fellow-wrestlers. The crowd rushed into the tent, and soon ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... of sunlight and clear air, of mornings as enchanting as dreams, of dreams as full of magic as May mornings. Then an interminable Sunday hot and sultry, with rolling purple clouds and an evening of thunder and heavy showers. A magenta sunset, a night working, hidden in its own darkness, its own secret purposes, and a Monday morning gray beyond belief, ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... of which you speak so slightingly—the heart and, even above that, upon the blood. 'Help is needed there,' cried the kind heart just now, and then the blood did its 'devoir'. The act followed the desire as the sound follows the blow of the hammer, the thunder the flash of lightning. Well for the castle that is ruled by such a mistress! I am only the servant, and respect commands me to curb my tongue; but to-day I had news from home through the Provost Werner, of Lucerne, whom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... doubt, Unto his poor parishioners about Of his off'ring and eke of his substance. He could in little wealth have suffisance. Wide was his parish, houses far asunder, Yet failed he not for either rain or thunder In sickness nor mischance to visit all The furthest in his parish, great and small, Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. This noble ensample to his sheep he gave, That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught Out of the Gospel he those wordes caught, And this figure ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... run out yourself,' added his mother, 'you are flooding the whole room.... The Word was made Flesh,' she added under her breath, as a terrific clap of thunder shook the house. Magda crossed herself; Jendrek laughed and cried, 'What a din! there's another.... The Lord Jesus is enjoying ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various |
