"Lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... political sky grew ever darker with impending clouds, crinkled with lightning, and vocal with growlings of approaching thunder. The North continued to make servile concessions, which history will blush to record; but they proved unavailing. The arrogance of slaveholders grew by what it fed on. ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... from the sun; the name was harmonized into selanaia, a form which is still in use. 'That is a true dithyrambic name.' Meis is so called apo tou meiousthai, from suffering diminution, and astron is from astrape (lightning), which is an improvement of anastrope, that which turns the eyes inside out. 'How do you explain pur n udor?' I suspect that pur, which, like udor n kuon, is found in Phrygian, is a foreign word; for the Hellenes have ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... close, and he wiped his large brow and flung himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far away. In a little while came the beat of rain—slow, big drops. That was soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... he threw off the rude high-peaked saddle, and substituting a piece of buffalo robe, leaped lightly into his seat. The space was cleared, the word was given, and he and his Indian rival darted out like lightning from among the crowd, each stretching forward over his horse's neck and plying his heavy Indian whip with might and main. A moment, and both were lost in the gloom; but Antoine soon came riding ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... water, recommending himself by mental prayer to the protection of Allah and his prophet. The magician having finished his work retired to some distance, when, as he had said, a monstrous roc, darting from a craggy precipice, descended with the rapidity of lightning, grasped the skin in her widely extended talons, and soaring swifter than the eagle soon alighted on the table-land of the mountain; when Mazin, feeling himself on the ground, ripped the stitches of his dangerous enclosure, and the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... 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
... and affecting brain center, hydrocephalus and epilepsy. Among unclassified causes are also adduced neuralgia, childbirth, accident, medicine, heat, rheumatism, head-ache, fright or shock, overwork, lightning, diarrhea, chicken-pox, operation, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... no sooner uttered these words than she flew quick as lightning out of the room, leaving Horatio in such a consternation both at what she said and did, as deprived him even of the thought of following her, or using any means to solve this riddle.—He was in a deep musing when mademoiselle Charlotta, possessed that moment with a passion she till ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... my lips were vain indeed, Nor word nor even kiss could e'er confess What sighs and joy and grief and happiness Would flash from me to you with lightning speed. ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... 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, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... world. The storm has wasted its fury. The landscape is washed clear and bright, the atmosphere is glowing and transparent; destruction and ruins everywhere stand out in sharp and ghastly relief. On the distant horizon, beyond the Rhine, the dark clouds drag their tattered shreds; the angry lightning still flashes and thunder yet rumbles yonder—on German and ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... trees reach the age of bearing, they grow and look extremely well; but any expectation of a crop that may have been raised by their hitherto fine condition, ends in disappointment, for just then the trees assume the appearance of sudden blight, as if lightning-stricken, and then die. 125 clove plants and 350 seedlings were sent to Singapore from Bencoolen, by Sir T. Raffles, in the close of 1819; but although every care was paid them—while the nutmegs which ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... wings.' Sometimes I hate Alan; he's conventional and stodgy—the funny thing is that he admires Sheila. She'll wake him up; she'll stick pins into him. No, I don't want Alan hurt—I want every one in the world to be happy, happy—as I am. . . . The next day was the thunder-storm. I never saw lightning so near—and didn't care a bit. If he were struck I knew I should be; that made it all right. When you love, you don't care, if only the something must happen to you both. When it was over, and we came out from behind the stack and walked home through the fields, all the beasts looked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his reason. But his looks, the looks of those pale, cold, clear, blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of lightning, which one could ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... These blow for about nine months of the year. The remainder of the period the winds are variable and chiefly from the south. The Islands are outside the cyclone belt, and severe storms accompanied by thunder and lightning are of rare occurrence. ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... perplexed, Margaret began a hasty repetition of Hagar's story, but ere it was three-fourths told there came from the open door a wild cry of delight, and quick as lightning a fairy form flew across the floor, white arms were twined round Maggie's neck, kiss after kiss was pressed upon her lips, and Rose's voice was in her ear, never before half so sweet as now, when it murmured soft and low to the weary ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... which I followed my profession without any vicissitudes; never holding so much as a motion, of course. At the expiration of that period, I found myself making my way home to the Temple, one night, in precisely such another storm of thunder and lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the steamboat - except that this storm, bursting over the town at midnight, was rendered much more awful by ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... person is, that he was 'a Son of Thunder;' that his very voice, when he chose, was awful; that he, and his brother James, before they were converted, were not of a soft, but of a terrible temper; that it was James and John, the Sons of Thunder, who wanted to call down thunder and lightning from heaven on all the villages who would not ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Accordingly he went to a place of rendezvous of the brothers of the mendicant order in Temple-street, equipped himself in a very good suit of clothes, and then went upon the Exchange, as the supercargo of a ship called the Dragon, which had been burnt by lightning off the Lizard point. By this story he raised a very handsome contribution on the merchants and captains of vessels, it being well known that such a ship had been burnt in the manner he described. He then returned to his ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... mutter as of coming storm in Wall Street for several weeks, and this had culminated in a small, and probably a sham, tempest, with more stage thunder and lightning than any real. However, it was on that very account just the sort of cataclysm to overwhelm phantom and illusory ships of fortune like Arthur Carrolls. That week he acknowledged to himself that his career in the City was over, that ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... strange hands, might this not hurt her reputation? Therefore, dear friend, be you the interpreter of my feelings; speak for me, "et j'en conviendrai." These French words of yours flashed through me like lightning. A Viennese gentleman who walked beside me in the street when I was reading your letter, seized me by the arm, and was hardly able to hold me. He did not know what had happened to me. I should have liked to embrace and kiss all the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... fish of about 100lb. is hooked, his usual tactics are either a series of lightning rushes, which must be followed by the steersman, who must be as quick to go astern as to go forward, or else the fish goes off at tremendous speed a few feet below the surface. The tuna never jumps like the tarpon when ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... violated, and sent me, who, passing by accident near the place, was alarmed with her cries, for her succour. What were the emotions of my soul, when I beheld Narcissa almost sinking beneath the brutal force of this satyr! I flew like lightning to her rescue, and he, perceiving me, quitted his prey, and drew his hanger to chastise my presumption. My indignation was too high to admit one thought of fear, so that, rushing upon him, I struck his weapon out of his hand, and used my cudgel so successfully that ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... read pretty circumstantially a murder committed on the emperor by corrupted servants, and an attempt afterwards to conceal the indications of murder by the ravages of fire. The report propagated through the army, and at that time received with credit, was, that Carus had been struck by lightning: and that omen, according to the Roman interpretation, implied a necessity of retiring from the expedition. So that, apparently, the whole was a bloody intrigue, set on foot for the purpose of counteracting the emperor's resolution to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in these days of lightning, to read an account of how the Herald beat its local rivals in getting out an account of the President's Message in 1849. A column synopsis was received by telegraph from New York, and published in the morning edition, and the second edition, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... my blessing thus, and go And tell her this,—but do not so!— Lest a handsome anger fly Like a lightning from her eye, And burn thee up, as well ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... way from Barkington, but it is a pretty place; all the ladies admire it, and like to see both the universities out and a stunning race.' Oh, well, there is an epithet. One would think thunder was going to race lightning, instead of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... blundering patronage when they were out of doors together would sometimes make him turn upon the well-meaning lad quite savagely; and his eyes, usually sad and quiet, would flash with anything but playful lightning. No wonder Tom retained his ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... friendly; but, in one instance, when the depth of water in a creek obliged him to moor his vessels close to the shore, an attack of the Indians was only repulsed by the use of artillery, the thunder and lightning of which seemed always to possess, in the eyes of the savages, a supernatural and therefore awful character. On another occasion, when a conference was held with one of the tribes, great alarm was caused by a notary, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... I sat here against this post the tiger came, seized the knot of my blanket and began to pull. Like lightning I made my plan. I grasped with a strong tight hold the sides of the blanket and holding myself together like a ball I let Lord Tiger pull. He dragged me to the edge of the tila (hill). There I suddenly let go the blanket and shouted with all my might. The tiger fell ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... Rest-a-While was in bed. It was not long before the wind began to blow and then, all at once, there came a bright flash of lightning, and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... me suddenly that there was something new about this sound; I sat up in bed to listen, and at that instant a far-off, sullen "Boom !" was followed by a crash as if lightning had struck a house a little way down the street. As I hurried to the window there came another far-off detonation, a curious wailing whistle swept across the sky, and over behind the roofs to the left ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... for a moment to an earthly past and future, all there was a blank—the past saddened, the future bleak. She did not know, or even suspect, that she had been living in an aerial castle, and worshipping an unreal image, until, on a sudden, all was revealed in that chance gleam of cruel lightning, the line in that letter, which she read so often, spelled over, and puzzled over so industriously, though it was clear enough. How noble, how good, how bright and true, was that ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... revolver, after the first glance around the room, but it now came to a level again with the suddenness of lightning and was pointed straight at the gleaming eyes, as he spoke in a low, ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... cluttered not only with screaming and tumbling winds but branches of large trees driven along as straws. I dug my toes and fingers into the sand, flattening out for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane came the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst. Then lightning was unchained, veritable shocks of fire, and no thunder out of hell could ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... was splendid in its magnitude, in its armies, in the success and rapidity of its conquests, and it wanted little of being boundless and unexampled, yet in its shortness of duration it was like a brilliant flash of lightning. Although broken into several satrapies, even the parts were splendid."—"History of Rome," ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... weather 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 Andrew ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... bridegroom claims it—and—behold the prize! First, like a vapour o'er the heavens obscured, From that dark confine, rose the fiends immured, Then groan'd the earth, in fury swell'd the floods, Blasts smote the harvests, lightning fired the woods; Blue spotted Plague rode gibbering on the blast, And nations shriek'd, and perish'd, as he pass'd. Amazed, indignant, Epimetheus stood, Vow'd dire revenge, and strung his nerves for blood. It was not then, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... but he was so hungry that, in spite of it, he ran out of the house. The night was pitch black. It thundered, and bright flashes of lightning now and again shot across the sky, turning it into a sea of fire. An angry wind blew cold and raised dense clouds of dust, while the trees shook and moaned in a ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... at once burst forth into a blinding sheet of vivid light, as though they had suddenly been transformed by some magic power into the living, seething crater of a volcano! Down came the whirlwind of destruction along the beach with the swiftness of lightning! How fearfully the hissing shot, the shrieking bombs, the whistling bars of iron, and the whispering bullet struck and crushed through the dense masses of our brave men! I never shall forget the terrible sound of that awful blast of death, which swept down, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... most frank and plain manner; he brought his big hand down on his knee and swore as if one of his crew had boldly contradicted him. He did not swear at anybody in particular; there was the roar and the crash of the thunder and the flash of the lightning, but no direct stroke descended upon any one. He was angry that such a repulsive and offensive thing as his marriage to Maria Port should be mentioned, or even thought of, but he was enraged when he heard that his niece had believed him capable of such disgusting insanity. With ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right through it—set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the darkness that was occasionally rent by distant lightning. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... with himself,—all this seems to be in respect of God's intention and purpose, even ordained for this end, that the righteousness of Jesus Christ might be commended to you, far more than all the dispensation of the law upon Sinai, more than the curse and the command, the thunder and the lightning. The very condemnation of the scripture was all in God's own mind and revealed will also, as the means appointed to lead sinners to this righteousness, Rom. x. 4. Therefore, how precious should that be to us, that God keeps and preserves the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... storm was never so appalling as that calm. In all the world only the giant's slow eyelids seemed to stir. The boy felt lightning in the air: he felt it in ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... renowned Wouter Van Twiller. It is thus the experienced playwright puts all the fiddles, the French-horns, the kettle drums, and trumpets of his orchestra, in requisition, to usher in one of those horrible and brimstone uproars called melodrames; and it is thus he discharges his thunder, his lightning, his rosin, and saltpetre, preparatory to the rising of a ghost, or the murdering of a hero. We will now proceed with ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... presumably a rational human being; but what Mr. Starkweather actually saw was the vision of a little boy dressed in Lord Fauntleroy velvet, with silver knee-buckles and a lace collar; and much as a drowning man is supposed to review, in a lightning flash, every incident of his whole life, so was Mr. Starkweather reviewing the life of Henry, beginning with the era of black velvet, and ending with the immediate present. That history was a continuous record of dashing impulses, and the gayest irresponsibility; ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... God which must hate and war against and chastise our evil, and that if there were not, He would be neither worth loving nor worth trusting. And His Son, in His tears and in His tenderness, which were habitual, and also in that lightning flash which once shot across the sky of His nature, was revealing Him to us. The Gospel is not only the revelation of God's righteousness for faith, but is also 'the revelation of His wrath against all ungodliness and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Follow Me, and then the storm broke. It didn't descend all at once, however. At first there were muffled growls of thunder from Harry Corwin. Then came claps from Wink Wheeler. After that the elements raged about Perry's defenceless head, even "Brownie" supplying some fine lightning effects! ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... us, Master of Breath! Nor destroy, Nor destroy: If thou wieldest the bolt of thy rage, If thou callest thy thunder to shake, If thou biddest thy lightning to smite, We must pass to the feast of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... mania a potu [Fr.]. drink; alcoholic drinks; blue ruin [Slang], grog, port wine; punch, punch bowl; cup, rosy wine, flowing bowl; drop, drop too much; dram; beer &c (beverage) 298; aguardiente^; apple brandy, applejack; brandy, brandy smash [U.S.]; chain lightning [Slang], champagne, cocktail; gin, ginsling^; highball [U.S.], peg, rum, rye, schnapps [U.S.], sherry, sling [U.S.], uisquebaugh [Ire.], usquebaugh [Scot.], whisky, xeres^. drunkard, sot, toper, tippler, bibber^, wine-bibber, lush; hard drinker, gin drinker, dram drinker; soaker [Slang], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... clearing, where he saw two ermine frolicking about on the ground. Seizing a stone, he threw it with such sure aim that one of the little creatures was knocked senseless, when, to his astonishment, the other, giving a loud cry, sprang at him, and running up his clothes with the rapidity of lightning, fastened its sharp teeth in the back of his neck. With the utmost difficulty he succeeded in freeing himself from the angry ermine, which bit his face and hands severely in ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... out his arms and reiterated his trembling shriek. It pierced the sound of prayer as lightning pierces cloud. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... sons of the hand; mushrooms, jeje-panari, properly, the ears (panari) of a tree (jeje); the veins of the hand, amgna-mitti, properly, the ramified roots; leaves, prutpe-jareri, properly, the hair at the top of the tree; puirene-veju, properly, the sun (veju), straight or perpendicular; lightning, kinemeru-uaptori, properly, the fire (uapto) of the thunder, or of the storm. (I recognise in kinemeru, thunder or storm, the root kineme black.) In Biscayan, becoquia, the forehead, what belongs (co and quia) to the eye (beguia); odotsa, the noise (otsa) of the cloud (odeia), ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... see, then? I will begin again. Make way! make way! She comes, she is here, the queen of illusions, a woman fleeting as a kiss, a woman bright as lightning, issuing in a blaze like lightning from the sky, a being uncreated, of spirit and love alone. She has wrapped her shadowy form in flame, or perhaps the flame betokens that she exists but for a moment. The pure outlines of her shape tell you that she comes from heaven. Is she not ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... seems to pass. She calls for help. Sometimes the crowds are stationary, as if frozen into stone, sometimes they follow the snake and attack it with sticks and knives. One man with colossal shoulders wields a great sabre; it flashes about him like lightning. Will he kill it? He turns, chases a dog, and disappears. The people too have disappeared. She is now flying along a wild plain covered with coarse grass and wild poppies. The snake is near her, and there is no one to whom ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... a full-length canvas, and the sittings began next morning. He was at his most inspiring, laughed away Mary's stage fright, posed her with a delight which, inspired her, too, so that she stood readily as he suggested, and made half a dozen lightning sketches to determine the most perfect position, exclaiming ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... like chain-lightning. This cabinet? How was it fastened down? How strongly? His fingers felt for the lower edge of it. Working them down and under, he secured a hold. Then, with all his superb strength, he heaved away. Something snapped, ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this—yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars—nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapour, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... reports were spread concerning the losses of the English. About three thousand of "these wretches"—so the story ran—died after reaching land, without counting the multitudes drowned in the attempt; and even this did not satisfy divine justice, for God blew up one of the ships by lightning during the storm. Vessels were sent to gather up the spoils of the wreck, and they came back, it was reported, laden with marvellous treasures, including rich clothing, magnificent saddles, plate, silver-hilted swords, and the like; bringing ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... victorious cavalry of these new invaders. Not merely the degenerate Romans, but the bold and hardy warriors of Germany and Scandinavia were appalled at the numbers, the ferocity, the ghastly appearance, and the lightning-like rapidity of the Huns. Strange and loathsome legends were coined and credited, which attributed their origin to the union of "Secret, black, and midnight hags" with the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... birds that sing in their branches. While we were still far from the house, a thunderstorm came on. When it rains here, the windows of heaven seem opened, and the clouds pour down water in floods; the lightning also appears to me peculiarly vivid, and many more accidents occur from it here than in the north. We were drenched in five minutes, and in this plight resumed our seats in the carriage, and set off for Guasco (a village where we were to pass ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... he found himself as if nailed to the pavement, and felt his throat clutched as by a hand of lead. Then suddenly came a thunderous roar, a formidable explosion, as if the earth was opening, and the lightning-struck mansion was being annihilated. Every window-pane of the neighbouring houses was shivered, the glass raining down with the loud clatter of hail. For a moment a hellish flame fired the street, and the dust and the smoke were such that the few passers-by were blinded ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... cars and foot-soldiers and elephants and steeds in large bodies as they were duly moved over the field, looked beautiful, shrouding the rays of the sun. And the many-coloured banners stationed on cars and elephants, waving in the air and moving along the welkin, looked beautiful like flashes of lightning amid the clouds. And loud and fierce was the uproar made by the twang of the bows stretched by the kings, resembling the roar of the ocean while churned in the Krita age by the gods and the great Asuras. And that army of thy sons, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the prisoner, without moving, "I shall be obliged to let go my hold of this bull-dog. The moment I do so our friends with the empty guns will be apt to fancy that about a yard of particularly hot and well-greased lightning has been forged for their especial ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... as we have said, to the hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room: and the first thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the galoshes—when the spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must have returned with the quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement. It took its direction towards the body in a straight line; and a few seconds after, life began to show itself in the man. He asserted that the preceding night had been the worst that ever the malice of fate had allotted him; he ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... cloudbank—arisen from no one knows where—was advancing steadily towards us. The sun, not yet obscured, was picking out its fuscous shape with dazzling light, and marking its front with grey stripes running right down to the horizon. At intervals, vivid lightning could be seen in the distance, followed by low rumbles which increased steadily in volume until they merged into a prolonged roll which seemed to embrace the entire heavens. At length, Vassili got up and covered over the britchka, the coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak and lifted ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... therefore they frequently do not move at all. His plough-point hits the stones, and his plough-handles knock him in the ribs and lay him out. If he is ploughing near the barn, which is the home of the oxen, approaching it, they go like lightning, and he must drop the plough and rush at their heads to keep them from running straight into the barn: leaving it, they creep like snails, and perhaps they take to "pulling"—that is, walking sidewise, with their bodies as far apart as possible; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... really great man: "Have you ever taught a winter term in a country school?" If he says he hasn't, then depend upon it he isn't a really great man. People only think he is. The winter term breeds Boanerges—sons of thunder. Yes, and of lightning, too. Something struck the big boys in the back seats, as sure as you're a foot high; and if it wasn't lightning, what was it? Brute strength for brute strength, they were more than a match for Teacher. It was up to him. It was either prove ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... kept a grim silence, against which her husband's babble of optimism played like heat-lightning on a ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... by like lightning. Zillah passed them in a kind of dream. She only seemed awake when Windham came. When he left, all was barrenness and desolation. Time passed, but she thought nothing of Naples. Obed had explained to her the necessity of waiting at Marseilles ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... stormy and utterly incomprehensible, filled the child with a growing sense of terror. Accusations, quick pleadings, angry retorts, attempts at explanation, all formed a dreadful muttering background out of which shot, like sharp streaks of lightning, occasional clearly-caught phrases: "Charlie White came home dead drunk, I tell you—" "—You know I'm mad about you, Helen, or I wouldn't—" "—Oh, don't you ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... laugh'd at. Every Pen, that has touch'd the Circumstance of Julius Caesar's Death, has consented to relate the Strange Things, which both foresaw and foretold his Assassination. Shakespear has communicated these Terrors to his Audience with the utmost Art: The Night is attended with Thunder and Lightning; and Caesar comes forth in his Night-gown, reflecting on the Unquietness of the Season, and ordering the Priests to do present Sacrifice: Calphurnia immediately follows him; and the Undauntedness of his Spirit, attack'd by ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... the emotion is still fresh upon me.[25] There were perhaps a hundred thousand men there, assembled from all quarters of the city. The neighbouring streets were also full, and the bayonets glittering in the sun filled the Place with brilliant flashes like miniature lightning. In the centre of the facade of the building a platform was erected, over which presided a statue of the Republic, wearing a Phrygian cap. The bronze basso-relievo of Henry IV. had been carefully hidden with clusters of flags. Each window was ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... beautiful and attractive as he returned from his visit to the lowly basement, and it was with a feeling of peculiar satisfaction that he seated himself by a window, with his feet on the sill and his arms crossed upon his breast, while he watched the vivid lightning as it glided swiftly about amid the blackened heavens. Oh! how the rain descended, as if to drown the very earth in its pouring fury. No wonder the good man heaved a sigh for the inmates of that dreary room, and fancied himself back in the dismal place, with the ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... seems to have been his whole generation—his name gave the opportunity of affectionate puns, quips, and little epigrams; to Queen Elizabeth he was "my Jewel," and the epitaph Westcote makes upon him is that of St. Gregory upon St. Basil: "His words were thunder, and his life lightning," and his memory "a fragrant sweet-smelling odour, blown abroad . . ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... At the next step, each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the whole field with a momentary flash. One other stride did bold Jason make; and, suddenly as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery animals, roaring like thunder, and sending out sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every object more distinctly than by daylight. Most distinctly of all he saw the ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lightning quickness with her daddy's guns, of her accuracy, went softly all about and about, garbled and accentuated. They said she could shoot the studs from the sides of a man's belt and never touch him. They said she could drive a nail farther than the ordinary man could see. They said she could draw ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... myself for sleep—when like lightning, one of the huge creatures gave a flying leap in at our window, across the bed, ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... blood of her hundred thousands Throb in each manly vein; And the wit of all her wisest Make sunshine in her brain. For you can teach the lightning speech, And round the globe your ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... picked her way, crouching and dodging, from bush to bush; occasionally she took a lightning peep at the silent house, then dipped again and continued her stalking. Following the evergreen hedge around a final corner, she emerged stealthily in the lee of the latticed kitchen porch and drew a breath ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... on in the house much as usual, with a little more silence where had been much. The wind lay moveless on the frozen earth; the sun shone cold as a diamond; and the fresh snow glittered and gleamed and sparkled like a dead sea of lightning. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... puritanic environment in which the world of sentiment and the life of the spirit were unknown, Mapu's romance descended like a flash of lightning, rending the cloud that enveloped all hearts. A century after Rousseau, there was still a corner in Europe in which pleasure, the joy of living, the good things of this life, and nature, were considered futilities, in which love was condemned as a crime, and the passions ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... must be done by this time, Julia, and," pointing to the clouds, "you had better hasten to the house. I knew you would be terrified at the lightning all alone by yourself in that summer- house, so I ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... on twin engines dread, Thou rushest (with adventures graphic) Where even angels fear to tread, Because there's such a lot of traffic. At lightning-speed we see thee glide, (With malice every narrow shave meant), And charge thine elders far and wide, Or stretch them ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... depended upon what he wanted to do. If he were right in his conclusions, as he felt sure he was, Waterman, who was naturally in the confidence of his superior officers, would have valuable information to impart. It came upon him too, like a flash of lightning, that Waterman had uttered a peculiar cry as he threw the missile across the intervening space. That was doubtless a prearranged signal between him and the Germans. If they had heard it, as was more than probable, one of their men ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... nimbly from his steed, He drew his burnished brand: The savage quick as lightning flew To wrest it ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... too securely, and the fuel, sublimation, smoke, and singeing, seem to me images only of partial combustion; they vary and extend the conception, but they lower the thermometer. Look back, if you will, and add to the description the glimmering of the livid flames; the sulphurous hail and red lightning; yet altogether, however they overwhelm us with horror, fail of making us thoroughly, unendurably hot. The intense essence of flame has not been given. Now ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... especial care to banish from France every one who bore his name, and to obliterate, as far as possible, every memorial of his wonderful reign. The revolution had burst upon Paris with almost the suddenness of the lightning's flash. There was no one there who could speak in behalf of the descendants of him who had so lately filled the world with his renown, and who was still enshrined, with almost idolatrous worship, in ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Island was sighted, where we took a new point of departure. Three days later, a terrible gale struck us Four days we flew before it, whither, no one knew, for neither sun, moon, nor stars were at any time visible, and we could take no observation. Toward midnight of the fourth day, the glare of lightning revealed the Adelaide in a hopeless position, close in upon a low-lying shore, and driving straight toward it. All around and astern far out to sea was such a maze of rocks and shoals that it was a miracle we had ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... young fireman clung there. Then quick as a flash he slipped one hand down. It was to hook his fingers into the top slide bar of the car's side door. The action drew back the door about an inch. It was unlocked. Ralph dropped his other hold lightning-quick, thrust his hand into the interstice, pushed the door still further back, and precipitated himself forward across the floor of an ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... a flash of lightning the hot blood mounted to the doctor's face, while Fanny cast upon him a searching glance as if she would read him through. Fanny Hetherton would have given much to know the answer which Dr. Simon Bellamy mentally gave to that question, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... his father had lived in two rooms in one of John Temple's tenements down in Barrel Alley and John Temple and his wife and daughter lived in a couple of dozen rooms, a few lawns, porches, sun-parlors and things up in Grantley Square. And John Temple stood a better chance of being struck by lightning than of collecting the rent ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... awkward were his attempts at conversation. She was presently the more self-possessed of the two, and nothing was ever so sweet to his ears as the few commonplace remarks she uttered. In spite of the darkness and the chilly air, the sled seemed to fly like lightning. Before he supposed they had made half the way, she gave a sign to the istvostchik, and they drew up before a ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... of yesterday had brought lightning through the night, and this morning there was the gentle drizzle that sometimes follows a heavy thunderstorm. Hints of the farther blue showed themselves in a lofty sky of delicate and drifting gray. The blackbirds and thrushes welcomed the cooler air with a gush of musical piping, as ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... generous relief. This, however, does not mean restoration. The Government is not an insurer of its citizens against the hazard of the elements. We shall always have flood and drought, heat and cold, earthquake and wind, lightning and tidal wave, which are all too constant in their afflictions. The Government does not undertake to reimburse its citizens for loss and damage incurred under such circumstances. It is chargeable, however, with the rebuilding of public works ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... I like better than the banal version Tschaikowski made of the same words. The third opus contains three songs to Shelley's words. They show something of the intellectual emotion of the poet. The first work, "A Widow Bird Sate Mourning," is hardly lyrical; "My Coursers Are Fed with the Lightning" is a stout piece of writing, but the inspired highfalutin of the words would be trying upon one who arose to sing the song before an audience. This, by the way, is a point rarely considered by the unsuccessful composers, and the words which the singer is expected to declare to an ordinary ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape seen during a lightning flash—the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of defaulted and outlawed bonds—picked up heaven knows where—pathetically trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... to pass that when UNCLE SAMUEL heard of these things, he was sorely riled; yea, his wrath was like unto a six-story stack of wolverines and wild-cats, mixed with sudden death and patent chain-lightning. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... life. In the first, a fisherman's wife was seen, waving a handkerchief on shore, while the vessel which bore away her husband vanished on the horizon. In the second, the same woman on her knees on the same shore, under a sky shot with lightning, wrung her arms as she gazed into the distance at her husband's boat, which was going to the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... I wouldn't advise it," answered the Forecaster. "Franklin did it deliberately, for a different purpose, and it was because of his experiment with a kite that we first found out about lightning." ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... the sea became rougher and rougher. The whole surface of the ocean seemed a vast plain furrowed with huge blackish waves fringed with white foam. The thunder growled around us, and the lightning discovered to our eyes all that our imagination could conceive most horrible. Our boat, beset on all sides by the winds, and at every instant tossed on the summit of mountains of water, was very nearly sunk in spite of our every effort in baling it, when we discovered a large hole in its poop. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... "designed laws" and "undesigned results." I see a bird which I want for food, take my gun and kill it; I do this designedly. An innocent and good man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of lightning. Do you believe (and I really should like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can't and don't. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... as hours, they battled between San Marco and San Giorgio, tossed to and fro—now nearer the haven of the great white dome, now—as a lightning flash unveiled San Marco—near enough to see a cloud of frightened doves go whirling over the flood which swept the Piazza from end to end and poured out under the great gates of the Ducal ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... carriers is very important to all who travel or send merchandise. A common carrier is liable for all losses not happening by the act of God or by the public enemy. By "act of God" is meant unavoidable calamity, such as lightning and tempests, and by "public enemy" is meant a nation at war with another. Once these were the only exceptions. Carriers were therefore insurers of the goods left with them to be ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... the cat, our little tiger on the hearthrug, the most beautiful of four-footed things, so lithe, so soft, of so affectionate a disposition, yet capable when suddenly roused to anger of striking with lightning rapidity and rending the offender's flesh with its cruel, ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... taking her strength from the sheer emergency. Her knees trembled under her as she mounted the stairs, and once a glimpse of those words flitted across her mind,—"patient continuance in well-doing." It was like a lightning flash in a dark night shewing the way one must go. She could lay hold of no other stay. Her mind was full of one ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... 100 cubic feet of timber at 9d. a foot at the time, was only worth 75s., though it must have destroyed scores of pounds worth of fruit during its many years of growth. The elm seems particularly liable to be struck by lightning, possibly owing to its height, and several suffered in this way during my ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... trouble is continually weighing me down. I am in a strange land, among a strange race; where will the end be? It may be here." As the above thoughts were running through her brain, a brilliant flash of lightning streamed close by her pale face, and for an instant lit up the earth and sea around. A tree, a few feet distant, was shattered by the flash. Her children trembled as the thunder shook the solid ground. She delayed no longer, ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... winter. Its simple words are applied to all the natural divisions of time, except one, as day, night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, mid-day, midnight, sunrise and sunset. The names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form the component parts of the beautiful, as expressed in external scenery, such as sea and land, hill and dale, wood and stream, etc., are Anglo-Saxon. To this same language we are indebted for those words which express the earliest and dearest connections, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... escape. Oh, is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, the lightning of His glance were death. Nay, more, has it not happened to some here—to clergyman, lawyer, physician, perhaps, alas! to some pure-minded, noble- hearted woman—to be brought in contact perforce ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... once, as the silvery sides of the fish were seen flopping about, the water parted and a long, lithe, snaky-looking creature flashed out like lightning, seized the hooked fish, and flung itself round it in a complete knot, making Rogers cease hauling, and watch what ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... exclaimed Olive, "the house has been struck by lightning and I know my poor boys ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... his eagle plume in the face of his enemy? Ok-wa-ho was his name; it means 'The Wolf,' and young as he was, like the wolf he could snarl and show his fangs. His older brother was the chief, tall and terrible, with the scowl of thunder on his brow and the gleaming fork of lightning in his eyes. This chief thought never of council fires or pipes or hunting or fishing, he troubled not about joining the other young men in their sports of lacrosse or snow-snake, or bowl-and-beans; to him there was nothing in life but the warpath, no song but the war cry, no color ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... trees, and then big, warm preliminary drops, and then the first clap of thunder, clear in its own mind and full of purpose. Then the first downpour of rain, that isn't quite so clear, and wavers for a breathing-space, till the tart reminder of the first swift, decisive lightning-flash recalls it to its duty, and it becomes a steady, intolerable torrent that empties roads and streets of passers-by, and makes the gutters rivulets. And then the storm itself—flash upon flash—peal upon peal—up to the blinding ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... word thunder. From this we can see that he was the thunder god. In his hand he carried a wonderful hammer which always came back to his hand when he threw it. Its head was so bright that as it flew through the air it made the lightning. When it struck the vast ice mountains they reeled and splintered into fragments, and thus ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... Like lightning he lunged with his bayonet and caught the German in the wrist, just as the knife was about to bury itself in ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... he thought it a meteor; the brilliance grew, however, until it became a star. Sore afraid, he cried out, and brought everybody within the walls to the roof. The phenomenon, in eccentric motion, continued to approach; the rocks, trees, and roadway under it shone as in a glare of lightning; directly its brightness became blinding. The more timid of the beholders fell upon their knees, and prayed, with their faces hidden; the boldest, covering their eyes, crouched, and now and then snatched ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... work, the result he intended, without hesitating to consider the component parts, or doubling, proving, and selecting, like other painters." Hence Giordano was also called, Il proteo della pittura, and Il Falmine della pittura—the Proteus, and the Lightning of painting. As an instance of the latter, it is recorded that he painted a picture while his guests were ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... either of them. To them the outside life of mankind did indeed seem to be one of violence and of sin, beset with physical and still more with spiritual danger. Heaven, too, was very near to them in those days. God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow, the whirlwind and the lightning. To the believer, clouds of angels and confessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, were ever stooping over their struggling brethren upon earth, raising, encouraging, and supporting them. It was then with a lighter heart ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle |
