"Thunderclap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... final day came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find that it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it wasn't ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... of Cacama's arrest and imprisonment came like a thunderclap. He was in the habit of frequently seeing Malinche, who still retained the warm feeling of friendship for him that had originated at Tabasco, and with whom he often had long talks of their life in those days; but she had let no word drop as to the doings of Cacama. She had questioned him ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... like a thunderclap from a clear sky. Peter Newby saw, at once, the significance of the statement, and he shifted uneasily in his seat. He riveted his eyes to the text, in an effort to discover some point that would be in opposition to Robert's statement. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... sword included, appeared. For a brief space he stood there in the doorway, glowering; then, doubtless in obedience to some signal that I failed to note, the spear which every warrior held in his right hand was raised aloft, and the royal salute of "Bayete! Bayete! Bayete!" pealed out like a thunderclap on the startled air, and all was ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Hiram's nut cakes really held an assortment of firecrackers and pinwheels for which Warren Sloane had sent to town by St. Clair Donnell's father the day before, intending to have a birthday celebration that evening. The crackers went off in a thunderclap of noise and the pinwheels bursting out of the door spun madly around the room, hissing and spluttering. Anne dropped into her chair white with dismay and all the girls climbed shrieking upon their desks. Joe Sloane stood as one transfixed in the midst of the commotion and ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... boy with a pang that he should never be able to recall it again in its entirety. For the genius of modern progress is contemptuous of old landmarks and impatient of delays. And swift as its race is elsewhere, it is only in that part of the South which has become "industrial" that it came as a thunderclap, with all the intermediate and accelerative steps taken at a bound. Men spoke of it as "the boom." It was not that. It was merely that the spirit of modernity had discovered a hitherto overlooked corner of the field, and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... bird of twilight flashed through the air with its fluttering of red wings. Closely following came a thunderclap that made the houses and ground tremble.... The sunset gun! Aguirre, in his agony, could see in his mind's eye a high wall of crags, flying gulls, the foamy, roaring sea, a misty evening light, the same as that which now ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... night in our sophomore club when the news came like a thunderclap that one of our members had been killed pole-vaulting at a track meet in New York. It was our habit, in our new-found manliness, to eat with our hats on, shout and sing, and speak of our food as "tapeworm," "hemorrhage," and the like. I ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... thunderclap, a half-dozen voices somewhere in the Quad gave the yell. Craig stopped speaking and looked at the class, who gazed back at him. A man with his back to the windows stood up and looked out. The seats creaked ominously. Then, like grass after ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... breath, expecting a thunderclap or some other outward token of the sudden death of Belvane's muse. Instead she was struck by the extraordinary silence of the place. She had a horrid feeling that everybody else was dead, and realising all at once that she was a very wicked little girl, she ran up to her ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... catechisms or primers. Susanna herself nodded sleepily, and indulgently allowed to pass unnoticed the jokes and teasing, by means of which we tried to keep ourselves awake. Not even the flies were buzzing, except the very small ones which are always lively, when all of a sudden the first thunderclap sounded and reverberated, crashing and roaring, among the worm-eaten rafters of the old, dilapidated house. In the most desperate combination, such as only occurs during storms in the north, a clatter ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... through the room a thunderclap of memory. There had been words drawled there the night before that now detonated in Ellen's mind.... "What am I to do, Ellen, to keep my sons ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... undertone she would add: "Now, then, Tartarin!" Whereupon Tartarin of Tarascon, with crooked arms, clenched fists, and quivering nostrils, would roar three times in a formidable voice, rolling like a thunderclap in the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... and fiercer than the first, came like a thunderclap after the King's words. It was the bay of a fierce pack ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... need of being extinguished. I bump into a stone, and kick it to one side purely physically. I put it to one side for fear some one will stumble upon it, intelligently; I respond to a meaning which the thing has. I am startled by a thunderclap whether I recognize it or not—more likely, if I do not recognize it. But if I say, either out loud or to myself, that is thunder, I respond to the disturbance as a meaning. My behavior has a mental quality. When things have a ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single voice—that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... thunderclap on a moonlit night. It was sudden tempest prefaced by the lull of perfect calm. It was the signal to combat sounded when peace seemed assured. The young man perceived now how much of his early zeal had deserted him. He shrank from the task the Governor had assigned to him. It was ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... of the Reserves. Add, but without affirming it positively, that I may go as far as Geneva. In any case, let it be well impressed on everyone that I shall not be absent more than a fortnight. If anything unusual happens I shall return like a thunderclap. I commend to your keeping all the great interests of France; and I hope you will soon hear of me by ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... to get ready. While this was being done the Kaiser with the Austrian war lords worked out a plan by which the act of this Servian youth could be laid upon the nation and be made an excuse for war. So on the twenty-fourth day after the assassination came the ultimatum from Austria. It came as a thunderclap out of ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... left Calcutta late in March, 1862; at Malta they parted never to meet again in this world. Lord Canning proceeded to England, and Yule joined his wife and child in Rome. Only a few weeks later, at Florence, came as a thunderclap the announcement of Lord Canning's unexpected death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present writer remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule's deep anguish, not assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the loss of a most noble and magnanimous friend, a statesman whose ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... none of that great man, what great men would you like? He had everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... thunderclap, and they were like to swoon with the terror of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused their energies, and they stopped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They discussed this, that, and the other way, and talked till the afternoon was far spent, then ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... inexpectation^, non-expectation; false expectation &c (disappointment) 509; miscalculation &c 481. surprise, sudden burst, thunderclap, blow, shock, start; bolt out of the blue; wonder &c 870; eye opener. unpleasant surprise, pleasant surprise. V. not expect &c 507; be taken by surprise; start; miscalculate &c 481; not bargain for; come upon, fall upon. be unexpected &c adj.; come unawares &c adv.; turn up, pop, drop from the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast." An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice— For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. 'Twas on me like a thunderclap—it racked me through an' through— Temptation past the show o' speech, unnamable an' new— The Sin against the Holy Ghost?... An' under all, our screw. That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell, Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... The thunderclap of the European war shattered the uneasy calm in China, not because the Chinese knew anything of the mighty issues which were to be fought out with such desperation and valour, but because the presence of the German colony of Kiaochow on Chinese soil and the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to issue an order. But it was never issued. At that moment a terrific rolling thunderclap drowned his voice and shook the very air. Colonel Bishop jumped, his negroes jumped with him, and so even did the apparently imperturbable Mr. Blood. Then the four of them stared ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Then the winds, making a loud roar and agitating all the oceans, brought together masses of clouds in the sky, charged with torrents of rain. Those masses of clouds began to vomit thunder and terrible flashes of lightning charged with the thunderclap. Then Arjuna possessing a knowledge of means, hurled the excellent weapon called Vayavya with proper mantras to dispel those clouds. With that weapon the energy and force of Indra's thunderbolt and of those clouds were destroyed. And the torrents of rain with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... onely the dunge. Wherefore he returned thence into his owne land, and there he ordayned lawes and statutes, which the Tartars doe most strictly and inuiolably obserue, of the which we haue before spoken. [Sidenote: The death of Chingis. His sonnes.] He was afterward slaine by a thunderclap. He had foure sonnes: the first was called Occoday, the second Thossut Can, the third Thiaday: the name of the fourth is vnknowen. From these foure descended all the dukes of the Mongals. [Sidenote: His graund children.] The first sonne of Occoday is ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... belief was as fantastic as to demand, let us say, a chemical proof of the beauty of a picture, or evidence in terms of light or sound for the moral character of a friend, or mathematical proof for the love of a mother for her child. This very elementary idea seems to have come like a thunderclap upon many who claimed the name of 'thinkers'; for it entirely destroyed a whole artillery of arguments previously ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... ordered some sausages. The weather happened to be tempestuous, and just as he raised his knife and fork to attack the savory morsel, a violent clap of thunder nearly frightened him out of his senses. Gathering courage, he essayed a second time, but another thunderclap warned him to desist. A third attempt was foiled in the same way. Whereupon he threw down his knife and fork and made for the door, exclaiming "What a dreadful fuss about ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... still, 'Phira! You must keep still, else you may be hurt. Wait. I'll take you on my lap, as Molly has 'Nias. Now—see the pretty horses?" answered Dorothy, and involuntarily shivered as a fresh thunderclap fell on ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... the Fizzer came in and went on, to face a "merry Christmas with damper and beef served in style on a pack-bag," also regretting empty mail-bags—the Southern mail having been delayed en route. Tam and the Sanguine Scot accepted invitations to the Christmas dinner; and the Wet broke in one terrific thunderclap, as the heavens, opening, emptied ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... can lift him into Bullimah. As the spirit is hoisted in, one of the Mooroobeaigunnil, knocks the lowest one in the ladder of spirits down; thud to the earth come the rest, making a sound like a thunderclap, which the far away tribes ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... Jameson had started, in spite of these messages, came on the Reformers like a thunderclap. They were not ready—they had not sufficient arms to fight with, and they were not of one mind. The doing had been easy enough, and they had fancied the undoing would be as simple. They had laid their ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... noise in the little adobe like a thunderclap! A red pencil of flame streaked out between the two men. Then the smoke rolled out, dense and choking. Thud! A gun dropped to ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... an answer came. For at that moment, accompanied by a fearful thunderclap, there shot from the storm overhead, which had now nearly passed away, one of those awful flashes that sometimes end an African tempest. It lit up the scene with a light vivid as that of day, and in the white heart ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... jumped from an adder, but she did not spring far—not, indeed, beyond arm's length—and then, quick as thought, she raised her little hand and dealt him a box on the ear with such right goodwill that it sounded among the trees like a miniature thunderclap. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... like a thunderclap. No one expected it, least of all the youth himself. Every eye was turned toward him and his face flushed scarlet. He quickly rallied from the daze into which he was thrown at first, and with his old swagger, looked at the teacher and replied ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... took the news philosophically enough, with some rather sardonic remark about my patient and me being well qualified to keep each other company. But to my mother it was a flash of joy, followed by a thunderclap of consternation. I had only three under-shirts, the best of my linen had gone to Belfast to be refronted and recuffed, the night-gowns were not marked yet—there were a dozen of those domestic difficulties ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... seemed to shake and a thunderclap burst in my ears. I opened my eyes,—I was splashed all over with sticky mud, and men were picking themselves up from the bottom of the trench. The parapet on my left had toppled into the trench, completely ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... fancies of the poets and the hints of ingenious writers, the announcement that a means of hoarding speech had been devised burst like a thunderclap upon the world. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... cry, 'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,' there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, 'Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!' Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the 'mighty hunter' and builder of the tower of Babel,—in Dante, a tower of a man in his own person, standing with some of his brother giants up to the middle in a pit in hell, blowing a horn to which a thunderclap is a whisper, and hallooing after Dante and his guide in the jargon of a lost tongue! The transformations are too odious to quote: but of the towering giant we cannot refuse ourselves the 'fearful joy' of a specimen. It was twilight, Dante tells us, and he and his guide Virgil were ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... into his inner state, and the magnetic outward splendor disappeared, and his inner wretchedness and distress were manifest, and he could not stand any longer before me, and, with an explosion like a powerful thunderclap, he left me and took the direction to Europe. The title of my third volume, if we translate it from German ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... mind is made up. I will speak as soon as I have seen Zinca Klork. The poor girl must be told with consideration. The death of her betrothed must not come upon her like a thunderclap. Yes! To-morrow, as soon as we ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... Dr. Van Noostile. "When it is about to rain, you will observe that the swallows fly low! and as I don't see a sign of a swallow, you may depend that——" His speech was interrupted by a thunderclap, and then down poured the flood! in one of those sudden, heavy showers that so often take place in summer, wetting the whole party to the skin in less than two minutes. It was of no use to run, and as they plodded along in the wet, our philosophers looked at Dr. Van Noostile with faces in ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... state here the explanation, as we afterwards learned it, of this most unexpected reappearance of the enemy,—which came upon General Walker like a thunderclap, whilst he dreamed they had left him for good and all. It seems that the Vanderbilt Company, whom Walker had made enemies by ousting them from the Transit route, sent an agent (one Spencer) to the disheartened Costa Ricans, who showed them that they might easily strangle the filibuster ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of death for disobedience to one of the prison regulations. Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the representatives of our so-called justice? Like a thunderclap this explanation drives away my hesitation and sadness, which are now replaced by indignation and a limitless horror; and while Nadine, sick and worn, throws herself upon my bed, I mount to my window in order to communicate the news to my neighbours. The narrow ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... they came she hid them from him because she had discovered that they saddened him. And she had so little time to brood, being convinced of the sinfulness of sitting still, that if the clouds came suddenly, they never stayed long save once, and then it was, mayhap, as well. The thunderclap was caused by Tommy, who brought it on unintentionally and was almost as much scared by his handiwork as Grizel herself. She and he had been very friendly of late, partly because they shared with McQueen the secret of the frustrated elopement, partly because they both thought ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... that the outlaws had gradually stolen away through the thickets and taken to the open country, intending to scatter to their homes, or other distant hiding-places; and the news that they had by a ruse captured the castle, came as a thunderclap. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called to caution with a low, swishing ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... and she was somewhat alarmed when, on going upstairs, she failed to find the servant and little Fritz. As she went up to the window, however, in order to shut it, she saw the two come running along. The first thunderclap crashed out, and she started back in terror. Then immediately came ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... word might work an injury which many months of argument could not efface. It is not strange, therefore, that the king was troubled when Petri, in February, 1525, violated every rule of Church propriety by being married publicly in Stockholm. The marriage fell like a thunderclap upon the Church. Brask apparently could not believe his ears. He dashed off a letter to another prelate to inquire whether the report was true, and finding that it was, wrote to the archbishop as well as to the king, denouncing the whole affair. "Though the ceremony ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... time fortune favored him. His mother's reputation for wealth, the knowledge that he was her sole heir, the high position of the family, shielded him from suspicion. Then came the thunderclap. He was caught in the act of "dealing a second" in the English Club, and driven from the club as a blackleg. Other reverses followed: a public refusal on the part of an officer to play cards with him, followed by a like refusal to give him satisfaction in a duel; a ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... was a parable. Those zigzag ribbons of purple fire, the fierce shouting of the thunderclap that followed! In all the wide forest-tracts over which the tempest hung, all that grim artillery did but rend and split some one tough tree. Rather it turned again to gladden the earth, and the tears of heaven, that fell so steeply, only laid the dust of the hot road, and filled ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... through which he could not force his way. Cautiously he exerted his strength. The keen blade hewed through the first of the stellanium strands, but Damis held his breath as the wire parted. It seemed impossible that the ting of parting metal which sounded like a thunderclap in his ears would not be heard by the Viceroy. He knew that there must be an entrance into the room through the hangings and he made his way cautiously forward, testing the draperies from time to ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... he found himself looking into her ardent face with a wonder not unmixed with awe. To his rather cynical view of the Fletchers such an outburst came as little less than a veritable thunderclap, and for the first time in his life he felt a need to modify his conservative theories as to the necessity of blue blood to nourish high ideals. Maria, indeed, seemed to him as she stood there, drawn fine and strong against the curtains of faded green, to hold ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... progressing as evenly as though nothing in the least extraordinary had occurred. The incident was closed—that abrupt swoop of terror and impending death dropping down there from out the darkness, cutting abruptly athwart the gayety of the moment, come and gone with the swiftness of a thunderclap. Many of the women had gone home, taking their men with them; but the great bulk of the crowd still remained, seeing no reason why the episode should interfere with the evening's enjoyment, resolved to hold the ground for mere bravado, if for nothing else. Delaney would not come ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... never before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,—one who had said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her cheeks,—this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the meaning of what he had just heard. No human being ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... of John Brown was another thunderclap. And Abigail showed me what was being said about it. A certain Henry Thoreau, a strange, radical soul living in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts, had compared John Brown to Christ. "Some eighteen hundred ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... you see, I've been keeping pace with the times, Boyd. A man to succeed nowadays must make a boom with something, it matters not what. For years I've been experimenting in secret, and some day I will show them further results of my researches—and they will come upon the profession like a thunderclap, staggering belief." ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... I began to be a little cheerful; but I was knocked down again as with a thunderclap, when turning to the captain's wife, and discoursing of me, she said to her, "Sister, I cannot but think my lady to be very much like such a person." Then she named the person, and the captain's wife said she thought so too. The girl replied again, she was sure she had seen me before, but she could ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... on the wood in thuds, "God, God." The cry of the rook, "God," answers it The crack of the fire on the hearth, the voice of the brook, say the same name; All things, dog, cat, fiddle, baby, Wind, breaker, sea, thunderclap Repeat ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... faults against which she was powerless: what could she do against her plainness? There was no doubt about it. The certainty of her misfortune had suddenly been revealed to her one day when she was looking at herself in the mirror; it came like a thunderclap. Of course she exaggerated the evil, and saw her nose as ten times larger than it was; it seemed to her to fill all her face; she dared not show herself; she wished to die. But there is in youth ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... rounding on him with a fierceness which astonished himself. It was a show to see the way in which Gosse collapsed under this thunderclap of righteous indignation. He looked round at Dick out of the corners of his eyes, very much as a small dog contemplates the boot that has just helped him half-way across the road, and positively forgot to keep his own grimy hand raised aloft ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... may be secured in three ways: (1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure entrance into the mind, it is called involuntary attention. This form of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental life that we shall not ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... would float upright. He yelled into the intercom, and one was chucked overboard ahead. A moment later, I saw it bobbing away astern of us. I put my face into the sight-mask, caught it, centered the cross hairs, and squeezed. The gun gave a thunderclap and recoiled past me, and when I pulled my face out of the mask, I saw a column of water and spray about fifty feet left and a hundred ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... came all were heavily committed to the bull side. It was a bad slump. It was so unexpected—by the lambs—that all of them said, very gravely, it came like a thunderclap out of a clear sky. While it lasted, that is, while the shearing of the flock was proceeding, it was very uncomfortable. Those same joyous, winning stock-gamblers, with beaming faces, of the week before, were ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... text in the 104th Psalm means something more; it means that God makes His angels spirits, (that is winds) and His ministers a flaming fire.' So shewing us that in those breezes there are living spirits, that God's angels guide those thunder-clouds; that the roaring thunderclap is a shock in the air truly, but that it is something more—that it is the voice of God, which shakes the cedar-trees of Lebanon, and tears down the thick bushes, and makes the wild deer slip their young. ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... time when I was carrying Wynston, or laying him in the bed," continued Marston, who spoke rather like one pursuing a horrible reverie, than as a man relating facts to a listener, "I heard a light tread, and soft breathing in the lobby. A thunderclap would have stunned me less that minute. I moved softly, holding my breath, to the door. I believe, in moments of strong excitement, men hear more acutely than at other times; but I thought I heard the rustling of a gown, going from the door again. I waited—it ceased; I waited until ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... dearie, it was a delightful visit, leaving delightful memories of all kinds; chats gay and grave trots long and short, drives, duets—will they ever come again? I am very glad this heart-breaking Irish thunderclap did not fall while you were here. It makes us so unhappy. Poor Ireland! her hopes are always dashed when about to be fulfilled. Nothing can palliate the fearful sin and almost more fearful course of miserable deception; but he might, by ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... drives down before it a storm which overcasts the blue sky, so that it is pitch dark in the valley. Up above masses of cloud; dark rocks on either hand. Now and then a dazzling flash darts through the heights, followed by a short abrupt thunderclap, as if the narrow gorge could only contain one chord of the awful concert; then again the lightning shoots into the Danube just in front of the ship, and by its fiery rays for an instant the whole rocky cathedral looks like the flaming gulf of hell, and the thunder rolls, with a ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... boat was well out in the lake, however, the same terrible wind that so often blew upon its waters arose with the swiftness of a thunderclap and threatened to overwhelm them all. Tell lay bound in the boat, calmly watching what he could see of the storm, when one of the Governor's servants told him that Tell himself was the most skilful boatman in that part of the country and the only one who could save them from ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... own profession delivered these two last words in thunder so sudden and effective as to strike Julia's work out of her hands. But here, as in Nature, a moment's pause followed the thunderclap; so Mrs. Dodd, who had long been patiently watching her opportunity, smothered a shriek, and edged in a word: "This is irresistible; you have confuted everybody, to their heart's content; and now the question is, what course shall we substitute?" ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... from heaven in showers, Rived adamant to show an azure gap, Captured the very Psyche in my cap, Filched from the sack of Time six diamond hours. Hyperborean in my crown of flowers I ran and leapt the cliff of thunderclap Plunging through green sea-light where bronze fronds wrap Crumbling pearl palaces and ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... thought of the morrow's race. It was good to know he was going to be a part of it. He could feel the gathering of enthusiasm, exhilaration in the atmosphere—pent-up emotion which on the morrow would burst like a thunderclap. In the quaint city five miles down the river hotels were filling with the vanguard of the boat-race throng—boys fresh from the poetry of Commencement; their older brothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, living again the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... twenty-two or twenty-three years old his weak will sulkily gave way to their wishes. In obedience to his father he began his studies in medicine at Paris. One evening he heard Les Danaides of Salieri. It came upon him like a thunderclap. He ran to the Conservatoire ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the autumn of that year Savonarola delivered a famous course of sermons on Noah's Ark, warning all to take refuge from the coming flood in the mystical Ark of mercy. The flood came indeed, for suddenly all Florence was startled as if by a thunderclap by the news that a foreign army was pouring over the Alps for the conquest of Italy. The terror was overwhelming. Italy was unprepared, for the princes had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... promontory, the weird, giant chestnut tree, the open plateau, and beyond, the stormy heavens, were all luridly clear in the flash of lightning. She fancied it was possible to see a tall, dark figure emerging from the thicket. As the thunderclap rolled and pealed overhead, she strained her eyes into the blackness waiting for the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... the contest is at an end and that to regulate the government and police of their own State is all that remains to be done, but it is devoutly to be wished that a sad reverse of this may not fall upon them like a thunderclap that is little expected. I do not mean to designate particular States. I wish to cast no reflections upon any one. The public believe (and if they do believe it, the fact might almost as well be so) that the States at this time are badly represented ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... merged into a prolonged roll which seemed to embrace the entire heavens. At length, Vassili got up and covered over the britchka, the coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak and lifted his cap to make the sign of the cross at each successive thunderclap, and the horses pricked up their ears and snorted as though to drink in the fresh air which the flying clouds were outdistancing. The britchka began to roll more swiftly along the dusty road, and I felt ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... false move. Like a belated thunderclap after the storm is over, John broke out again, his haggard eyes aflame. "Curse the children!" he cried thickly. "Curse them, I say! If I had once caught sight of them since she ... she went, I should have wrung their necks. I never ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... had scarce issued from Caspar's lip, when a crash was heard like the first bursting of a thunderclap, and then a deafening roar echoed up the ravine, mingled with louder peals, as though the eternal mountains were ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... poetry. We can, indeed, no longer call the sun a god and construct myths of Phoebus, nor can we seriously picture the moon descending to dally with Endymion. We can no longer see Hamadryads in the oaks or Naiads in the streams. We do not hear Zeus or Thor in the thunderclap, nor recognize in volcanic eruptions the struggles of imprisoned Titans breathing flame. But what of that? Does the essence of poetry lie at all in myths and superstitions? Because we know of what the sun is made, and how many miles distant he is, do we find his risings and settings less moving ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... Nellie's death came upon Jim Adams with the suddenness of a thunderclap. The weeks had gone by since she wrote to ask him to take Harry, with no further news of her, and after watching every post for a few days in the expectation of a black-edged envelope, he had begun to think that it was only a scare, and that she was not going to die at all, and it was ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... query to himself, Juve shook from head to foot. Like a thunderclap he thought he grasped the truth he had followed so eagerly. What had become of Lady Beltham? Must he not come to the conclusion that this woman whose face had been crushed out of all recognition by the murderer was none other than the lady? How else explain the ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... arm round her waist, it was more than she could bear. Mrs. Bold raised her little hand and just dealt him a box on the ear with such good will that it sounded among the trees—he had followed her into the garden—like a miniature thunderclap. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... declaration of war was not long in coming, and the news came like a thunderclap to all in Kimberley, where those who had been in doubt as to the wisdom of the preparations previously made were the loudest in finding fault because more had ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... and everything!" But best of all was for the parties to be married outright, by a justice of the peace, without a word of public warning, and then to enjoy the pleasure of outwitting the neighbors, and coming down like a thunderclap on a social sunshine unsuspicious of banns, which had been published on some three literally public days, but when nobody was hearing. That was something worth doing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... with the Iroquois took place not far from Ticonderoga. When the two parties approached, Champlain advanced and fired his musket. The woods rang with the report, and a chief fell dead. "There arose," says Champlain," a yell like a thunderclap and the air was full of arrows." But when another and another gun shot came from the bushes, the Iroquois broke and fled like deer. The victory was won; but it made the Iroquois the lasting enemies of the French. Read Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... the hill of ice and the sea of glass,' said the Prince; but almost before the words had passed his lips a second thunderclap, louder and more terrific than the first, was heard. The Princess sank half fainting on the ground. When she again opened her eyes, Prince, palace, everything had disappeared. She was alone, quite alone, on a barren moorland, night coming ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... fell like a thunderclap upon their ears. Gibraltar! the western extremity of the Mediterranean! Why, had they not been sailing persistently to the east? Could they be wrong in imagining that they had reached the Ionian Islands? What ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... gruff, sarcastic tones of Wilhelm Mencke, burst upon the lovers like an unexpected thunderclap, and, starting to her feet, Violet turned to find her sister's husband standing ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to his wife as Claud had before him; for he well knew how deeply they would disquiet her. But, soon concluding there would be no wisdom in attempting concealment, he told her what he had heard. As he had anticipated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... "A thunderclap! You have heard but few of them in Louisiana, I guess, or you would know the difference betwixt thunder and the crack of a backwoodsman's rifle. To be sure, yonder oak wood has an almighty echo. That's James's rifle—he has shot a stag.—There's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... of the glacier, on the ridge of which it hung for a moment, as if unwilling to exert itself, it seemed to awake to the reality of its position. Making a lively rush, that seemed tremendously inconsistent with its weight, it shot over the edge of a yawning crevasse, burst with a thunderclap on the opposite ice-cliff, and went roaring into the dark bowels of the glacier, whence the echoes of its tumbling masses, subdued by distance, came up like ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... came a rap at the door; it was a soft, low tap, yet it startled the viscount like a thunderclap. He dropped the hand ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... enemy's trenches were about a thousand yards away, and their guns were busy in the night, so that the shells came overhead, and lads who had heard the owls hoot in English woods now heard stranger night-birds crying through the air, with the noise of rushing wings, ending in a thunderclap. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... his men. Scouts returned with word that all was quiet and in darkness—the English evidently asleep; and uncovering muskets, the Congress fighters dashed forward at a run. But it was the silence that precedes the thunderclap. The English had known that the storm was to signal attack, and guessing that the rockets foretokened the assailants' approach, they had put out all lights behind the barricade. Until Montgomery's men were within a few feet of the log, there was utter quiet; ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... that thunder?" exclaimed the King below, mistaking the giant's moan for a thunderclap, but before his question was answered Ned and his friend appeared at the head ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... pacifying her. The letters were evidence that Edith and himself believed that Althea was in Galloway at the time. Maria's denial had come upon them like a thunderclap, bewildering, stunning. If Althea was not in ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... been totally unprepared for the girl's timid avowal. To Wrayson, however, after the first mild shock of surprise, it was of no special import. To Sydney Barnes, although he made a speedy effort to grapple with the situation, it came very much as a thunderclap. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shown me, there and then,— Me, out of a world of men, Singled forth, as the chance might hap To another if, in a thunderclap Where I heard noise and you saw flame, Some one man knew God called his name. For me, I think I said, "Appear! "Good were it to be ever here. "If thou wilt, let me build to thee "Service-tabernacles three, "Where, forever in thy presence, "In ecstatic acquiescence, ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... with extraordinary fervor, he betook himself to his room, to deliver to the crowds that resorted to him his last paternal admonitions. He continued without interruption till mid-day, and at that hour precisely, turning to the lay-brother that assisted him, said, "Shortly a thunderclap will lay me prostrate on the ground, you will have to raise me thence, but this is the last I shall experience." Accordingly, at two hours and a half after sunset, an apoplectic stroke threw him on the ground. At first the nature of his disease was mistaken. It was thought ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... annexation of Bosnia, could not possibly submit a second time to the Caudine Forks. She laid her hand upon her sword hilt. Germany sprang to the side of her ally. France ranged herself with Russia. Like a thunderclap the war of the nations ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Thunderclap after thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called to caution with a low, swishing noise; ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him. A hot wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... doubtless premeditated, and had its special object, yet Evgenie Pavlovitch at first seemed to intend to make no show of observing either his tormentor or her words. But Nastasia's communication struck him with the force of a thunderclap. On hearing of his uncle's death he suddenly grew as white as a sheet, and turned ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... heads. The flashes of light, the lightning, anything that darted swiftly and struck violently, was compared to the hurtling arrow or the whizzing lance. Especially did this apply to the phenomenon of the lightning. The belief that a stone is shot from the sky with each thunderclap is shown in our word "thunderbolt," and even yet the vulgar in many countries point out certain forms of stones as derived from this source. As the refreshing rain which accompanies the thunder gust instills new life into vegetation, and covers the ground ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... annoyed me before), coupled with what I already knew. We had luncheon in the Della Robbia room at the Vanderbilt and I was digging the marrons out of a Nesselrode when, presto, it suddenly came over me that the baroness was right and that I could never marry a foreigner. It came like a thunderclap. But somewhere in that senate of instinct which debates over such things down deep in the secret chambers of our souls, I suppose, the whole problem had been talked over and fought out and put to the vote. And in the face of the fact that Theobald Gustav had always ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... waited—the German sombre and collected, Sir Nigel quivering in every fibre with eagerness and fiery resolution. Then, amid a long-drawn breath from the spectators, the glove fell from the marshal's hand, and the two steel-clad horsemen met like a thunderclap in front of the royal stand. The German, though he reeled for an instant before the thrust of the Englishman, struck his opponent so fairly upon the vizor that the laces burst, the plumed helmet flew to pieces, and Sir Nigel galloped on down the lists with his bald ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was silence, following Tom's wild cry and the noise of the thunderclap. Then, as other, though less loud reverberations of the storm continued to sound, the captives awoke to a realization of what had happened. They had been partially stunned, and were almost as ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... been the beginning. To Grandpa and Grandma Burton it had come like a thunderclap on a clear day. They had known, to be sure, that son John frowned a little at their lonely life; but that there should come this sudden transplanting, this ruthless twisting and tearing up of roots that for sixty years had been burrowing deeper and deeper—it was almost beyond ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... shortly. "I couldn't myself. I'd have given the lie to anybody who had dared so much as to hint at it. It was like a thunderclap to me." ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... no! I cannot think you fickle-minded, For you were always very kind to me; Fate's thunderclap by which my eyes are blinded Rewards my old, forgotten ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... barking, and supposed that my boy Mnason was amusing himself in the chase as usual, and had penetrated into the copse with his friends. However, that was not it: presently there was an earthquake; I heard a voice like a thunderclap, and saw a terrible woman approaching, not much less than three hundred feet high. She carried a torch in her left hand, and a sword in her right; the sword might be thirty feet long. Her lower extremities ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the Wilson camp, when like a thunderclap out of a clear sky broke the story of the disagreement between Colonel Harvey, Marse Henry Watterson, and the Governor of New Jersey. I recall my conversation with Governor Wilson on the day following the Harvey- Watterson conference ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... both had said the same thing. Two uprights flashed up above their heads—the arm of the priest making the sign of the cross, and the sabre of the commander of the shooters, glistening at the same instant. . . . A dry, dull thunderclap, followed ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... had been by her manner for some dire Calamity, it came upon them like a thunderclap. The awful calm manner of the chieftain's widow impressed them more than if she had thrown up her hands in wild despair and given way to the noisiest demonstrations ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng |
