"Lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... One-minded rush in fight that naught can stay. Not these the highest, though I scorn not these, But rather offer Heaven with humble heart The deeds that Heaven hath given us arms to do. For when God's smile was with us we were strong To go like sudden lightning to our mark: As on that summer day when Saladin - Passing in scorn our host at Antioch, Who spent the days in revel, and shamed the stars With nightly scandal—came with all his host, Its gay battalia brave with saffron silks, ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the wagons before the thunder and lightning became incessant, and so loud as to be deafening. It appeared as if they were in the very center of the contending elements, and the wind rose and blew with terrific force, while the rain poured down as if the flood-gates of heaven were indeed opened. The lightning was so ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... who was residing there, came to meet Henry, with all due respect, observing, 'What do you fear, now, Sire, the tempest has passed?' And what thinkest thou old 'waxen heart' replied? Why, still trembling, he said, 'I do indeed fear thunder and lightning much, but, by the hand of God, I tremble before you more than for all the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... crowns, which glittered like fish from the sweep-net—when he felt himself plunging his hands up to the elbow in that still rising tide of yellow and white coins, a giddiness seized him, and like a man struck by lightning, he sank heavily down upon the enormous heap, which his weight caused to roll away in all directions. Planchet, suffocated with joy, had lost his senses. D'Artagnan threw a glass of white wine in his face, which incontinently ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... horizon I could see the black fringe of the falling rain under the tumbling clouds, and in a quarter of an hour the wind began to blow from the storm, which had been mounting the sky fast enough to startle one. The storm-cloud was now ripped and torn by lightning, and deep rumbling peals of thunder came to our ears all the time louder and nearer. The wind blew sharper, and whistled shrilly through the rigging of my prairie schooner, there came a few drops of ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... of time] Instantaneity. — N. instantaneity, instantaneousness, immediacy; suddenness, abruptness. moment, instant, second, minute; twinkling, trice, flash, breath, crack, jiffy, coup, burst, flash of lightning, stroke of time. epoch, time; time of day, time of night; hour, minute; very minute &c., very time, very hour; present time, right time, true time, exact correct time. V. be instantaneous &c. adj.; twinkle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the same time. The work of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts in sanctifying them, caused them to see and flow together. It might be said that the giving of this glorious light was in one respect similar to the second coming of the Son of man: "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." The fact that many persons in different parts of the world saw this light independently of each other and at about the same ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... threatens. If go you will, in the face of a coming rain, leave Wildfire here, and drive one of the carriage-horses instead. I shall be uneasy if you start with that vicious, unmanageable incarnation of lightning. Let me ring the bell and direct ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "Lightning for one thing—and we'd better hope it was that. Or—" Ashe's blue eyes were very cold and bleak, as cold and bleak as the countryside ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... stones in the bed of a river, or on the sea shore. The hill itself was of schistose formation, the boulders of different kinds of rocks, and very sparingly scattered through the soil. We had scarcely reached the summit of this hill, when it was enveloped in thick clouds, from which the lightning flashed, and the thunder pealed close to us, and crack after crack reverberated along the valleys. It soon passed away, however, and left us well drenched, but the western horizon was still black with clouds. From this ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... "Lightning destroyeth temples, though their spires pierce the clouds; Storms destroy armadas, though their sails intercept the gale. He that is in his glory falleth, and that by a contemptible enemy. Kindness fadeth away, but ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... prisoner; "draw near to the window; it is open. Between heaven and earth the wind whirls on its storms of hail and lightning, wafts its warm mists or breathes in gentle breezes. It caresses my face. When mounted on the back of this armchair, with my arm around the bars of the window to sustain myself, I fancy I am swimming in the wide expanse before me." The countenance of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Bliksem" (thunder and lightning), cried the vrouw. "There's my best cap, that cost twenty guilders, utterly ruined." Then she bravely ran for ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... nights, with a little wind stirring, are generally the most favourable; but one of the best nights I ever had amongst the "Peach Blossoms" and "Buff Arches" (Thyatira batis and derasa) was in a wood in Warwickshire, when the rain fell in torrents, accompanied with fierce lightning and thunder, from about 11 p.m. until 6 the next morning. On this night everything swarmed, a hundred or more common things on one patch of sugar being ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... compelled it to stand. This seemed to him a new and terrible sorcery; but Helga likewise leaped from the saddle, and stood on the ground. The child's short garment reached only to her knee. She plucked the sharp knife from her girdle, and quick as lightning she rushed in upon ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... American will step forth. He will have the strong brain of the German, the polished manners of the French, the artistic taste of the Italian, the stanch heart of the English, the steadfast piety of the Scotch, the lightning wit of the Irish, and when he steps forth, bone, muscle, nerve, brain entwined with the fibres of all nationalities, the nations will break out in the cry: ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... as a form of the Great Mother inevitably led to its identification with the thunder weapon, like all her other surrogates. I have already referred (Chapter II, p. 98) to the association of the spiral with thunder and lightning in Eastern Asia. But other factors played a significant part in determining this specialization. In Egypt the god Amen was identified with the ram; and this creature's spirally curved horn became the symbol of the thunder-god throughout the Mediterranean area,[330] ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... darkness in which could be heard the sound of two men breathing and the zinging of the mantelpiece brasses from the double explosion. Then silence—no movement—and the mind of Harrison Smith worked like a streak of lightning. His hand was on the back of a heavy arm chair and the touch of ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... suddenly in the northwest a black, ominous cloud, revolving swiftly and threateningly, as might the vapors from some gigantic cauldron; variegated in black, blue and green, bespangled with red streaks of lightning. ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... stricken sore by the drought; for it was the season of the year when the rain should have come in copious downfalls to moisten the parched soil, and when thunderstorms, accompanied by the vivid gleam of tropical lightning, should have come to cool and clear the air. But no rain came; not even a cloud obscured the blue of the sky for a moment, and not a suspicion of dew fell during the hours of darkness. Only the lightning came, as soon ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the gentleman has a name for gallantry and debt, and a wheen mair genteel vices that's neither here nor there, but he's a pretty lad. He's the man for my fancy—six feet tall, a back like a board, and an e'e like lightning. And he's nane the waur o' ha'in' a great interest in ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... and inaugurated a new era in the progress of knowledge. After having subjected the earth to their power; after having made the waves of the sea stoop in submission under the keels of their ships; after having caught the lightning of heaven and made it subservient to the ordinary purposes of life, the genius of man undertook to conquer the regions of the air. Imagination, intoxicated with past successes, could descry no limit to human power; the gates ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like falling ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... struck with lightning was considered religious (religiosus), that is, it could no longer be used for common purposes. "The deity," says Festus (v. Fulguritum), "was supposed to have appropriated ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... morning the pious Piran was brought in chains to the summit of a high cliff, and with a huge millstone tied to his neck his ungrateful neighbours hurled him into the raging billows beneath. This horrible deed was marked, as the holy man left the top of the cliff, with a blinding flash of lightning and a terrifying crash of thunder, and then, to the amazement of the savages who had thus sought to destroy him, a ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... soul all unknown my soul subdue, Thy lofty soul that pierces all things through And speeds on lightning wings to heaven's blue? Or am I racked by what my memories tell Of frequent deeds which caused thy heart to swell— That beauteous heart which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... was on the edge of his chair, questioning and interrupting. Frankly ignorant of the details of continental geography and politics, naive in his inquiries, he possessed the capacity for acquiring effective information at lightning speed. Unfortunately he was not over-critical and the source of his information was not invariably the highest authority; he was prone to accept the views of journalists rather than those of his own ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... the story of how she and Ruth had made their lightning substitution of the papers, Marjorie Moore gave a ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... bronze or in marble to her numerous admirers. Her face was, not beautiful, nor even pretty; but her features were such as one seldom forgets; for, at the first glance, they startled the beholder like a flash of lightning. Her forehead was a little high, and her mouth unmistakably large, notwithstanding the provoking freshness of her lips. Her eyebrows were so perfect they seem to have been drawn with India ink; but, unhappily the pencil had been used too heavily; and they gave her an unpleasant ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Warren saw, with lightning-like quickness, that his fall might be his salvation. It had deceived his foe into the belief that he was either killed or mortally hurt, and he was, therefore, unprepared for that ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... God is most especially inclined to mercy; according to Ps. 144:9: "His tender mercies are over all His works." But in His second coming, when He will "judge justices" (Ps. 70:3), He will come before the eyes of all; according to Matt. 24:27: "As lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." Much more, therefore, should His first coming, when He was born into the world according to the flesh, have been made known ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... was the lightning draw to be practised. Again and again the trusty weapon of Buck Benson flashed from its holster to the damage of a slower adversary. He was getting that draw down pretty good. From the hip with straight wrist and forearm Buck was ready to shoot in no time at all. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... gasped again, sent a lightning-thought into the future, and answered more casually than she had hoped ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... feet by her enthusiasm. He threw caution to the winds—that is, after he'd made a lightning calculation. It would n't cost any more, ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... met this spirit in a class in the Manila High School. A certain boy insists that he has seen the iron head of a thunderbolt, and although he makes "passing grades" in physics, he does not believe in physics. He regards our explanations of the phenomena of lightning as a parcel of foolishness in no wise to stand the test of his own experience, and nothing can silence him. "But, ma'am," he says, when electricity is under discussion, "I am see the head of a thunder under our house." This young gentleman will graduate in a year or two, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... do but to watch and laugh at the astonishment of the spectators. A single error of a hairsbreadth, of the smallest conceivable portion of time, would be fatal: the precision of the movements must be like a mathematical truth, their rapidity is like lightning. To catch four balls in succession in less than a second of time, and deliver them back so as to return with seeming consciousness to the hand again; to make them revolve round him at certain intervals like the planets in their spheres; ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... moment I heard of his auspicious arrival, or from offering my congratulations to Ser Giovanni, on the annunciation that he was recovered and looking out of the window. All Tuscany was standing on the watch for it, and the news flew like lightning. By this time it ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... still and white as death, mercifully unconscious, while an eagle with a wild scream circled about and perched on a lightning-blasted tree far above and looked ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... and ingenious work, "The Golden Bough." While mythologists of the schools of Mr. Max Muller and Kuhn have usually resolved most Gods and heroes into Sun, Sky, Dawn, Twilight; or, again, into elemental powers of Thunder, Tempest, Lightning, and Night, Mr. Frazer is apt to see in them the Spirit of Vegetation. Osiris is a Tree Spirit or a Corn Spirit (Mannhardt, the founder of the system, however, took Osiris to be the Sun). Balder is the Spirit of the Oak. The oak, "we may certainly conclude, was one of the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... this, the rows of seats were little by little getting filled up, while here and there a light toilet stood out from its surroundings, a head with a delicate profile bent forward under its chignon, where flashed the lightning of a jewel. In one of the boxes the tip of a bare shoulder glimmered like snowy silk. Other ladies, sitting at ease, languidly fanned themselves, following with their gaze the pushing movements of the crowd, while young gentlemen, standing up in the stalls, their waistcoats cut very ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... and of challenge. Since we had been in Devonshire the atmosphere of adventure that hung over Lundy had haunted me with the wish to go there. It was the "Shutter," the tall pinnacle of rock at its southern end, that Amyas Leigh saw for his last sight of earth, when the lightning blinded him, in the historic storm that strewed ships of the Armada along the shore. I am not a rash person, yet I was so saturated with the story of "Westward Ho!" that I could not go away satisfied unless I had set foot on Lundy. But it ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... not of the passive or contemplative sort. A brilliant improvisatore; rapid in thought, in word and in act; everywhere the promptest and least hesitating of men. I likened him often, in my banterings, to sheet-lightning; and reproachfully prayed that he would concentrate himself into a bolt, and rive the mountain-barriers for us, instead of merely playing on them and ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... neither bowed nor curtseyed, and the only movement she made was the slight turning of the head and eyes as he went by. It was extraordinarily effective, this silent and delightful introduction, for swift as lightning, and with lightning's terrific and incalculable surety of aim, she leapt into his heart with the effect of a blinding ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... Sam took up his station near the bow, clinging to the rail for protection. He knew their safety depended in good part on keeping a sharp lookout and he eyed the darkness ahead closely. So far there had been little lightning and scarcely any thunder, but now the rumbling increased until there came a crash and a flare that made ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... asses, and slaying them, had taken the animals away. No sooner had the devil obtained permission to engage, in the wicked enterprise, than he found ready agents among men. And before the evil report was finished, another terrified, excited servant, came in, saying that the lightning of heaven had consumed ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... Quick as lightning, I saw Fred's right hand raised, and with a "square shoulder hit," such as would have felled an ox, he let it fall full upon Bully's face. I saw the dark blood spurt out from beneath the eye of Pete, and I heard a crunching ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the lightning to strike in the wrong place. Didn't Nixon or Redfield or Hughey Blake say anything? Or did they just look ashamed of you, down there on your knees before a man that you worshiped for a God because he snorted like a horse? Didn't anybody in their senses ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... wings, but the soldier was prepared and seized the last hind quarter and flung it to her. Then she gained strength and brought him up to earth. When she had sat and rested a while at the top of a large pine-tree she set off with him again at such a pace that flashes of lightning were seen both by sea and land ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... to the interior, must be reckoned as among the most effective transformations ever seen on any stage. It would be still more so if the time occupied in making it were reduced one-half, and the storm in the orchestra, and the lightning seen through black gauze on stage were omitted. The lightning frightens nobody, only amuses a few, and in itself is no very great attraction. Even if these flashes were a very striking performance; no danger to the audience ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... at the bottom, which appeared particularly difficult to deal with that night. It first of all creaked fiercely on being moved—then stuck spitefully just at the entrance of the staple—then slipped all of a sudden, under moderate pressure, and ran like lightning into its appointed place, with a bang of malicious triumph. "If that doesn't bring my father down"—thought Zack, listening with all his ears, and stifling the hiccups with all his might—"he's a harder sleeper than I take ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... about the great verandas and into the glassless windows with all the vehemence of a New England snowstorm. It caught our well-protected punkah-lamps, and turned their broad flames into spiral columns of smoke. Ever and again a flash of lightning flared in our eyes, and revealed the water of the narrow straits lashed ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... thunder that seemed to shake the very earth; announced to the travellers that they were in for an unpleasant experience, in all probability, of a miserable night. The trio, however, still held on their way; the black boy, during the momentary illuminations caused by the repeated flashes of lightning, continued to discern the, but to him, evanescent path; and with spasmodic starts; and intervals of salient progression, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... teeth, fastened his sash to a block of stone, took his axe in one hand, and with the other slid down this substitute for a rope; falling a few steps from the wild beast, he sprang upon her, and, swift as lightning, dealt her two mortal strokes, just as the black, losing his strength, was about to drop the trunk of the tree, sure to have been ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... return to her,—having been returned unto that dust out of which all forms are borrowed. And in another little while she knew her boy slept so deep a sleep that the Chinese physician could not waken him. These things she learned only as shapes are learned in lightning flashes. Between and beyond the flashes was that absolute darkness which is the ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... him were caused by similar powers on the part of some being like himself, only superior to him. Thus he came to fill the unseen universe with gods controlling the forces of nature. The wind was the breath of one god, and the lightning a bolt thrown ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... happened. I heard a great hissing from the stands occupied by the Mahars, and as I glanced toward them I saw three mighty thipdars—the winged dragons that guard the queen, or, as Perry calls them, pterodactyls—rise swiftly from their rocks and dart lightning-like, toward the center of the arena. They are huge, powerful reptiles. One of them, with the advantage which his wings might give him, would easily be a match for a cave bear or ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that Monday, 6th July, when the French succeeded in breaking through the host of their enemies. The actual fighting lasted little more than an hour, amid a scene of the wildest confusion, which was increased by a storm of thunder and lightning, with rain falling in torrents. We are told that Bayard, the Good Knight, who had accompanied the King through the whole campaign, distinguished himself in the first charge at the head of de Ligny's company, and had ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... the other Rishis of Heaven, penetrated with fear, and afflicted with grief and sorrow, breathed hot sighs. Piercing through the welkin, those meteors fell on the lunar disc as well. All the points of the compass became filled with smoke and assumed a strange aspect. Reddish clouds, with flashes of lightning playing in their midst and the bow of Indra measuring them from side to side, suddenly covered the welkin and poured flesh and bloods on the Earth. Even such was the aspect which all nature assumed when that hero was overwhelmed with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... on his way to attack Mark, but Billy caught him before he could reach the ground, administered a smart cuff on the ear, and would have delivered another, but, quick as thought, Jack sprang from his grasp, spun round, leaped upon his back like lightning, bit him in the thick of the neck, and then bounded away towards the jungle, followed ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... hand a brightly polished, unsheathed dagger. Valdor began to play, and with the first wild chords the childish figure swayed, circled, and leaped forward like a young Amazon, the dagger brandished aloft, and gleaming here and there as though it were a snaky twist of lightning. Very soon Pasquin Leroy found himself watching the evolutions of the girl dancer with fascinated interest. Nothing so light, so delicate or so graceful had he ever seen as this little slight form ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the base of a cliff forming one side of a broad ravine. The rain fell in torrents, mingled with hail, the thunder rolled and reverberated among the hills, and the skies were riven by vivid flashes of lightning. Within the cave, however, they were snug ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... hazelnut, and nutmeg; grate and mix them with butter and sugar into pills, and take when she goes to bed; and then, if her fortune be to marry a rich man, her sleep will be filled with gold dreams; if a tradesman, she will dream of odd noises and tumults; if a traveler, there will be thunder and lightning ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the market has been removed to the other side, and, in comparison with the new town, there are few inhabitants left. The fortifications still bear witness to the fierce struggle which took place before them, and one bastion was breached more successfully than ever Montenegrin cannon had done, by lightning, during the bombardment. Many of the older inhabitants, as well as the walls, show traces of the former conflict, a noseless man ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... were made in times of ignorance. They suited very well a flat world, and a God who lived in the sky just above us and who used the lightning to destroy his enemies. This God was regarded much as a savage regarded the head of his tribe—as one having the right to reward and punish. And this God, being much greater than a chief of the tribe, could give greater rewards and inflict greater punishments. They knew that the ordinary ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... says Roeder, to see these men, who a moment before had been talking quite lively, drop dead as if struck by lightning. ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... a trouble, but this chiefly manifested itself in profound astonishment. What? They had suffered a defeat? But one did not begin to be victorious at once; victory would soon follow now. And, indeed, next morning, the news of a victory ran like lightning about the town. It had been so confidently expected that people quite neglected to make enquiries as to how and to what extent it was authenticated. There was bunting everywhere; all the horses had flags on their heads, people went about with little flags in their hats. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... are clear as sapphire, and the sea around is transparent as opal—yet the little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, may rise on the horizon, and may thicken and blacken and grow greater and nearer till all the sky is dark, and burst in lightning and rain and fierceness of wind, till 'through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming,' and the white crests of the waves are like the mane of Death's pale horse leaping upon the broken ship. We have all learnt in how profound a sense, by reason ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... out with her uncle behind his black ponies; and, if the road is smooth and level, he lets Madie hold the reins. But she likes better to go with him on the water, in his fine sail-boat, "Ildrian," which is a Spanish name, and means "fleet as lightning." ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... the most of us had, and while he had a lightning quickness of movement, and a courage that never faltered, he was no match for the bigger boys in strength and endurance. Marjie was rounding into graceful womanhood now, but she was not of the slight ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... which never fails, when so employed, to conduct to delusions and extravagances. And this state of mind gives birth simultaneously to both false religion and false science. Great tempests, inundations, eclipses, earthquakes, thunder and lightning, famine and pestilence, the births of monsters, or the rare visitation of strange fishes or wild animals, come all to be included in the mythologic domain. Even the untutored Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind." And when an order of priesthood ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... an undecked boat about a day's journey from Santarem. They are accompanied with terrific electric explosions, the sharp claps of thunder falling almost simultaneously with the blinding flashes of lightning. Torrents of rain follow the first outbreak; the wind then gradually abates, and the rain subsides into a steady drizzle, which continues often for the greater part of the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... grim silence, against which her husband's babble of optimism played like heat-lightning ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... stood by the cathead. The blue water stirred by the bow was wonderfully bright, a mass of coruscating phosphorescence that lighted the prow like a lamp. It was as if lightning played beneath the waves, so luminous, so scintillating the water and its reflection ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... her apron from her eyes and looked at him; lightning was gathering there which he would have done well to heed, but ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... committed on them. I see 'twelve hundred millions of dollars' seized, extorted by unrighteous force."[206] But, unfortunately, his passions are so furious, that his mind no sooner comes into contact with any branch of the subject of slavery, than instantly, as if by a flash of lightning, his opinion is formed, and he begins to declaim and denounce as if reason should have nothing to do with the question. He does not even allow himself time for a single moment's serious reflection. Nay, resenting the opinion of the most sagacious of our statesmen ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... hillside upon a natural plateau, the pathway to it, long and zig-zag, cut out in the hillside. Vegetation had taken root in the crevices of its broken walls, and some of the stonework, shivered by the lightning stroke perhaps, lay in the roadway at the foot of the hill. Silence reigned, and an eagle hovering on the heights above doubtless had his eyrie there. A thin stream of water trickled down the hillside, finding its way from the snow on ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... approaching feet: Ile make th'inspired threshals of his Court Sweat with the weather of my horrid steps, Before I enter: yet will I appeare 190 Like calme security before a ruine. A politician must, like lightning, melt The very marrow, and not taint the skin: His wayes must not be seene; the superficies Of the greene Center must not taste his feet, 195 When hell is plow'd up with his wounding tracts, And all his harvest ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... than could be bought for a cent, making a constant loss on the paper alone; besides which, it has cost $25 a week to the editor for the leading articles alone; and I know not how much for other editorial labor, market and commercial reports, ship news, foreign news, lightning expresses, correspondence, &c. And yet the amount received for advertising has covered all these expenditures, and enabled the present proprietor to realize, as ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... of them, including this dsilyÃdje qaçà l, may be celebrated only in the winter, in the season when the thunder is silent and the rattlesnakes are hibernating. Were they to tell of their chief gods or relate their myths of the ancient days at any other time, death from lightning or snake-bite would, they believe, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... east of it, upon the ridge. There the storms appear to culminate, pouring out the full vials of their wrath upon the devoted habitans of white-cotted Charlesbourg. The wayfarer who wends through this rustical district will hardly fail to observe the prevailing taste for lightning-rods. The smallest cottage has at least two of these fire-irons, one upon each gable; houses of more pretensions are provided with an indefinite number; and the big white church has its purple roof so bristled with them, that the pause which a flash of lightning must necessarily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the dashing charge I had been separated from my troop; that I was bleeding horribly from a wound; and one thought came like lightning across my brain—no; two ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... they went to join a dramatic company, where houses were blown up, and ships sank amid thunder and lightning. Dick played a desperate villain, and Kate a virtuous parlourmaid, until one night, having surprised him in the act of kissing the manager's wife, she ran off to the nearest pub, and did not return until she was horribly intoxicated, and ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... did its readers, for the disappointment had stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of the passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with Helen in the sitting-room at Silverton, was that there was a fearful storm of rain mingled with lightning flashes and thunder peals, which terrified the other ladies, but brought to her no other sensation save that it would not be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... sumthing to brag on. And what did he get for it? Why colony sarce, half-pay, and leave to make room for Englishers to go over his head; and here is a lyin' false monument, erected to this man that never even see'd one of our national ships, much less smelt thunder and lightning out of one, that English like, has got this ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in his boat beside the wharf. People would fight out that war with Spain. What thrilled her was the boom of winter surf, piling iridescent frozen spume as high as a man's head, and rimming the island in a corona of shattered rainbows. And she had an eye for summer lightning infusing itself through sheets of water as if descending in the downpour, glorifying for one instant ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... he had learnt the defence to be employed against each; and at last, as the master, exhausted with his exertions, flagged a little, Rupert in turn took the offensive. Now Monsieur Dalboy's skill stood him in equal stead to defend himself against Rupert's rapid attacks and lightning-like passes and thrusts; and although the combat had lasted without a second's interruption for nearly a quarter of an hour, neither combatant ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... park, by order of the Conventional Parliament, in 1653, pronounced 287 of these oaks as being hollow, and too much decayed for the use of the navy. The whole of these remain to this day, and may, perhaps, continue two or three centuries longer; some few of them have been scathed by lightning. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... one treasure gone, she latched it only, and took the wood-path to the swamp. Ann walked with a trained delicacy and caution suited to the woods. The thrilling of the frogs grew louder, and shortly she was at the old lightning oak that served her for a landmark. Before her lay the boggy place where she came in all warm seasons of the year for one thing or another: the wild marsh-marigold,—good for greens,—thoroughwort, and the root of the sweet-flag. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... something concealed in his hand. Suddenly a coin fell on the floor and went rolling round their feet. Quick as lightning the grocer cast a glance at the till, as he sprang over the counter and seized the boy by the scruff of the neck. "Ay, ay," he said sharply, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of the one window left unclosed by shutters. He was musing deeply. This man was, in much, an enigma to himself. Was he seeking to unriddle it? A strange compound of contradictory elements. In his stormy youth there had been lightning-like flashes of good instincts, of irregular honour, of inconsistent generosity,—a puissant wild nature, with strong passions of love and of hate, without fear, but not without shame. In other forms of society that love ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bread and the butter ball, have taken the place of the tiny butter plate, and should properly match the meat set. A touch of gold with any china decoration gives it a certain character and richness. The chop platter—among the nice-to-haves and bought as an odd piece—belongs in the lightning change category, for it may serve us our chops and peas during the first course, our molded jelly salad during the second, and our brick of ice cream or other dessert during the third. The range in price is from ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... did, he picked her up again two nights afterward, for I was down on Curtis Street, and just before I got to the avenue there they were! They were going like lightning, and I couldn't make out any more than I could before. The lady was on the other side of Uncle David; but I'm sure it ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... hour before dinner there was a grating of wheels on the gravel. Severne looked out of his bedroom window, and saw Uxmoor drive up. Dark blue coach; silver harness, glittering in the sun; four chestnuts, glossy as velvet; two neat grooms as quick as lightning. He was down in a moment, and his traps in the hall, and the grooms drove the trap ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and extended as far as possible, and the tail stretched back rigid and held close upon the ground. "Now come on," he says, "if you want to." The tail is his weapon of active defense; with it he strikes upward like lightning, and drives the quills into whatever they touch. In his chapter called "In Panoply of Spears," Mr. Roberts paints the porcupine without taking any liberties with the creature's known habits. He portrays ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... before his departure, and saw her alone. As at first, she appeared to veil the woman in her nature completely, while, at the same time, the mild lightning of her eyes played ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... many will whisper, that at such a time of night, returning from some neighbouring market, they have met with the evil one in the forest, in such and such a spot, where the two roads cross each other, or where the old oak has been blasted by lightning. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and rendered the conflict difficult. But the sacrifice of my prospects staggered me, I own, the most. When the other objections, which I have related, occurred to me, my enthusiasm instantly, like a flash of lightning, consumed them; but this stuck to me, and troubled me. I had ambition. I had a thirst after worldly interest and honours, and I could not extinguish it at once. I was more than two hours in solitude under this painful conflict. At length I yielded, not because ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... "lightning very often strikes twice in the same place, and often three times. The so-called all-wise Providence is still in the experimental stage. My grandmother, for instance, presented my grandfather with fifteen children: seven live sons and eight dead daughters. That's when the lightning had ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... were kept busy all the time, forging thunderbolts in the fire of burning mountains. Three other monsters, each with a hundred hands, were called in to throw rocks and trees against the stronghold of the Titans; and Jupiter himself hurled his sharp lightning darts so thick and fast that the woods were set on fire and the water in the rivers boiled with ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... Englishman lately arrived in this country there are other phenomena, equally curious; as fire-flies, night-hawks &c.; but, above all, such tremendous peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, as can be conceived only by those who ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... our thankfulness for a free country, but who is free? Of all the many sins that lay upon my soul, none seemed so heavy as the tobacco sin. In a time of danger or fright our first thought would be of tobacco, and we feared and trembled before God. In a time of storm when the lightning would flash and the thunder roll we would vow to the Lord that if he would keep us through the storm we would use tobacco no more. But when the clouds had rolled away and the sun shone out so peacefully, our tyrannical master would scourge us beneath his heavy yoke, and we would yield to his ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... the dark clouds that were gathering from the Tyrolese Alps, portended another storm which soon burst over us and hastened the conclusion of the music. The lightning was incessant. I stood at the corner of the piazza and watched the splendid effects of lights and darks, in a moment coming and in a moment gone, on the campanile and church of St. Mark's. It was most sublime. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... night. Surrounded by these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Even then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... John. Spite of all our privileges and indulgences, the Pope would have him come to Rome every third year; a sore burden and harm to us all. Forthwith evil omens came. Thrice in three years was our tower struck by lightning. After that wrong of his Holiness it was no wonder that the impression of the papal seal in wax, which we had taken good care to fix on the top of the steeple, availed not to keep off the thunderbolt—small good you see ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... evening which we spent together. The air was sultry, and through the arches of the loggia occasional flashes of lightning made fiery crevices in the black heavens. Imperia ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... already heard that name from the lips of the watchman Quillet; it now shot like a flash of lightning through her soul. ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... the end of the pipe would not burn, though the flame would blaze away above it. In the country of the fire worshipers, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, fires of natural gas have been burning for ages, kindled, perhaps, by lightning centuries ago. There is a vast supply of oil in this place; and indeed there is hardly a country that has not ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... as you said, and get the ladder over to you.' I'd thought of that, of course, but I couldn't stand the idea of her falling and perhaps getting hurt. 'You mustn't do it, Kitty,' I declared. 'If you get hurt as well, we shall be in a worse hole than ever.' My mind was working like lightning, and suddenly I thought of the cloak. 'Kitty' I said, 'throw the cloak down to me.' It was a good old-fashioned cloak, with yards and yards of stuff in it. I twisted it into a sort of rope, and then stood up against the wall on my good foot and threw the end over as far as I could. ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... lightning words that shall cause the world to vibrate, Of the democracy to come, Of the swift, teeming, confident thing! We are part of it—the wonder and the terror and the glory! Fearless we rush forward to meet the years, The years that come flying towards us ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... afternoon like this, he had ridden into town with a prisoner beside him, a youth whose lightning-swift hand had snuffed out a score of lives to avenge the killing of a friend. The collector recalled that on that day he had ridden his favorite horse, a deep-chested buckskin, slender legged, and swift, with ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... consequent complexities of their relations and junctures being so much greater than those of foundation plans. Then the sense of lofty loneliness in the deeps of air, and at the same time of proximity to things aerial—doves and martins, vanes and gilded balls and lightning conductors, the waves of the sea of wind, breaking on the chimneys for rocks, and the crashing roll of the thunder—is in harmony with the highest spiritual instincts; while the clouds and the stars look, if not nearer, yet more germane, and the moon gazes ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... them how, on hill on glade, Quick leaping from your side, The lightning flash of sabres made A red and flowing tide— How well ye fought, how bravely fell, Beneath our burning sun; And let the lyre, in strains of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... might or might not be, Winnebago still had the fortitude to savour this with relish. Winnebago had died deaths natural and unnatural. It had been run over by automobiles, and had its skull fractured at football, and been drowned in Lake Winnebago, and struck by lightning, and poisoned by mushrooms, and shot by burglars. But never had Winnebago citizen had the distinction of meeting death by being thrown from his horse while hunting. While hunting. Scarlet coats. Hounds in full cry. Baronial halls. Hunt breakfasts. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... butcher a Conceit; Thy Nerves have Beauty, which Invades and Charms; Lookes like a Princesse harness'd in bright Armes. Nor art Thou Loud and Cloudy; those that do Thunder so much, do't without Lightning too; Tearing themselves, and almost split their braine To render harsh what thou speak'st free and cleane; Such gloomy Sense may pass for High and Proud, But true-born Wit still flies above the Cloud; Thou knewst 'twas Impotence what they call Height; ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... great storm of rain, thunder and lightning, the cock took shelter in a little empty cottage, and shut to the door; and he thought: "I am clever; I am in comfort. What fools people are to top out in a storm like this! What's that?" thought he. "I never heard a ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... the elements proclaim the praise of their Creator—the sun, moon, and stars, the clouds and the winds, lightning and dew. The sun says, "The sun and moon stood still in their habitation, at the light of Thine arrows as they went, at the shining of Thy glittering spear"; and the stars sing, "Thou art the Lord, even Thou alone; ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... rejoined Carr. But there was no great conviction in his tone, since in his mind there was little expectation that lightning was going to strike twice in the same place. However, the caution came to his lips involuntarily: 'If there is a next time, I'd be mighty careful whom I told about it. It will pay you to look out ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... on the breeze! On rigid wing, in careless ease, A soundless bark on viewless seas. Piercing the purple storm cloud, he makes The sun his neighbor, and shakes His wrinkled neck in mock dismay, And swings his slow, contemptuous way Above the hot red lightning's play. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... to get away from the Bobbies," sneered the bartender. "If you don't get out of here quicker'n lightning I'll hand you over ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... inconsiderable resemblance to that of the great English minister. He was not eminently successful in long set speeches. He was not, on the other hand, a close and ready debater. Sudden bursts, which seemed to be the effect of inspiration—short sentences which came like lightning, dazzling, burning, striking down everything before them—sentences which, spoken at critical moments, decided the fate of great questions—sentences which at once became proverbs—sentences which everybody ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... agreed here on one side not to employ in the operations on land English troops; seeing that the auxiliary land forces are to be exclusively American, while the naval force shall be purely English. Every thing is smooth, and we wait only for the fiat of your illustrious president to depart like lightning." ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... shape again. I'm weary to be so unkindly used, And would not be a god to be refused. State grows uneasy when it hinders love; A glorious burden, which the wise remove. Now, as a nymph I need not sue, nor try The force of any lightning but the eye. Beauty and youth more than a god command; No Jove could e'er the force of these withstand. 10 'Tis here that sovereign power admits dispute; Beauty sometimes is justly absolute. Our sullen Catos, whatsoe'er they say, Even ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... on this sand, and take My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, And wash them with thy tears, and say: My son! 720 Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, And swift; for like the lightning to this field I came, and like the wind I go away— Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. deg. deg.724 But it was writ in Heaven that this ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... a dense pillar of ashes rose from the burning, roaring mountain; the school-house, where sixty Maori boys and girls used to be taught, was struck by lightning; and while burning, overwhelmed with torrents of hot mud and stones. Sad to say, the schoolmaster and most of his family were killed, the two eldest daughters only being rescued from the buried house. How ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... of those Chouans are amusing themselves by picking us off, and we are getting away as best we can, like poisoned rats; but by dint of scrambling over these hedges and rocks—may the lightning blast 'em!—our compasses have got so rusty we are forced to take a rest. I think those brigands are now somewhere near the old hovel where you ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... barrel of his musket close to my face. I had just time to say to myself, "I'm done for." But no, there was no shot, the gun fell on my feet, and I saw my gentleman roll under a sofa carrying the sword with which Penaud, my lieutenant, had run him through as quick as lightning, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... spectacle—a fine collection of agile forms, almost stripped of garments and painted in wild imitation of the rainbow and sunset sky on human canvas. Some had undertaken to depict the Milky Way across their tawny bodies, and one or two made a bold attempt to reproduce the lightning. Others contented themselves with painting the figure of some fleet animal or swift bird ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... eyes shot forth a gleam like lightning. "I needn't tell you, of course, but I may as well let you suffer over the knowledge." He curled his lips with superb scorn. "I have one human weakness. I want Athalia." The icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second. "She is anticipating her meeting with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... out through the door of the cave and drew back in fear as she saw the lightning flash and heard the thunder rolling. She sobbed herself to sleep again, and this time was awakened by voices. She feared it might be her sisters who had discovered her hiding place and had come to drag her forcibly back home again. So she crept ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... falls of Niagara. Quicker and quicker it has moved, till, reaching the edge, it has seemed to hover for a moment, as if unwilling to make the fatal plunge, and then over it has leaped with the rapidity of lightning, and it and its hapless occupant have been for ever hid from human sight. I felt at the moment very much the same sort of sensations which I can fancy the occupant of the boat must have experienced, as the mass of snow, increasing in ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... hand; suddenly burst A cry that split the torpor of my brain, And as the first sharp thrust of lightning loosens From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened my sense: 'Save me!' it thrilled; 'oh, hide me! there is Death! Death the divider, the unmerciful, That digs his pitfalls under Love and Youth, And covers Beauty up in the cold ground; Horrible Death! bringer of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... answer, but as the prince read one after the other of the letters, she sank again upon her knees. "My God, my God!" murmured she, "have pity upon me! Send Thy lightning and crush me. Oh, my God! why will not the earth cover me and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... towards him, smiling, self-possessed, but a little interrogative. He had a lightning-like impression of her beautiful shoulders rising from her plain black gown, her delightfully easy walk, the slimness and comeliness and ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the scrub and brushwood and budding branches of trees, struggling over the trunks of fallen monarchs of the forest, that had been rooted up by the wind or struck down by lightning, and lay across their path, over rough volcanic rocks, and through ravines that trickled down tiny streams to swell the river below, they made their way slowly and tediously towards the probable lair of the deer, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... crossed the connecting passage, Madame Imogen gave a scream, for a vivid flash of lightning came in through the open windows—followed by a terrific crash of thunder, and when they reached the sitting-room the storm had ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... now burst over the mountains in all of its fury, with vivid flashes of lightning and sharp cracks of thunder. As they proceeded they heard the distant falling of one tree or another, as the giants of the forest were laid ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... did not pay for my seat. Even in Budapest I was a persona gratis. 'T was certainly a remarkable scene, its solemnity emphasized by the thunder without, that drowned the voice of the mueddin calling to prayer, and by the lightning and rain-torrents that sent the pretty little al fresco waitresses scudding about with their serviettes on their heads to tend the few parties in the leafy square that dined on regardless of diluted wine or under the protection ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... back his eyes had been steadily fixed, disappeared. Where? How? Was the whole thing only a dream? Thomas was certainly in front of him only a moment ago, and now he had suddenly gone with the rapidity of a flash of lightning. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... verdict, "What can you say of Carlyle but that he was born in the clouds and struck by the lightning?" which withers ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... coarse, swollen woman became a queen—the grandest, haughtiest queen that you could dream of—and she turned upon us with such words of fire, such lightning eyes and sweeping of her white hand, that she held us spellbound in our chairs. Her voice was soft and sweet, and persuasive at the first, but louder it rang and louder as it spoke of wrongs and freedom and the joys of death in a good cause, until it thrilled into my every nerve, and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the top they went as fast as lightning, around and around, corkscrew fashion, and then down they came to the ground and before his yellowish brown enemy could catch him, Twinkle Tail dashed into a crack ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... which heaven receives from itself within itself there may be effect here, but of naught else;[2] because nor rain, nor hail, nor snow, nor dew, nor frost, falls higher up than the little stairway of the three short steps; clouds appear not, or thick or thin; nor lightning, nor the daughter of Thaumas[3] who yonder often changes her quarter; dry vapor[4] rises not farther up than the top of the three steps of which I spoke, where the vicar of Peter has his feet. It trembles perhaps lower down little or much; but up here it never trembles because of wind ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... required an impossibility. Yet the effort she made, and with success, to restrain the show of her anger, was far from slight. But for this, there would, long ere now, have been rain and wind, thunder and lightning between her and her aunts. She was alive without the law, not knowing what mental conflict was; the moment she recognized that she was bound to conquer herself, she would die in conscious helplessness, until ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... from the rear seat—but the voice was not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out here, Dick?" ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... of lightning startled the gentlemen when they went to the window to look out: the thunderstorm began. It was simply impossible that two strangers to the neighborhood could find their way to the station, through storm and darkness, in time to catch the train. With or without bedrooms, they must ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... winds and the other elements. But why should this feeling pass beyond that which even the Christian experiences when confronted by mysteries in the natural as well as the supernatural order? The awe-struck pagan saw the lightning leap, the tempest gather and break over him in majestic fury; heard the great voice of the mighty ocean which laved or lashed his shores: he witnessed these wonderful effects; he knew not whence the tempests or the lightnings came, or the voice of the ocean; he trembled at the unseen ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... lightning-swift motion of the wrist to avoid the fatal issue, but it was too late, and without a sigh or groan, scarce a tremor, the Vicomte ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to make Josefina go with them. They only managed it by promising she should not be beaten again, and that in truth her godmother would be very kind to her for the future. That was all she wanted! And they added that if she dared touch a hair of her head, lightning of God! he would wring her neck like a chicken's! and would give her a sound whipping with his horse's bridle. And the countenance of that gentleman was so fearful as he uttered these threats that the child never doubted for an instant ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... of the box. On the return of the woodmen to the cabin, ravenously hungry, they proceeded to dish out the boiled beans, but the first one who put a spoonful in his mouth instantly cried out with a loud objurgation, "Thunder and lightning! this dish is all salt''; but, in a moment, remembering that if he found fault he must himself become cook, he said very gently, "BUT I LIKE SALT.'' Both senators laughed and agreed that they would give an honest report of their feelings to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the French were advancing from the west. Here it was that Frederick displayed those qualities which entitle him to rank as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and to justify his title of "the Great." Inferior in numbers to any one of his opponents, he dashed with lightning rapidity into central Germany and at Rossbach (1757) inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the French, whose general wrote to Louis XV, "The rout of our army is complete: I cannot tell you how many of our officers have been killed, captured, or lost." No sooner was he relieved of danger in ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Ottoman Turks, surnamed ILDERIM, i. e. Lightning, from the energy and rapidity of his movements; aimed at Constantinople, pushed everything before him in his advance on Europe, but was met and defeated on the plain of Angora by Tamerlane, who is said to have shut him in a cage and carried him about ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Barnstable, that my punishment was not half severe enough. I replied that, in my mind, it was no punishment at all; and I am yet to learn what punishment can dismay a man conscious of his own innocence. Lightning, tempest and battle, wreck, pain, buffeting and torture have small terror to a pure conscience. The body they may afflict, but the mind ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes |
