"Lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... play chaupur with King Sarkap. And as he journeyed there came a fierce storm of thunder and lightning, so that he sought shelter, and found none save an old graveyard, where a headless corpse lay upon the ground. So lonesome was it that even the corpse seemed company, and Rasalu, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... unconsciously, with no thought except that with his rifle, hidden in the darkness, he could wage one sharp and terrible battle with the murderers of Judie and Tom and Joe, before suffering death at their hands. The lightning struck a tree just ahead of him, but he seemed not to observe the fact. He was going into battle, and what was a thunderbolt more or less at such a time. The rain followed, drenching him instantly, but not dampening his determination in ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... understood the offering of my poor sacrifice, the clouds began to gather, like the vultures—no one could have told whence. From all sides around they rose, and the moon was blotted out, and they gathered and rose until they met right over the cross. And when they closed, then the lightning brake forth, and the thunder with it, and it flashed and thundered above and around and beneath me, so that I could not tell which voice belonged to which arrow, for all were mingled in one great confusion and uproar. And the people in the houses below heard the sound of the thunder, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... and dipped a little camel-hair brush in the mixture, withdrawing it moist with fluid. He was watching Milburgh all the time, and when the stout man opened his mouth to yell he thrust a silk handkerchief, which he drew with lightning speed from his ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... it is in vain. Nor is there any good reason why familiarity with it should weaken its power. But, alas! it too often does. How many of us would stand in awe of God's judgments if we heard them for the first time, but listen to them unmoved, as to thunder without lightning, merely because wo know them so well! That is a reason for attending ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... upheaved jagged deck-planks, the dark bodies hurled to right and left into the scuppers—by three separate lights: by the yellow light of the flames in the rigging, by the steel-grey light of dawn, and by a sudden white-hot flush as the lightning ripped open the belly of heaven and let loose the rain. While I blinked in the glare, the mizzen-mast crashed overside. I cannot tell whether the lightning struck and split it, or whether, already blasted by the explosion, it had stood upright for those few seconds until a heave of the swell snapped ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of them. Some pause, watching, listening; others who have been quiet till now suddenly break in with a bellow, seemingly on the point of punching the noses of the men with whom they are doing business. Lightning calculation; instantaneous decisions! "Use your discretion" many of them have been cautioned by their firms and they are using it. A moment's hesitation may cost a thousand dollars. Trading in the Pit is no child's play; rather is it a severe strain even upon those who know every trick, ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... in a golden shower; Lo! Darkness trembling 'fore the hostile ray, Shrinks to the cavern deep and wood forlorn: The brood obscene that own her gloomy sway Troop in her rear, and fly the approaching morn; Pale shivering ghosts that dread the all-cheering light, Quick as the lightning's flash glide to sepulchral night. But whence the gladdening beam That ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... it typified; whereas the dove and the fire suddenly appeared to signify only what was happening. They seem, however, to be like to the flame of the burning bush seen by Moses and to the column which the people followed in the desert, and to the lightning and thunder issuing forth when the law was given on the mountain. For the purpose of the bodily appearances of those things was that they might signify, and then pass away." Thus the visible mission is neither displayed by prophetic vision, which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... my senses: a sickening pain Tingled like lightning through my brain, And ere the spasm of fear was broke, The men who had borne him homeward spoke Soothingly: "Some assassin's knife Had taken the innocent artist's life— Wherefore, 'twere hard to say: all men Were prone to have troubles now and then The world knew ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... fell, in their helmets, and often swallowing it mingled with blood. Though by this means exceedingly refreshed, the Germans were much too strong for them; but the storm being driven by a violent wind upon their faces, and accompanied with dreadful flashes of lightning, and loud thunder, the Germans were deprived of their sight, beaten down to the ground, and terrified to such a degree, that they were entirely routed and put to flight. Both heathen and Christian writers give this account of the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... The guns are in the hands of the Rebels. The day is lost. At the very moment of victory the line is broken. In an instant all is changed. A moment ago we were pressing on, but now we are falling back. Quick almost as the lightning's flash is the turning of the tide. All through a mistake! So great events sometimes hang ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... portraiture all the more real for being excessive and burlesque, and all the more proper to the man for being a caricature of his own misery. His eyes were "bandaged with thick walls." It might blow hurricanes overhead; the lightning might leap in high heaven; but no word of all this reached him in his noisome pit. "Il n'entre, ou gist, n'escler ni tourbillon." Above all, he was levered with envy and anger at the freedom of others; and his heart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do, Mr. Shaw. Open up and let us in. It's Dave Bank and Ed Hunter. We can't make the cabin before the rain." Shaw could see their faces now and then by the flashes of lightning and he recognized the two woodsmen, who doubtless had been visiting sweethearts up ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... pious sonnet, which he was penitent for having composed in an illness; he seemed to be ashamed of having thought for a moment upon God at the sight of his lightning, and blushed at the weakness. The mistress of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... rapidity. While the east and north were yet full of blazing light the south and west were darkening. A draught of cold wind came. The waters, motionless hitherto, suddenly heaved convulsively. Low thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed across the troubled waters. The five felt awe. They were familiar with great storms, but never before had they been in one with no land in sight. The little boat, which alone lay between them and the depths of the lake, ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... beneath her bows, followed by the sudden protrusion of the huge grinning head of a fierce crocodile, the monster bent on mischief, and receiving a most unexpected salute, for Joe Cross was standing balancing his boat-hook in his hands, ready to lay it down along the thwart, but, quick almost as lightning, he gave it a twirl as he rested one foot upon the gunwale and drove it, harpoon fashion, crash into ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... unsuccessful? Yes, there was "a strange shadow"; the air "seemed to throw his blood into a fever"; "a dark gray cloud came over the sun"; "long, snake-like shadows"; "leaden weight of the dead air"; "flash of blue lightning"; "tongues of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... distinct menace in the words but Richard was too interested in the activities of Ezra P. Hipps to pay heed to that. With lightning-like rapidity the American had unlocked every drawer in the bureau, withdrawn them from their runners and laid them in a precise row ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... said Marjorie, waving her hand toward the little acrobat, who was turning double somersaults with lightning rapidity. "She's only twelve, isn't ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... hear it. A bolt of jagged lightning seared through his brain. The limp hands of the driver fell away from the reins and he fell to the ground, crumpling as a dry leaf that is crushed in ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... as if disheartened by our indifference, the rain ceased, and we took our chairs out on the deck, and sat watching the lightning, which still played incessantly. Then, not unnaturally, the talk drifted into a sombre channel, and we began recounting stories, dealing with the gloomy and mysterious side ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... to the judgments which, ever since the beginning of the world, have fallen upon hardened sinners; for example, floods, tempests, thunder and lightning in the heavens above, and destructive earthquakes from ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... not to fright me, foolish ghost; I'll break your marble body in pieces and pull down your horse. (Thunder and lightning—chorus of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... volume from the southeast in parallel lines, like lines of battle swooping over the city. There were at the same time shorter and fuller lines from the southwest, and others from the north. The meeting of these was followed by tremendous clashes of lightning and thunder; and between the pauses of the artillery of the elements above, the thunder of artillery on earth could be distinctly heard. Oh that the strife were ended! But Richmond is to be ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... night, about twelve o'clock, the storm came. There was at first distant, muttering thunder, which soon became louder. Then lightning followed, flashing in through the windows of the houseboat, so that Mrs. Bobbsey ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... this moment of peril I did not forget my mathematics. It was clear that if the giant propelled me with sufficient velocity I should be shot into space, never to return. How great would that velocity have to be? My mind worked like lightning on this problem. The diameter of Menippe I knew did not exceed twelve miles. Its mean density, as near as I could judge, was about the same as that of the earth. Its attraction must therefore be as ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... a lightning decision and answered. "I can't come down to-night. I have a very important ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... of yesterday, I find that I have an unexpired policy for L1,000 with the Etna, an office which has enjoyed my confidence for many years and in which I have other insurances. Under this policy I am held covered till Lady Day not only against fire, but also against lightning, explosions of gas—most things, in fact, except riots, earthquakes, the King's enemies, aeroplanes and volcanoes. Regretting, therefore, that I am unable to give you the business, because of the more extensive benefits ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... himself. Nine days in ten he was the clear-headed, energetic, powerful statesman; on the tenth he was looking wistfully to the superstition which he had left, and the clear sunshine was darkened with theological clouds, which broke in lightning and persecution. Thus there was danger at any moment of a reaction, unless opportunity was taken at the flood, unless the work was executed too completely to admit of reconsideration, and the nation committed to a course ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... barrels: that besides the great danger which must attend all places of that kind, the said magazine stood in an open field uninclosed by any fortification or defence whatsoever, consequently exposed to treachery and every other accident. They alleged, that if through treachery, lightning, or any other accident, this magazine should take fire, not only their lives and properties, but the palace and hospital, the king's yards and stores at Deptford and Woolwich, the banks and navigation of the Thames, with the ships sailing and at anchor in that river, would be inevitably destroyed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... went off like a flash of lightning, and in the twinkling of an eye Miao Shan found herself at the foot of the rocky ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... slope of the ground,—the Washington elm being lower than either of the others. There is a row of elms just in front of the old house on the south. When I was a child the one at the southwest corner was struck by lightning, and one of its limbs and a long ribbon of bark torn away. The tree never fully recovered its symmetry and vigor, and forty years and more afterwards a second thunderbolt crashed upon it and set its heart on fire, like those of the lost souls in the Hall of Eblis. Heaven had twice blasted it, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ever were here, had tranquilly weathered in this same lagoon. On the mainland, in that storm, cane- and rice-fields had been laid low and half destroyed, houses had been unroofed, men had been killed. A woman and a boy, under a pecan tree, were struck by lightning; and three men who had covered themselves with a tarpaulin on one of the wharves in New Orleans were blown with it into the Mississippi, poor fellows, and were drowned; a fact worthy of second consideration ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... treachery in store for them.[500] Even brute beasts perceive the coming of the storm, and seek the covert; let us not find fault if men, perceiving it, arm themselves for the encounter. Our menaces have been the messengers of our plots, as truly as the lightning is the messenger of the thunderbolt. We have shown them our preparatives; let us, therefore, cease to wonder that they stand ready to start on the first intimation of danger.[501] When they see that they have no ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... established a pure form of Christianity over Great Britain—who gave his country a model of excellence as a man, and as a ruler, simple, severe, ruggedly picturesque, and stupendously original, and solitary as one of the primitive rocks—whose eloquence was uneven and piercing as the forked lightning, which is never so terrible as when it falls to pieces —and highest praise of all, whose deeds and character were so great in their sublime simplicity, that the poet, who afterwards sung the hierarchies of heaven, and the anarchies of hell, was fain to sit a humble secretary, recording the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... uncle was a poet," muttered Balder to himself. "A daughter of fire,—yes, there is lightning in her eyes!" Aloud he said, secretly alluding to the manner of his descent into ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... first heavy fall of rain. After stifling heat for some days, the rays of the sun beating with a fierceness which threatens to burn up all nature, and which drives the birds for shelter to the thickest foliage of the trees, the clouds gather, the thunder rolls, peal quickly succeeding peal, the lightning flashes incessantly, and then, after some heavy showers, there comes down for two or three days, with very little intermission, such torrents that it looks as if we were to be visited with a deluge. Within a week all nature is transformed. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... a tornado brewing on the Cameroon heights, and kept indoors. While sitting sewing the storm burst. The wind seized the village, lifting fences, canoes, trees, and buildings; lightning played and crackled about the hut; the thunder pealed overhead; and rain fell in floods. Then a column of flame leapt from the sky to earth, and a terrific crash deafened the cowering people. Accustomed as she was to tornadoes Mary ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... made two images of gold. He called one of them Viracocha Pachayachachi. It represented the creator, and was placed on the right of the image of the Sun. The other was called Chuqui ylla, representing lightning, placed on the left of the Sun. This image was most highly venerated by all. Inca Yupanqui adopted this idol for his guauqui[84], because he said that it had appeared and spoken in a desert place and had given him a serpent with two heads, to carry about with him always, saying ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit, his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... he intended to do was food for great speculation. A company of militia could not have had the effect upon the wild element of Fairdale that Duane's presence had. It got out that he was a gunman lightning swift on the draw. It was death to face him. He had killed thirty men—wildest rumor of all—it was actually said of him he had the gun-skill of Buck ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... American humorist's favorite resources of exaggeration and irreverence. An instance of the former quality may be seen in his famous description of a dog chasing a coyote, in Roughing It, or in his interview with the lightning-rod agent in Mark Twain's Sketches, 1875. He is a shrewd observer, and his humor has a more satirical side than Artemus Ward's, sometimes passing into downright denunciation. He delights particularly in ridiculing sentimental humbug and moralizing cant. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... hours."[49] From the Eutaws in the same state a correspondent wrote in 1798 of a gin-house disaster: "I yesterday went over to Mr. Henry Middleton's plantation to view the dreadful effects of a flash of lightning which the day before fell on his machine house in which were about twenty negro men, fourteen of which were killed immediately."[50] In 1828 the following appeared in a newspaper at New Orleans: "Yesterday towards one o'clock P.M., as one ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... think it is ever excusable to forget duty?" I asked; and I was rewarded with a swift flash of fun in the hazel eyes, that came and went like forked lightning. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The Baron gave one lightning glance, and surveyed the whole situation. He did not move, but his form was rigid, and every nerve was braced, and his eyes gleamed fiercely. He saw it all—the crowd of women, the calm face of Minnie, and the uncontrollable agitation ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... became mute with suspense. The cowboy did not recklessly rush into the boiling flood, for he knew only too well that such a course could not help the imperiled one. Instead, Will saw him whirling his rope about his head with lightning-like haste. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... and he was thrown into the midst of the flames. The same was done to Mishael; and, finally, as Hananiah dropped to the burning depth below, the ascending flames became doubly fierce; at the same moment the wind shifted and became strong, and, as sudden as a flash of lightning, the flames poured their awful vengeance on the guilty heads of Scribbo and Shagoth. For a moment they whirled in the midst of God's avenging scourges, crying loudly for help; but no help could be administered! In another instant they became ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... his snake-like adversary was quicker. Doubling back upon himself, the mink avoided that confident and dangerous rush, and with a lightning snap fixed hold upon his enemy's neck. But it was not, by half an inch, the hold he wanted; and his long, deadly teeth sank not, as he had planned, into the foe's throat, but into the great tough muscles a little higher up. He dared not let go to try for the deadlier hold, but locked his jaws ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... The latter smiled upon him, and said with simplicity, "Thank you, Fair!" The Republican candidate looked attentively at the young man. The spirit and the fire, subdued in the elder brother, was in the younger as visible as lightning. Rand was quick at divining men, and now he thought, "This man would make a ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... during the night we were awakened by loud peals of thunder, whose terrific explosions sounded at close intervals. The sharp flashes of lightning leaped and darted their fiery tongues across the sky, giving us a fine display of electric signs upon the ebon curtains of the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... banks in rural solitude, the never-weary din of commerce rolls through the city of the world. The locomotive rushes like a thunder-clap upon the rail; the steamer ploughs against the adverse wind, and, rapid as the lightning, the telegraph cripples time. The once savage land is the nucleus of the arts and civilization. The nation that from time to time was oppressed, invaded, conquered, but never subjected, still pressed against the weight of ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... her surprise at the number of lightning-conductors that everywhere appeared, was informed that perhaps in no other part of the world were thunderstorms so frequent or so fatal. She was told that, at Antananarivo, about three hundred people were killed by lightning ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... effect that this has not always been the case; and even to-day there are some conflicts regarding the status of certain spirits. In the village of Manabo, thunder is known as Kidol; in Likuan and Bakaok, as Kido-ol; and in each place he is recognized as a powerful spirit. In Ba-ay, two types of lightning are known to be spirits. The flash from the sky is Salit, that "from the ground" is Kilawit. Here thunder is Kadaklan, but the sun is the all powerful being. He is male, and is "so powerful that he does not need or desire ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh-boots smoked hot with grease and blood, raised a pole-axe, and swearing a horrible oath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. At that instant, and in the very act, he fell himself, as if struck by lightning, and over his body a one-armed man came darting to the locksmith's side. Another man was with him, and both caught the locksmith ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... thrice-ploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had struck his ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my island. I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him immortal, so ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... wished, concerning a preacher of his time, that the tears of his audience might compose the eulogy of his sermons. We shall find in the tears of Felix occasion to applaud the eloquence of our apostle. We shall find that his discourses were thunder and lightning in the congregation, as the Greeks used to say concerning one of their orators. While St. Paul preached, Felix felt I know not what agitations in his mind. The recollection of his past life; the sight of his present sins; Drusilla, the object of his passion and subject of his crime; the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... great and small, was taking up arms and donning his armour as if for war, and ere I had time to cast about me for a refuge, the whole sky became black, and the city darker than when an eclipse befalls; the thunder roared, the lightning flashed to and fro, and ceaseless showers of deadly shafts were directed from the lower gates against the Catholic Church, and had there not been in each man's hand a shield to receive the fiery darts, and had the foundation rock not been so strong that nothing ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... to get to the front where firing had been heard. The night was one of impenetrable darkness, with rain pouring down in torrents; nothing was visible to the eye except as revealed by the frequent flashes of lightning. Under these circumstances I had to trust to the horse, without guidance, to keep the road. I had not gone far, however, when I met General W. H. L. Wallace and Colonel (afterwards General) McPherson coming from the direction of the front. They said all was quiet so far as the enemy ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... crossed the old bridge, in the opening murmur of a coming storm, I had an illumination which came as suddenly as the first flash of lightning that followed just afterwards. It had been a matter of astonishment to me all day long that nobody, with the exception of the one man at East Ord, had noticed Maisie as she went along the road ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... that has touch'd the Circumstance of Julius Caesar's Death, has consented to relate the Strange Things, which both foresaw and foretold his Assassination. Shakespear has communicated these Terrors to his Audience with the utmost Art: The Night is attended with Thunder and Lightning; and Caesar comes forth in his Night-gown, reflecting on the Unquietness of the Season, and ordering the Priests to do present Sacrifice: Calphurnia immediately follows him; and the Undauntedness of his Spirit, attack'd by the Tenderness of his Wife's Tears, gives an ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... the dead, I break the lightning, I announce the Sabbath, I excite the slothful, I disperse the winds, I appease ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... occasion its precipitate exit?' The tomb of a young lady calls forth the following morbid horrors:—'Instead of the sweet and winning aspect, that wore perpetually an attractive smile, grins horribly a naked, ghastly skull. The eye that outshone the diamond's brilliancy, and glanced its lovely lightning into the most guarded heart—alas! where is it? Where shall we find the rolling sparkler? How are all its sprightly beams eclipsed!' The tongue, flesh, &c., are dwelt upon ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... between mother and daughter in the streets of Milan, to which city the merchant and his wife had paid a visit. The Marana drove through the Corso in all the splendor of a sovereign; she passed her daughter like a flash of lightning and was not recognized. Horrible anguish! To this Marana, surfeited with kisses, one was lacking, a single one, for which she would have bartered all the others: the joyous, girlish kiss of a daughter ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... have been deferred, till we read in the papers of the well-judged and highly creditable notice (creditable I mean to the government pro tempore) which His Majesty has been pleased to take of Mrs. Somerville's elaborate works. Although the Royal notice is not quite so swift as the lightning in the selection of its objects, it agrees with it in this, that it is attracted by the loftiest; and though what she has performed may seem so natural and easy to herself, that she may blush to find it fame; all the rest of the world will agree with me in ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... Queen, if she had been left on the throne, into the humble servant of the Pope and Philip. It would not perhaps have lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have been the immediate result, and instead of a Reformation we should have had the light come in the shape of lightning. But I have often asked my Radical friends what is to be done if out of every hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the remaining third will not only vote but will fight too if the poll ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... comes on. It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. I see great flashes where the far trail turns. Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, It comes like lightning, goes past roaring, It will hail all the windmills, taunting, ringing, On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills— Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, Ho ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... enemy in their winter quarters, who, by the severity of the weather, sustained a loss of 3000 horses. He now made a movement towards the Oder, as if with the view of reinforcing himself with the garrisons of Pomerania and Silesia; but, with the rapidity of lightning, he again appeared upon the Bohemian frontier, penetrated through that kingdom, and relieved Olmutz in Moravia, which was hard pressed by the Imperialists. His camp at Dobitschau, two miles from Olmutz, commanded the whole of Moravia, on which he ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... the fallen trees lay on the earth and wailed in sorrow as the cruel storm-wind and rain beat upon them. The thunder growled in the hollows of the mountains, and in the fearful gloom came the white fire of the forked lightning, ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... worked like chain-lightning. This cabinet? How was it fastened down? How strongly? His fingers felt for the lower edge of it. Working them down and under, he secured a hold. Then, with all his superb strength, he heaved away. Something ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... was supposed to reign supreme, save only for Muzurama, the black snake who could successfully engage him in combat if he chose; but this enemy was so rare as to be almost negligible. The other animals instinctively knew and feared his lightning thrust and death-dealing fangs. But Siluk, the Storm-God was different—an intangible, elusive something he did not understand, could not subdue. And the terror that Siluk brought was even worse, for it stalked boldly in the night ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... 'Look out, Snow Devil, you Injin dog, or I'll have your heart. Do you think a white girl is like a redskin woman, to be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to the squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?' Then the Injin said an ugly word about Val's sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning.... Yes, that is good to swear, Galbraith. You are not the only one that curses the law in this world. It is not Justice that fills the gaols, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in. Yesterday, too. I don't mind, for I would rather watch the lightning up here than be down in the basement with the others. There are days when I love thunder and lightning. I can't flash and crash, being just Mary Cary; but I'd like to, and when it is done for me it is a relief to ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... afternoon relay of men being exploded at very regular hours—the last usually at 5:45 P.M. There were only sixteen men in the shaft, and the work of connecting the wires had commenced, when the flash of lightning that occurred at 5:42 P.M., suddenly charged the conductors and produced ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... have marvelled how Ayesha performed this miracle, and from what substances she gathered or compounded the lightning-like material, which was her servant in the work; also, whether or no it had been impregnated with the immortalizing fire of Life that burned in the caves of Kor.[*] Yet to this hour I have found no answer to the problem, for it ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... second body, Henry More says "the soul's astral vehicle is of that tenuity that itself can as easily pass the smallest pores of the body as the light does glass, or the lightning the scabbard of a sword without tearing or scorching of it." And again, "I shall make bold to assert that the soul may live in an aerial vehicle as well as in the ethereal, and that there are very few that arrive to that high happiness as to acquire a celestial vehicle immediately ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... pointed to the Florentine traitor with his amiable smile and his deadly poison. He indicated certain powders and potions, some of them of dull action, wearing out the victim so slowly that he dies after long suffering; others violent and so quick, that they kill like a flash of lightning, leaving not even time for a single cry. Little by little Sainte-Croix became interested in the ghastly science that puts the lives of all men in the hand of one. He joined in Exili's experiments; then he grew clever enough to make them for himself; and when, at the year's end, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... "you were carried unconscious from a burning house—Moxon's. Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to do a little explaining. The origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. My own notion is that the house was struck by lightning." ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... beats with a conscious thump in anticipation of something awful—when those who are out alone whistle to give themselves courage—when the zigzag openings rent through the clouds by the vicious lightning flashes almost reveal Eternity;—Christmas Eve, that sacred occasion which we all celebrate and shall continue to celebrate till the end of time, to commemorate the birth of our Christ,—a sharp-eyed, dare-devil ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... and dominant objective of United States foreign policy is to build and preserve a just peace. The peace we seek is not peace for twenty years. It is permanent peace. At a time when massive changes are occurring with lightning speed throughout the world, it is often difficult to perceive how this central objective is best served in one isolated complex situation or another. Despite this very real difficulty, there are certain basic propositions to which the United States adheres ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... and protected from the birds by a wire netting. In the centre, immediately in front of the altar, is a circular stone, as in the open altar. The ceiling is covered with gilded dragons in high relief, and the whole is supported by immense pillars. It was this building that was struck by lightning in 1890, but it was restored during the ten years that followed. Being made the camp of the British during the occupation of 1900, it received some small injuries from curio seekers, but none of any consequence. The Sikh soldiers who died during this period ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... fellow-creatures who form his society. Probably the rule that obtains of men and women holds good of children also: the less brain power the more happiness. Intellect—especially a growing intellect—will give a child lightning flashes of joy denied to his more thick-headed brother; but much sorrow must also result from his extra intelligence. If he rises higher, he will sink far lower, too. The placid, ordinary youth thinks less, and digests his food better, and has a pleasanter time, on the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... before you the general lines on which I propose to deal with problems relating to race and nationality, I propose now that we should make a lightning trip round the world and cull, as we go, samples which will illustrate the kind of friction which arises wherever races or nationalities come into close contact. As I have already said, every country can yield us material for ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... fervent supplications. At the same time she heard a voice that said, "The prayers of the saints have stayed the arm of the Lord; but woe to the guilty city if she repent not, for great afflictions are at hand." Some days afterwards the lightning fell simultaneously on the churches of St. Peter, St. Paul, and on the shrine of St. John Baptist in the Lateran Basilica. Francesca shuddered when she heard of it; she felt at once that the day of grace had gone ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... those who do not live without thinking, of the evident approach of the cataclysm. When one sees the patient writhing in agony is there any consolation in understanding his illness thoroughly? When lightning strikes, are we calm because we have heard the thunder rumble ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... nights—so heavy with the intensity of sleep that is akin to sleeplessness, broken by peremptory thunder voices and searching lightning, or again enveloped by moonlight that floods the room—shut out the world until, kneeling in its tide between the little white beds, I can feel the refrain of that hymn of mother's that father taught me long ago to say to myself in the night when ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... this, the sun had already set. The sea was almost black, the sky a leaden gray, and in the fog on the horizon the lightning quivered and flashed. Jaime felt on his face and on his hands the moist kiss of drops of rain. A storm was about to break which perhaps would last throughout the night. The lightning flashes were coming nearer, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... roof, where it met an alley-way that opened upon a street beyond, there was a little child leaning over to look at some soldiers that were passing through the street across the alley. He was supporting himself, by an iron wire that served as a lightning-rod. Already it was bending beneath his weight; and in his eagerness he was forgetting his slippery footing, and the dizzy height of thirty feet, over which he was hanging. He was a little three year-old fellow, too, and probably never knew anything about danger. His mother had always screamed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... present high civilization. Perhaps the presence of so many electrical machines in the air and the utilization of so much electricity on land and water have, after thousands of years, done much toward freeing us from the thunderstorm, with its deadly lightning. We have fairly robbed the clouds of their electricity and taught it to do ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... latterly broken health, and a sensitiveness which made him keenly alive to criticism, doubtless fostered the tendency to what was often superficially called his cynical view of life. He possessed an inimitable irony and a power of sarcasm which could scorch like lightning, but the latter is almost invariably directed against what is base and hateful. To human weakness he is lenient and often tender, and even when weakness passes into wickedness, he is just and compassionate. He saw human nature "steadily and saw it whole," ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... made on the organs of sense, which at other times produce very vivid and sensible ideas. I need not, for this, instance in those who sleep out whole stormy nights, without hearing the thunder, or seeing the lightning, or feeling the shaking of the house, which are sensible enough to those who are waking. But in this retirement of the mind from the senses, it often retains a yet more loose and incoherent manner of thinking, which we call dreaming. And, last of all, sound sleep closes the ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... were deeply attached to each other. He travelled a good deal and used to bring her home lots of pretty things. He met his death in some part of Germany where there are forests, for though it was thought at first he had died of heart disease, the doctors proved he had been struck by lightning, and his body was found in the forest, and the papers on him showed who he was. The body was sent home to be buried, and all that was found with it; a knapsack and its contents, among which was the cup I bought at the sale. ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... animus displayed by Eliza Haywood in describing her colleague in the school for scandal, one may suspect that the lightning had struck fairly near home. One is almost forced to believe that Savage's well-wisher, the writer of the little satire, "To the Ingenious Riverius, on his writing in the Praise of Friendship," was none other than Eliza herself.[14] Exactly ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... now on the schooner. How was she heading? A group of seamen stood beside Armitage and Johnson on the bridge, trying to ascertain that important point. A flash of lightning gave a momentary glance of greasy sails bulged ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... kept a grim silence, against which her husband's babble of optimism played like heat-lightning ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... places, 'The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven, the lightnings lightened the world' (Psa 77:18). And again, 'His lightnings enlightened the world, the earth saw and trembled' (Psa 97:4). This lightning therefore communicates light to them that sit in darkness. 'God,' saith the apostle, 'who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... It had been previously occupied by some desolate lady, who went ashore at Civita Vecchia. There was little or no sea, thank Heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier than any I have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. We were, with the crew, some two hundred people; with boats, at the utmost stretch, for one hundred, perhaps. I could not help thinking what would happen if we met with any accident; the crew ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... they mask them with infantry; then, when the French charge, they reveal them and put us to the test under the most withering fire. It is almost impossible to stand against it, and in this case we had to retire after each rush for about 250 meters. Then, quick as lightning, the Germans got their mitrailleuses across the ground which we had yielded to them and waited for us to come on again, when they repeated ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... you'd a' toppled over your critter's head there'd be a bigger crack in the ground!" laughed Bud, as he looked at his companion's greater girth and weight. "It came as sudden as a flash of lightning, that jack!" ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... bade the boy try to pull it off, but he tried in vain, so well and closely did the ring fit the finger. From this time forth Cardan laid aside this ring, after having worn it for many years as a safeguard against lightning, plague, wakefulness, and ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... it announce itself by arrows of fire. The brightness increases; the east seems all aflame; from its glow you anticipate long beforehand the coming of day. Every moment you imagine you see it. At last it really does appear, a brilliant point which rises like a flash of lightning, and instantly fills all space. The veil of shadows is cast down and disappears. We know our dwelling-place once more, and find it more beautiful than ever. The verdure has taken on fresh vigor during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of dew-drops, reflecting light ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... portraits which line the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It is hard worked ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... her for an instant, and then turned on his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning, and with her face ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... down an open hatchway close to the fore-bulkhead of the cabin; and as I took in the whole scene in a single comprehensive glance—the open hatchway, the black cord, and the dimly-burning lantern—I realised with lightning intuitiveness that every soul on board the brig was tottering upon the very brink of eternity; the reckless villain before me was in the very act of exploding the powder magazine, and blowing the ship and all she ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Sarto; Children being Healed by touching the Dress of the Servite Filippo Benizzi; aDead Child recalled to life by touching the Bier of Filippo; the Cure of a Woman possessed of a Demon; Men destroyed by Lightning who had insulted Filippo. He parts his Cloak with a Beggar. By Rosselli: Filippo assumes the habit of the Order. In the narthex is also the tomb of Andrea del Sarto (died ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... said one congressman, "great and powerful as it is, can be tumbled down by the act of any one Southern State. If Florida withdraws, the federal government would not dare attack her. If it did, the bands would dissolve as if melted by lightning."[508] Referring to the possibility of the election of a Republican President, another declared that "We will never submit to the inauguration of a Black Republican President. You may elect Seward to be President of the North; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... falling apple the fundamental principles of the law of gravitation which has revolutionized science; sitting at a humble tea table Watt watched the gurgling of the steam escaping from the kettle, and evolved the steam engine therefrom; with his simple kite, Franklin drew down the lightning from the clouds, and started the science of electricity; through studying a ball, the ancient scholars conceived the earth to be a sphere, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... accompaniment for such a scene. Thunder and lightning filled the sky. A hurricane swept the landscape, with a voice of dirge, while the rain poured down in torrents. For long hours Zulma knelt beside the inanimate form. M. Belmont sat at the head of the bed with the rigidity of a corpse. But for the ever ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... cars for Philadelphia. The night proved one of the darkest and stormiest which it had ever been my fate to encounter,—and I have seen some bad weather in my time. The rain fell in torrents, and the road was only now and then visible by the flashes of the lightning. But our trusty driver persevered, and, in spite of all obstacles, brought us to Baltimore by the early dawn. Sayres proceeded by the direct route to Philadelphia. Having still some apprehensions of pursuit and a requisition, I took the route by Harrisburg. Great ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... ferrets gorging away at a dead rabbit,—nasty little beasts!—that accounted for them; but where on earth was the weasel? I really began to think we had imagined the creature, when, whish! came a flash of white lightning, and out the thing bolted—pure white with a splash of brown—its winter coat, of course. I shot at it, but it was no go. If I'd only put a bag over the hole, and not been an idiot, I should have ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... earth, in all the length and breadth thereof. As for the brand, if its bearer draw it and brandish it against an army, the army will be put to the rout; and if he say the while, 'Slay yonder host,' there will come forth of that sword lightning and fire, that will kill the whole many. As for the planisphere, its possessor hath only to turn its face toward any country, east or west, with whose sight he hath a mind to solace himself, and therein he will see that country and its people, as they were between his hands and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... on either side would have probably ended the engagement. But the rain was now falling in torrents; heavy peals of thunder, crashing through the forest, drowned the discharges of the two guns which Jackson had brought up through the woods, and the red flash of musketry paled before the vivid lightning. Much of the ammunition was rendered useless, the men were unable to discharge their pieces, and the fierce wind lashed the rain in the faces of the Confederates. The night grew darker and the tempest fiercer; and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... suddenly the shark, afraid of losing his prey, made a dart at the fish till the bowline was just behind his two hind fins, when Paddy, giving a sudden jerk to it, brought it tight round him. The men, when they saw this, endeavoured to catch a turn with the rope to secure the monster, but, quick as lightning, he gave a terrific jerk to the rope and tore it through their hands. Out flew the rope. Unhappily, Paddy was standing in the middle of the coil, and before he could jump out of it a half-hitch was caught ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... impressions were fully confirmed. Mary was a little bit of a woman, with black hair, red lips, white teeth, and two eyes that looked like coals of fire, so bright were they. She was small, but when she took hold of the key, she was jerked lightning, and I have never seen but one woman since who was her equal ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... that everything was there; he turned to go back to bed again, when he noticed that a Greuze portrait looked out of the frame that had held Sebastian del Piombo's Templar. Suspicion flashed across his brain, making his dark thoughts apparent to him, as a flash of lightning marks the outlines of the cloud-bars on a stormy sky. He looked round for the eight capital pictures of the collection; each one of them was replaced by another. A dark film suddenly overspread his eyes; his strength failed him; he fell fainting ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... his hand in greeting, it was icy cold—not like Gianluca's, half dead, and dull, and chilly, and very thin—but cold from the heart, as it were, and more wildly living than if it had burned like fire; trembling, and not in weakness, with something that caught her own fingers and ran like lightning to the very core and quick of her soul, hurting it overmuch with its bolt of joy and fear. It was for her that, at the first, he had been cold and silent, because he was afraid of himself, and of love, and of the least, faintest breath ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... and some doubtful customs. For instance, an Indian called Nepapinase—"A Wandering Bolt of Night-Lightning"—lost his son when Mr. Ross was there taking adhesion to the Treaty, and spread the report that he had brought "bad medicine." Polygamy was practised, and even polyandry was said to exist; but we had no time to verify this gossip, and no right ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... has called us up on the 'phone. She says she wants to talk to you quicker'n lightning, whatever speed that may indicate. She adds, mysteriously, that 'it's the ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... were so far completed as to form respectable approaches. The gardens had produced abundantly, and the troops were all in excellent health and good discipline. On Mondays and Fridays they were exercised at light-infantry drill for several hours. Every man had his post, which he occupied like lightning when the bugle suddenly sounded the alarm. The "Forty Thieves" held the rock citadel, as they could fire over the heads of those in the camp without fear of accident. The night alarm sounded unexpectedly, and as I went the rounds, every man was at ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Finally, Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, appears with fresh threats, that he may extort the mystery from the Titan. But Prometheus is firm, defying both the tyrant and his envoy, though already the lightning is flashing, the thunder rolling, and sky and sea are mingling their fury. Hermes can say no more; the sea nymphs resolutely refuse to retire, and wait their doom. In this crash of the world, Prometheus flings ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... candles, stamped with the figure of a lamb and consecrated by the Pope. In 1471 Pope Paul II expatiated to the Church on the efficacy of this fetich in preserving men from fire, shipwreck, tempest, lightning, and hail, as well as in assisting women in childbirth; and he reserved to himself and his successors the manufacture of it. Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a consideration, tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription: 'This cross measured ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... people, then started fire, completing the ruin. This accords with the statement which has been made that asphyxiation of the inhabitants preceded the burning of the city. The gas being sulphureted hydrogen, was ignited by lightning or the fires in the city. The same tornado drove the ships in the roadstead to the bottom of the sea or burned them before ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... approached a large cask floating with one end out of the water, to represent a boat. An officer stood up with a little ball of gun-cotton in his hand, smaller than an orange, to which was attached a thin line of what is called lightning cotton, the other end being fastened to a pistol. As the launch glided on he threw the ball into the cask. The boat moved away as rapidly as possible, when the pistol being fired, in an instant the cask was blown to atoms. What a fearful effect would have been produced had the innocent-looking ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... fell at once. Holgate's voice arrested the Prince, and he started, as if now for the first time aware of the presence of the mutineers. Till that moment he had merely been bent on rating a servant. With the swiftness of lightning he drew and levelled a revolver; I saw Holgate's fat bull neck and body lean to one side and drop awkwardly, and then an exclamation sprang up on my left, where Gray and another were holding Barraclough captive. The bullet had gone over Holgate's head as he dodged it and ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... for an answer. Although the message was flashed with lightning speed, it seemed a long time in coming. At length it came, and ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... started, stopped and stared. He rubbed his eyes. No; he was not asleep and dreaming by the cottage fire; the wind was about him, and the firs were howling and hissing; there was the cloudy mountain, with the Glashburn, fifty times its usual size, darting like brown lightning from it; but where was the iron gate with its two stone pillars, crested with wolf's-heads? where was the bridge? where was the wall, and the gravelled road to the house? Had he mistaken his bearings? was he looking in a wrong direction? Below him was a wide, swift, fiercely rushing ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... injure Mrs. Dorcas' wicks—but she pinched up a little end of the fluffy flax and touched her candle to it. She thought she would see how that little bit would burn off. She soon found out. The flame caught, and ran like lightning through the whole bundle. There was a great puff of fire and smoke, and poor Mrs. Dorcas' fine candle-wicks were gone. Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely escaped the whole blaze coming ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... their bird-seer understood only the signs in their simplicity, and knew only in general whether the occurrence boded good or ill. Disturbances of the ordinary course of nature were regarded by him as boding evil, and put a stop to the business in hand, as when for example a storm of thunder and lightning dispersed the comitia; and he probably sought to get rid of them, as, for example, in the case of monstrous births, which were put to death as speedily as possible. But beyond the Tiber matters were carried much further. The profound Etruscan read ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... way under the lightning. Elizabeth's words were delivered with an intensity that kept them quiet, though with the last degree of clear utterance; and turning, as Rufus came up, she gave him a glare of her dark brown eyes that astonished him, and made off with a quick step to a part of the field where she could pick ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... influence of the changing season upon a beautiful oak at Claremont, is blended with the address to her who also graced the scene, and is made the vehicle for observing upon her laudable love of nature and retirement. The oak is rent by lightning, and all its strength and glory levelled by the momentary shaft: thus also were a nation's ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... Such a hero as antiquity can show, towering, magnificent, made of cloud and thunder, made of lightning and glory, a god among fighting men, a Hector or Mars appearing from the bosom of the sky on the day ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... scarcely passable with boats, so violent was the current that poured over it. The rise had been so sudden that people could scarcely realize it, and strange incidents had occurred. A horse attached to a wagon had been standing in front of a store. A vivid flash of lightning startled the animal, and he broke away, galloped up a side street to the spot where the bridge had been, plunged in, was swept down, and scarcely more than a minute had elapsed before he was back within a rod or two of his starting-point, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... fiercely! Thunder and lightning and blazes! Haid homa gfresa beim Herr Doll. Das is a deutscha Compositor, und a browa Mo. [Footnote: "Today we dined with Herr Doll, he is a good composer and a worthy man" [Vienna Patois]] Now I begin ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... gloom; and in an instant these rolling, twisting volumes of black became lurid, and an explosion like that of a thousand great guns rent the air. As fast as the eye could follow, sheets of flame shot out of the sea of smoke, climbing higher and higher, in lightning flashes, until the lurid tongues licked the air a quarter of a mile above the startled wilderness. Explosion followed explosion, some of them coming in hollow, reverberating booms, others sounding as if in mid-air. The heavens were filled ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... worked up to the highest pitch. The mass was interrupted, the church deserted, and the whole village a scene of uproar. Orso Paolo fled as soon as he had fired the fatal shot, pursued by his enemies, who overtook and surrounded him. His fate had been sealed on the spot, but that, quick as lightning, he burst through the throng and darted into a house of which the door stood open. It was the house of Grimaldi, his deadly foe, but there was no other chance of escaping instant death. To close and bar the door, and stand on his defence, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... observed that luminous appearance of the sea which has so often been mentioned by navigators, and which has been ascribed to such a variety of causes. Flashes of light appeared to be emitted, exactly resembling those of lightning, though without being so considerable; and such was the frequency of them, that sometimes eight or ten were visible almost at the same moment. It was the opinion of Mr. Cook and the other gentlemen, that these flashes proceeded from some luminous ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... One was sitting on the throne. Encircling the throne was a rainbow which looked like an emerald; also around the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and on these thrones were seated twenty-four elders, clothed in white robes with golden crowns upon their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning and voices and peals of thunder, while in front of the throne were seven flaming torches, which were the seven spirits ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... host, he first grew pale, As Angels can; next, like Italian twilight, He turned all colours—as a peacock's tail, Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight In some old abbey, or a trout not stale, Or distant lightning on the horizon by night, Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review Of thirty regiments in red, green, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron |
