"Thunderbolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... After this thunderbolt had fallen an ominous quiet reigned for thirteen years. Nothing more was heard of the Mongols—but a comet blazing in the sky awoke vague fears. Suddenly an army of five hundred thousand Asiatics returned, led by Batui, nephew of the Great ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... moment, his eyes betraying no vestige of his intentions. Suddenly his left foot shot out and upward with incredible swiftness. The captain's knife hand flew up to save itself, and ere it came down Roger, moving forward with the kick, had swung his right fist like a thunderbolt to its mark beneath ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... a thunderbolt, both for the Patriarchia and the Turkish authorities, who had forbidden the entry of strangers into the district and closed the main routes to it, but had never imagined any one would be so crazy as to drop in over the Montenegrin frontier ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... "Tinkeles, is it really you?" and went up to him. Tinkeles collapsed as if struck by a thunderbolt, and stared with wide-opened eyes at Anton, an ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... transports, unseen, carried the multitudes. Wherever one had gone in England he had seen soldiers and wherever he went in France he was to see still more soldiers. England had become an armed camp; and England plodded on, "muddled" on, preparing, ever preparing, to forge in time of war the thunderbolt for war which was undreamed of in time of peace when other nations were forging ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... men this volley was as a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Never was a surprise more complete; never was overwhelming disaster more sudden. They were paralyzed and unnerved. A score fell at the first fire, and though Cuyler succeeded in forming the rest in an irregular semicircle about the boats, their return shots were so wildly ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... with the stranger,"—thus burst the song from the lips of the poet. "Vortigern wedded with the stranger; thence came the first wo upon Britain, and a sword upon her nobles, and a thunderbolt upon her palace. We wed not with the enslaved Saxon— the free and princely stag seeks not for his bride the heifer whose neck the yoke hath worn. We wed not with the rapacious Norman—the noble hound scorns to seek ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... rifle below me cracked, and then again, and again, and again. The marauders had taken warning, and were coming out in mass. But my own eyes were fixed on the tree. Almost as a thunderbolt falls fell the giant body of the Gospodar, his size lost in the immensity of his surroundings. He fell in a series of jerks, as he kept clutching the trailing beech-branches whilst they lasted, and then other lesser verdure growing out from the fissures in the rock after the lengthening ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... understanding what they were about in particulars, heard the sudden bellow of one of their cannon. Two of the battlements beside her flew into one, and the stones of the parapet between them stormed into the cistern. Had her presence been the attraction to that thunderbolt? Often after this, while she watched the engine below in the workshop, she would hear the dull thud of an iron ball against the body of the tower; but although it knocked the parapet into showers of stones, their artillery could not make the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... forth this awful thunderbolt for the first time against a crowned head. A dissolute and ambitious monarch had called upon the successor of St. Peter to yield up the keys, and lay the tiara at the feet of the lion of Austria, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... Berne, entirely [Greek: hek kakistou korakost kakiston hoon]. This I am astonished at, if the report is true: that there are among the Parisian divines those who pride themselves on having at length secured a man who by the thunderbolt of his eloquence is to break asunder the whole party of Luther and restore the church to its pristine tranquility. For he wrote also against Luther as I hear. And then the divines complain that they are slandered by me, who aid their studies in so many night-watches; ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... a God infinite in power, as in wisdom and goodness? Are we to think that the Almighty has just for once set a universe in motion, and forever withdrawn Himself from all meddling with its affairs? He permits us to control the electric power: but is never permitted to direct a thunderbolt upon the guilty, or to turn one aside from any path it might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hair, wound in a glistening thread about their shriveled stems, seemed for a short space to lift Philip Steele from out of the world he was in, to another in which his mind was only vaguely conscious, stunned by this letter that had come with the unexpectedness of a thunderbolt to change, in a single instant, every current of life in his body. For a few moments he made no effort to grasp the individual significance of the letter, the flowers, the golden hair. One thought filled his brain—one great, overpowering truth, which excluded everything else—and ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... his ticket was valueless came to Joe like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. The minute before he was in high spirits—his prospects seemed ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... its chroniclers, who described Napoleon as he fell with the rapidity and violence of the thunderbolt on the battalions of the Austrian and the Russian, and when he afforded to those trembling monarchs an example of magnanimity which they knew not how to imitate when generosity became their duty. Nor did his enthusiastic advocates omit the field of Jena, where his victorious ensigns chased ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... wound may appear, he regards it as beautiful, having received it on the most memorable and sublime occasion which past times have over seen, or future times can hope to equal, fighting under the victorious banners of the son of that thunderbolt of war, Charles V., of blessed memory." Should the friend of whom I complain have had nothing more to say of me than this, I would myself have composed a couple of dozen of eulogiums, and communicated them to him in secret, thereby to extend my ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... happen to us!" she said, laughing rather shrilly. "Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, we're all ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... presents us with any trace of that famous Tribune, from which the Roman people were governed by eloquence. Three pillars remain of a temple, raised by Augustus in honour of Jupiter Tonans, when the thunderbolt fell at his feet without striking him, and an arch which the senate raised to Septimus Severus in reward of his exploits. The names of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were inscribed on the fronton ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... would enlighten you, if you chose to go to him," was the indifferent reply. "Within the course of the next few months we shall launch our thunderbolt. You will know then what ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... received the first message until we pulled out and started on our wild ride of rescue. Forty miles in forty minutes, with one slow down was our time. The old derrick and wreck outfit swayed to and fro like reeds in the wind, as we went down the track like a thunderbolt, but fortunately we held to the rails. There was scarcely a word spoken in the caboose, every one being intent upon holding on and thinking of the horrible scene we were soon to view. When we reached Truxton we found the track walker there, and after hearing his story in ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... was her day and hour and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was absolutely irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand of God. This particular telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt. "Bishop examining confirmation class in neighbourhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... a glance which would have shivered him like a thunderbolt if he had not been a man of stone. But being a man of stone, the thunderbolt harmlessly glanced off from him. With a peculiar smile, he assisted the enraged counsellor in putting on his cloak, handed him ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... an attack, had extended his men over a wide space. On the night of December 28, in darkness and storm, the Spanish army broke camp, marched to the river that divided the forces, silently threw a bridge across the stream, and were soon on its opposite side. Here they fell like a thunderbolt on the unsuspecting and unprepared French, who were soon in disordered retreat, hotly pursued by their foes, their knights vainly attempting to check the enemy. Bayard had three horses killed under him, and was barely rescued from death by a friend. So utterly were ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... urged to an anguish of speed sounded on the night. M. Beaucaire's servants had lagged sorely behind, but they made up for it now. Almost before the noise of their own steeds they came riding down the moonlit aisle between the mists. Chosen men, these servants of Beaucaire, and like a thunderbolt they fell upon the ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... of the road, my pencil and field book idle, my duty forgotten, I watched him slowly disengaging himself from the wreck and rising. At that instant, the cannon having ceased firing, a burly Confederate trooper on a spirited horse dashed like a thunderbolt down the road with drawn saber. Thurston saw him coming, drew himself up to his full height, and again folded his arms. He was too brave to retreat before the word, and my uncivil words had disarmed him. He was ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... A thunderbolt from a clear sky could hardly have caused such surprise, but Cornelia did not wait to talk about the wonder. She loaded a maid with clothing of every description, and ran across the street to her friend. Arerita saw her coming, ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Indiaman, the night had set in and a stiff breeze had arisen, so that the long and laborious search that was made for the body of poor Mrs. Ellice proved utterly fruitless. Captain Ellice, whose wound was very severe, was struck down as if by a thunderbolt, and for a long time his life was despaired of. During his illness Fred nursed him with the utmost tenderness, and in seeking to comfort his father, found some relief to his ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... de l'autre cots de la riviere," that great man on the other side of the river, but the great man he remained, until he bowed before the mandate which none may disobey. "Three times," said Bouillaud, "did the apoplectic thunderbolt fall on that robust brain,"—it yielded at last as the old bald cliff that is riven and crashes down into the valley. I saw him before the first thunderbolt had descended: a square, solid man, with a high and full-domed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... from Rich Mountain came. It fell like a thunderbolt from the summer sky, that the people deluded themselves was to sail over them with never a cloud! The flood-tide of success, upon which they had been floating so gaily, was suddenly dammed and flowed back upon them in surges ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... to a man of honor. I maintain that his silence then binds him to silence for ever. He has no right to ruin my life and the happiness of my wife by subtle threats, to hold those foolish letters over our heads, like a thunderbolt held ever in suspense. You are ambitious, I believe, Mr. Aynesworth! Get me those letters, and I will make you my secretary, find you a seat in Parliament, and anything else in reason ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... remained, when the pinch came, would have no dogs. It was for this reason that Daylight and Elijah took the more desperate chance. They could not do less, nor did they care to do less. The days passed, and the winter began merging imperceptibly into the Northland spring that comes like a thunderbolt of suddenness. It was the spring of 1896 that was preparing. Each day the sun rose farther east of south, remained longer in the sky, and set farther to the west. March ended and April began, and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of all present Joam Garral was the only one whom this fearful thunderbolt, which had fallen so unexpectedly on his ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... present, from his seat 110 Louvet walked single through the avenue, And took his station in the Tribune, saying, "I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" [I] Well is known The inglorious issue of that charge, and how He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt, 115 The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded, Was left without a follower to discharge His perilous duty, and retire lamenting That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men Who to themselves are false. [K] But these are things 120 Of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... and waited for the next thing to happen. I found my thunderbolt waiting for me when I woke up. I didn't know what it was going to be, but when I felt a ring through the envelope of that note I knew what it was. I mind-read that note before I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... arrived at the chateau, where all the inhabitants were busy looking for the body of the count; for St. Luc had given them a wrong direction. Remy came among them like a thunderbolt, and was so eager to bring them to the rescue, that Diana looked at him with surprise, "I thought he was Bussy's friend," murmured she, as Remy disappeared, carrying with him ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning; after all his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil with ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... he, "I will put the same question to you, leaving you to reply to it. Hush, this is the first real test that you have been subjected to; if you are not strong enough to go through it, then we had better say farewell. Be firm, for a thunderbolt is about ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... we hear, recognized in it the hand of the greatest limner of Greece. It was the signature of that Ideal, known to the antique world by its wider developments in the famous pictures of the Venus Anadyomene, and Alexander with the Thunderbolt, hung in the temple of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... adopted daughter. Naturally, I have seen a great deal of their nephews, who spend a good part of their time at the house, and I need not tell you that the horrible charge against Reuben has fallen upon us like a thunderbolt. Now, what I have come to say to you is this: I do not believe that Reuben stole those diamonds. It is entirely out of character with all my previous experience of him. I am convinced that he is innocent, and I am prepared to back ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... the hand a blade that glittered as he raised it, One impulse seemed to shoot forth the jealous Greek and his watcher, and before Demetri Agryopoulo could form the faintest notion as to how the thing had happened, a sudden thunderbolt seemed launched against him, and he was lying all abroad with a sprained wrist. The stiletto flew clean over the wall, so swift and dexterous was the twist which Barndale gave the murderous ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... requests Phoebus, as a proof of his affection towards his child, to allow him the guidance of the chariot of the Sun for one day. This being granted, the whole earth is set on fire by him, and the AEthiopians are turned black by the heat. Jupiter strikes Phaeton with a thunderbolt, and while his sisters and his kinsman Cyenus are lamenting him, the former are changed into trees, and Cyenus into a swan. On visiting the earth, that he may repair the damage caused by the conflagration, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the palace Servilio. She had resisted many sorrows, she had come forth victorious from many dangers, had suffered, without succumbing, terrible agonies, and died suddenly without leaving any trace, as if carried off by a thunderbolt. Every one here knew her more or less, but no one so well as I, because none loved her so much, and she only let herself be known according as she was loved. Others do not believe in her death, although she has not appeared since the night of which I tell thee: they say it has often ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... like a thunderbolt, and Mark felt a curious chilling sensation come over him, as he tried to keep it from his mother and Mrs O'Halloran. But the latter was quick at seeing there was something wrong, and she stopped and asked what it was, and wrung ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... thunderbolt burst on board, or had the vessel struck on a rock in the middle of the ocean, the alarm that was instantly spread on board could not have been greater; and where all had been listless inactivity but a moment before, was now ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... into the tender blue of the heavens. This is the land of the Sons of Fire, and yonder amid the slopes of the nearest hills is the great kraal of their king, Umsuka, whose name, being interpreted, means The Thunderbolt. ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... fell like a thunderbolt upon the prisoner; he grew pale, tottered, and leaned against ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... been impossible for horses except for the snow which trigged feet and runners in some degree; it was damp and heavy; but the frantic threshing of the plunging beasts kicked up a smother of snow none the less. It was like a thunderbolt in a nimbus—the rush of Flagg ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... deserted yard and up to a tangle of neglected shrubbery. He had some difficulty in getting Thunderbolt—who was as restless a beast as his name implied—to stand still long enough to allow him to pick a bunch of the buds; he would have nothing but buds just breaking into bloom. These he presently brought back to Roberta. She fancied that ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... like a wild legend. It was as if the arm of each Netherlander had been nerved by the memory of fifty years of outrage, as if the spectre of their half-century of crime had appalled the soul of every Spaniard. Like a thunderbolt the son of William the Silent smote that army of Philip, and in an instant it lay blasted on the heath of Tiel. At least it could hardly be called sagacious generalship on the part of the stadholder. The chances were all against him, and if instead of Varax those legions had been commanded that morning ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Moorsom were a European event and that brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know. All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. The menace of separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for hadn't he lived all these days under the very cloud? The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden and went on unburdening his mind. Yes. The department of sentiment was ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... the first quarter they fairly held their own. McAlpin, their giant fullback, proved a tower of strength, and when he was given the ball plunged through the line like a thunderbolt. There seemed to be no holding him, and his team backed him up so powerfully that he made his distance easily on the four downs. The ball was still in the Army's possession when the referee's whistle announced the end of the first quarter, and the field was swept by the cheers ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... and since from the heights of my supernatural love a thunderbolt thus hurls me down, since, nothing, nothing henceforth, from this moment on, can give me joy, since, cruel woman, when thou couldst throw me a rope, thou leavest me, in dismay, to drink the bitter current—let death come, black hiding-place, bottomless abyss! ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... fire. The forms of glowing logs appeared falling from it and bloody comet stars were seen. When a senate-meeting had been announced on account of his sickness in order that they might offer prayers, the senate-house was found closed and an owl sitting upon it hooted. A thunderbolt fell upon his image standing on the Capitol and erased the first letter of the name of Caesar. This led the seers to declare that on the hundredth day after that he should attain to some heavenly condition. They made this deduction from the fact that the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... the storm-driven cloud of summer that, having cast off its crown of gold, hangs as a sword the thunderbolt ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... which I burned and melted—it was enough that it was sweet to burn and melt. I gave myself up to all my passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories, and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a new ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... struck by a thunderbolt, and for some time was unable to speak. At last I asked him how a servant could dare to behave so towards his master. He interrupted me by saying, quite coolly, "A servant may be a very honorable ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... informing our friends at Johnson's Island "that the carriage would be at the door on or about the tenth;" our party had collected at the little port on the canal waiting for the steamer then nearly due, when a proclamation was issued by the Governor General, which fell among us like a thunderbolt. It was announced in this proclamation, that it had come to the knowledge of the Government that a hostile expedition was about to embark from the Canada shores, and the infliction of divers pains and penalties was threatened against all concerned ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... the citizens get tired of killing the Chinamen brought up to do the work, which will probably be within three or four weeks. The carcases are accumulating about town and begin to become unpleasant.—Gravel Hill "Thunderbolt." ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... vengeance would follow, quick and sure. At a loud peal overhead the boy I was playing with deliberately stuck up his scornful lips at the clouds and in other ways expressed his defiance. I fairly cringed in my tracks; I expected to see my companion smitten with a thunderbolt at my side. That I recall the incident so vividly shows what a deep impression it made upon me. But I have long ceased to think that the Ruler of the storms sees or cares whether we make faces at the clouds or not—do ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... constraint on her. And 'twas only when I led her to this terrace, after the thunderbolt, and pointed out the scattered soldiery, that she came to herself, that at length she perceived that your God was the most powerful. "What," she cried, "'tis he, he, my Satni, who shakes the heavens and the earth for me! For me!" she murmured, "for me!" She would ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... though a thunderbolt had fallen; and I must say, that even up to this day I think that the Consul might have been a little less abrupt. "We can get in here," said he, evidently in a hurry, and pointing to a small door which ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... being a mighty physician, raised men from the dead. But Zeus was wroth that a man should have such power, and so make of no effect the ordinance of the Gods. Wherefore he smote Asclepius with a thunderbolt and slew him. And when Apollo knew this, he slew the Cyclopes that had made the thunderbolts for his father Zeus, for men say that they make them on their forges that are in the mountain of Etna. But Zeus suffered not this deed ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... deaths remember they are men; Strain not the laws, to make their tortures grievous. Lucius, the base, degen'rate age requires Severity. When by just vengeance guilty mortals perish, The gods behold the punishment with pleasure, And lay th' uplifted thunderbolt aside. ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... and the signal is given for half the party to fire. If they are not successful in laying him dead on the spot with this first volley, he springs like a thunderbolt upon the horses. The remainder of the party then fire, and seldom fail to put an end to him but generally one or more of the horses are either killed or so wounded as to be destroyed in consequence; and sometimes, although rarely, one or more of the ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... forces. As science—which is the knowledge of physical laws—extends, the object of prayer becomes more and more intangible and remote. What we formerly feared, we learn to govern. No one would pray God to avert the thunderbolt, if lightning rods invariably protected houses. The Swiss clergy opposed the system of insuring growing crops because it made their parishioners indifferent to prayers for the harvest. With increasing knowledge and the security which it brings, religious terror lessens, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... savages, but Kit determined to mingle a little of the bitter as a condiment to the roasted flesh. Gathering his men well together, and approaching very close to the foe without being discovered, he gave the order to charge. His men needed no second command. They fell upon the feasting savages like a thunderbolt, scattering them right and left without mercy. Eight of the warriors were killed in the short conflict which ensued. The remainder were allowed to escape. With some difficulty they next succeeded in recovering all their horses, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a thunderbolt:—my comfort, however, still was that the officers were not suspected, and that it was their duty to visit my chamber several times a day, and examine what passed: from which circumstance I felt my hopes somewhat revive. Hence an adventure happened which is almost unexampled ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Having hurled his thunderbolt, Mr. Pantin stood above his wife regarding her imperturbably as she lay with her face buried in a sofa pillow. Unmoved, he even felt a certain interest in the rise and fall of her shoulder blades as she sobbed. Actually, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... thunderbolt, Colonel Washington and his troopers, flying their famous crimson flag, sweep down in a semicircle round the hill, and charge the enemy's ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Company, in connection with the failure of Francis Skiddy & Co, and another old-established mercantile house similarly situated, had not died out when the suspension of Kenyon Cox & Co., involving that, also, of the Chicago and Canada Southern Railway Company, fell like a thunderbolt on Wall street. This failure derived its importance from the fact of Daniel Drew being a general partner in the house, although originally he had gone into it as a special partner with $300,000 capital, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... remembered that he and his school companion, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, had once taken refuge during a violent storm. The tree they stood under was shattered by a thunderbolt. They were both stunned for a few minutes, and knew they had had a narrow escape from death. Neither ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and earth. He is a monarch supreme among the gods, the lord of all beings, immeasurable and irresistible of power. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by two tawny horses, or many horses, even as many as eleven hundred, and he bears as his chief weapon the vajra, or thunderbolt, sometimes also a bow with arrows, a hook, or a net. Of all drinkers of soma he is the lustiest; he swills many lakes of it, and he eats mightily of the flesh of bulls and buffaloes. To his worshippers he gives abundance of wealth and happiness, ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... that power only for the good of mankind, he condescends, like Divinity, to be bound by the very laws which he has promulgated for the benefit of his subjects; and to make himself only a life-giving sun, when he might be a destructive thunderbolt." ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... gazed at the speaker in open-mouthed astonishment. They none of them expected for a moment that the three youngsters had come for any more important purpose than to solicit orders for new caps or "journey-money," and this confession came like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... a thunderbolt upon the Donner Party. Camp was immediately pitched, the Reed family being a little removed down the hill from the main body of emigrants. Reed felt that he had only acted in defense of his own life and in defense of the wife he adored. Nevertheless, it was evident ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... spend it all in one corridor; and as California is one great picture gallery, filled with the masterpieces of Him who paints with sunshine and dew and fire, and sculptures with chisel of hurricane and thunderbolt, we cannot afford to pass more than once before any canvas ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... politico-religious agitation was more or less the same in other parts of the Connexion. The publication of the "impressions" was (to those who had for years been in a state of chronic war with the powers that be) like the falling of the thunderbolt of Jove out of a cloudless sky. It unexpectedly precipitated a crisis in provincial affairs. It brought men face to face with a new issue. An issue too which they had not thought of; or, if it had presented ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... can speak my joy? Why, I could gaze upon thy looks for ever, And drink in all my being from thine eyes; And I could snatch a flaming thunderbolt, And hurl destruction!— ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... Abidan, Medad fall back on Ithamar. Scherirah must guard the capital. Honain, you are Regent. And so farewell. I shall set off to-night. Courage, brave companions. 'Tis a storm, but many a cedar survives the thunderbolt.' ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... pictured with wings, showing her swiftness, and with a hammer and nail, to typify that her decrees were unalterably fixed. The name of the supreme god was Tinia. He was the central power of the world of divinities, and was always represented, like Jupiter Tonans, with a thunderbolt in his hand. There were twelve great "consenting gods," composing the council of Tinia, and called "The Senators of Heaven." They were pitiless beings, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... insane could have served the brilliant effect of that outburst. It cleared the sultry air like a crackling thunderbolt. A gentle rain followed down her cheeks, while the overcharged heart of Davidge roared with ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the woman at her house. What are we to think of Miss Radnor, save that daughters of depraved parents! . . . A torture undeserved is the Centaur's shirt for driving us to lay about in all directions. He who had swallowed so much—a thunderbolt: a still undigested discharge from the perplexing heavens jumped frantic under the pressure upon him of more, and worse. A girl getting herself talked of at a Club! And she of all young ladies should have been the last ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ever be able to see the light of day? Shall I ever dare to raise my eyes after this filthy crime? Oh Heaven, Heaven, overwhelm me. Avenging thunderbolt of omnipotent God, reduce me to ashes, restore me again to the nothingness, from which I ought never to ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... good night's rest, and ready to resume my journey, I wanted to pay the innkeeper, but, alas! a new misfortune was in store for me! Let the reader imagine my sad position! I recollected that I had forgotten my purse, containing seven sequins, on the table of the inn at Tolentino. What a thunderbolt! I was in despair, but I gave up the idea of going back, as it was very doubtful whether I would find my money. Yet it contained all I possessed, save a few copper coins I had in my pocket. I paid my small bill, and, deeply grieved at my loss, continued my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Schwartz, fixes his attention on the suffix "stone," and quotes, from a fragment attributed to Shakespeare, "the all-dreaded thunder-stone." Schwartz and Kuhn conclude, in harmony with their general system, that Gladstone is really and primarily the thunderbolt, and secondarily the spirit of the tempest. They quote an isolated line from an early lay about the "Pilot who weathered the storm," which they apply to Gladstone in his human or political aspect, when the storm-spirit ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse—in this visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the circles ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... something of that motherly expectation which is not spoken of: he was considered the promising child of the family. Victor on his part felt uneasy at this kindly and somewhat sarcastic indulgence which the submissive mass showed him from that day on. The laughter had struck him like a thunderbolt. Yet he felt vaguely that by participating in the movement he had linked his fate and established his kinship with that mass. Instead of celebrating the occasion by a feast, it began without further ceremony to correct and to train him, and this feature of their mutual relation ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... 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 ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... hoping he had heard the last of his draft. He joined our Cheshire group, which was discussing the latest thunderbolt. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband with ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... name! a name so fell, Is this of melancholy, brat of hell. There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell, The Furies brought it up, Megara's teat, Alecto gave it bitter milk to eat. And all conspir'd a bane to mortal men, To bring this devil out of that black den. Jupiter's thunderbolt, not storm at sea, Nor whirlwind doth our hearts so much dismay. What? am I bit by that fierce Cerberus? Or stung by [2751]serpent so pestiferous? Or put on shirt that's dipt in Nessus' blood? My pain's past cure; physic ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... commonly a quality of bitter protest. He wore a grey cloth jacket suit and a silk hat on all occasions. He plumbed an abysmal trouser pocket with a vast red hand, paid his cabman, and came panting resolutely up the steps, a copy of the pink paper clutched about the middle, like Jove's thunderbolt, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... below. Upon a raised dais at one side sits the presiding genius of the place, who rules very much as Jupiter was supposed to govern the earthly swarms, by letting things run and occasionally launching a thunderbolt. High up on one side, in an Olympian seclusion, away from the noise and the strife, sits a Board, calm as fate, and panoplied in the responsibility of chance, whose function seems to be that of switch-shifters in their windowed cubby at a network ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the morning of the Fourth of July when the thunderbolt struck Fort Ryan. It was not very loud; it damaged no building; but it struck the very souls of men. A thousand thunder claps, a year's tornadoes in an hour, could not have been more staggering; and yet it was only four words of one ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... leaves o'er him. His cheeks flame as with fever; his blood boils in his veins; he grows giddy, faint:—alas, he feels at last that he might find happiness in the Palace of the mortal enemy of his Mother! This feeling falls upon him like a thunderbolt, and scathes his heart. He turns to fly, but they pursue, the perfumed wind bearing onward and wafting around him the full drapery of their floating trains of luxury. Their long ringlets kiss his cheeks, and weave their nets ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Bob's reply. "It has come like a thunderbolt. As I told you, I did not look at my paper this morning, and, as I have not been to St. Ia to-day, I saw ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... communication, nor prevent the Duma's strong plea for lawful rights and against lawlessness by government officials from reaching the peasants. Only one method of defense remained to the Czar and his Ministers: On July 9th, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came a new Manifesto from the Czar, dissolving the Duma. In the Manifesto all the old arrogance of Absolutism reappeared. A more striking contrast to the Manifesto of the previous October could not be readily imagined. The Duma was accused of having exceeded ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... a bench and a chair, and on one side a huge tambourine, with two curved iron drum-sticks. The bench was covered with bells, handsomely carved with idols, and censers with juniper-ashes; and on it lay the dorge, or double-headed thunderbolt, which the Lama holds in his hand during service. Of all these articles, the human thigh-bone is by much the most curious; it is very often that of a Lama, and is valuable in proportion to its length.* [It is reported at Dorjiling, that one ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... believer in the Deity. It seemed for a few moments as if his passions would destroy him by their internal violence; but their first ebullition was soon expended and he began to grow calm. The electric fires of his anger were no longer permitted to play at random, but were gathered up into a thunderbolt to be hurled at his foe; this half-crazed man suddenly became as cool and calculating as ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... that a house be presented to him from the public treasury. He had made the place on the Palatine which he had bought to erect a structure public property, and had consecrated it to Apollo, because a thunderbolt descended upon it. Hence they voted him the house and protection from any insult by deed or word. Any one who committed such an offence was to be bound by the same penalties as prevailed in the case of a tribune. For he received permission ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... Seeing the opportunity so good, I replied in a firm and significant tone, "How? I know well enough, but I will never tell you; and yet it is the only thing to do."—"Ah, I understand you," said he, as though struck with a thunderbolt; "I understand you perfectly;" and he threw himself upon the chair at the end of the room. There he remained some time, without speaking a word, yet agitated and sighing, and with his eyes lowered. I broke silence at last, by saying that the state which he was in had touched me to the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the programme, springs upon the proprietor, whose only defense is his whip. This simple weapon in his hands (according to the programme) will change itself into a fiery sword and shield. The end of this whip will sting as a rattlesnake, flash as lightning, shoot as a thunderbolt, and keep at a proper distance the enraged monster, who vainly roars and tries to jump on the artist. This is not the end yet: sixteen-year-old Orso, an "American Hercules," born of a white father and Indian mother, will carry around six people, three on each shoulder; besides this, the management ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... And if my thunderbolt not always rattles, Remember, reader! you have had before The worst of tempests and the best of battles That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore, Besides the most sublime of—Heaven knows what else: An usurer could scarce expect much more— But my best canto, save ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... feared any thing, but her father, when angry; and then, those who feared not to gaze on the lightning, when all the world appeared to be on fire, feared to look in his face. Then his voice was louder than the thunder, and his lance deadlier than the thunderbolt. Last evening, when you talked to that tall man, who is so gentle, you looked like my father; and I thought you were going to kill him, and I wanted to tell you not; for I have read his eyes, and he loves you much. It is very bad to be angry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... impatience smoothly punctuated passages like the following: "As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... came rushing on like a thunderbolt, and a moment later the balloon would have been crushed, torn to atoms, annihilated. The awful whirlwind was almost upon it, and it was already pelted with showers of sand driven like hail ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... which the loftier it climbs, As thou hast noted, still doth kindle more, So shines, that, were no temp'ring interpos'd, Thy mortal puissance would from its rays Shrink, as the leaf doth from the thunderbolt. Into the seventh splendour are we wafted, That underneath the burning lion's breast Beams, in this hour, commingled with his might, Thy mind be with thine eyes: and in them mirror'd The shape, which in this mirror shall be shown." Whoso can deem, how fondly I had fed My sight ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Dolcy to a stand. Was not that bold in me? But wait, there is worse to come, Malcolm. He did not move, but stood like a statue looking toward me. I knew that he wanted to come, so after a little time I—I beckoned to him and—and then he came like a thunderbolt. Oh! it was delicious. I put Dolcy to a gallop, for when he started toward me I was frightened. Besides I did not want him to overtake me till we were out of the village. But when once he had started, he did not wait. He was as swift now as he had been slow, and my heart throbbed and ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... 'Moderate Man's Journal' at the 'Lamb:' and they say in the tap there that he's one of the cleverest chaps in the House o' Commons," continued the Boots, in a confidential whisper. "But we takes in the 'People's Thunderbolt' at the 'Lion,' and we knows better this Muster Trevanion: he is but a trimmer,—milk and water,—no horator,—not the right sort; you understand?" Perfectly satisfied that I understood nothing about it, I smiled, and said, "Oh, yes!" and slipping on my knapsack, commenced ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they lost intellectual powers which fallen man has never regained. Operating by the consent of natural laws, sinless man would have wrought endless miracles. The mind, winged like a seraph, and armed like a thunderbolt, would have breached the very citadel of knowledge and robbed it of its treasures. I think they lost a plane of being only a little lower than the angels. I believe they lost youth, beauty, and physical immortality. I believe they lost the virtues of heart and soul, and many of ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... to be made that would not have any shape? I answered no; and then showed you several things, explaining that they all had some shape or form. You now brightened up like a lawyer who had led on a witness with easy questions to a certain point, and who had cautiously reserved a thunderbolt question, to floor the witness at a proper time; proceeded with, "Well, then, how could the world be without ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... thunderbolt will fall? when the tempest is about to burst? where the prairie-fire will break forth?" ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... mighty hero, King Dushyanta, Protector of the earth; who, at the head Of the celestial armies of thy son, Does battle with the enemies of heaven. Thanks to his bow, the thunderbolt of Indra Rests from its work, no more the minister Of death and desolation to the world, But a mere symbol ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... situation, and descending from her high seat, she planted her sturdy little legs on the floor, saying, in a decided tone, as she stumped away towards the door, "Geordie, I'm tired sittin' here. I'm away home." Jean's words fell like a thunderbolt both on Geordie and Grace. The blood mounted to the boy's face, and his earnest blue eyes turned anxiously towards the young teacher, to see what she was thinking of such an utter breach of good ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae |
