"Thunderclap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decided to bring them here, and send them the funds for the purpose, my thoughtful brother-in-law writes me word that they are coming, and that he has sent me two lads, friends of his, to take under my charge, and do the best I can for them. Why, sir, it came upon me like a thunderclap." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... The thunderclap of the European war shattered the uneasy calm in China, not because the Chinese knew anything of the mighty issues which were to be fought out with such desperation and valour, but because the presence of ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the boy with a pang that he should never be able to recall it again in its entirety. For the genius of modern progress is contemptuous of old landmarks and impatient of delays. And swift as its race is elsewhere, it is only in that part of the South which has become "industrial" that it came as a thunderclap, with all the intermediate and accelerative steps taken at a bound. Men spoke of it as "the boom." It was not that. It was merely that the spirit of modernity had discovered a hitherto overlooked corner of the field, and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... a thunderclap upon the London Board of Directors, who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson Brothers, and caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of the concern. The board-room was besieged by colonels and captains, widows and orphans; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later and said the whole thing was to him like a thunderclap—as it was to her poor father. To me it followed closely on the presentiment that in some measure prepared me for it. Here I sit with empty hands. I have had the little coffin in my arms, but my baby's face could not be seen, so rudely had death marred it. Empty hands, empty hands, a worn-out, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... extinguished. I bump into a stone, and kick it to one side purely physically. I put it to one side for fear some one will stumble upon it, intelligently; I respond to a meaning which the thing has. I am startled by a thunderclap whether I recognize it or not—more likely, if I do not recognize it. But if I say, either out loud or to myself, that is thunder, I respond to the disturbance as a meaning. My behavior has a mental quality. When things have a meaning for us, we mean (intend, propose) what we do: when they do not, ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... were tightened. On the morning of the 14th, the news of Lincoln's murder fell like a thunderclap upon victor and vanquished in Richmond. At first the news was not credited; then an indignant denial swelled up from the universal heart, that it was for southern vengeance, or that southern men could have sympathy in so vile an act. The sword and not the dagger ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... nodded sleepily, and indulgently allowed to pass unnoticed the jokes and teasing, by means of which we tried to keep ourselves awake. Not even the flies were buzzing, except the very small ones which are always lively, when all of a sudden the first thunderclap sounded and reverberated, crashing and roaring, among the worm-eaten rafters of the old, dilapidated house. In the most desperate combination, such as only occurs during storms in the north, a clatter of hail stones now followed, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... axe falls on the wood in thuds, "God, God." The cry of the rook, "God," answers it The crack of the fire on the hearth, the voice of the brook, say the same name; All things, dog, cat, fiddle, baby, Wind, breaker, sea, thunderclap Repeat ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... his negroes to issue an order. But it was never issued. At that moment a terrific rolling thunderclap drowned his voice and shook the very air. Colonel Bishop jumped, his negroes jumped with him, and so even did the apparently imperturbable Mr. Blood. Then the four ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... by the child—I could not watch her for four— My brain had begun to reel—I felt I could do it no more. That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it never would pass. There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass, And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tossed about, The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without; My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife And fears for our delicate ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... storm itself was a parable. Those zigzag ribbons of purple fire, the fierce shouting of the thunderclap that followed! In all the wide forest-tracts over which the tempest hung, all that grim artillery did but rend and split some one tough tree. Rather it turned again to gladden the earth, and the tears of heaven, that fell so steeply, only laid the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... louder and fiercer than the first, came like a thunderclap after the King's words. It was the bay of a fierce pack ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... supposed that my boy Mnason was amusing himself in the chase as usual, and had penetrated into the copse with his friends. However, that was not it: presently there was an earthquake; I heard a voice like a thunderclap, and saw a terrible woman approaching, not much less than three hundred feet high. She carried a torch in her left hand, and a sword in her right; the sword might be thirty feet long. Her lower extremities were those of a dragon; but the upper half ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... white light enveloped her. The rocky promontory, the weird, giant chestnut tree, the open plateau, and beyond, the stormy heavens, were all luridly clear in the flash of lightning. She fancied it was possible to see a tall, dark figure emerging from the thicket. As the thunderclap rolled and pealed overhead, she strained her eyes into the blackness waiting ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... 'mighty hunter' and builder of the tower of Babel,—in Dante, a tower of a man in his own person, standing with some of his brother giants up to the middle in a pit in hell, blowing a horn to which a thunderclap is a whisper, and hallooing after Dante and his guide in the jargon of a lost tongue! The transformations are too odious to quote: but of the towering giant we cannot refuse ourselves the 'fearful joy' of a specimen. It was ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... had scarce issued from Caspar's lip, when a crash was heard like the first bursting of a thunderclap, and then a deafening roar echoed up the ravine, mingled with louder peals, as though the eternal mountains were being ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... place where they are uttered, there are words which acquire a terrible significance. In this disordered room, in the midst of these excited people, that word, the "police," sounded like a thunderclap. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... boat was well out in the lake, however, the same terrible wind that so often blew upon its waters arose with the swiftness of a thunderclap and threatened to overwhelm them all. Tell lay bound in the boat, calmly watching what he could see of the storm, when one of the Governor's servants told him that Tell himself was the most skilful boatman ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Kaiser with the Austrian war lords worked out a plan by which the act of this Servian youth could be laid upon the nation and be made an excuse for war. So on the twenty-fourth day after the assassination came the ultimatum from Austria. It came as a thunderclap ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... whispered, pink to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. "I didn't know; I didn't think—it came like a thunderclap." ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single voice—that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite sweetness the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the third day of June was seen to go in the early morning to the unholy spot with certain instruments. There he was observed going through strange and diabolical conjurations, when there came suddenly another thunderclap and the said Henri Lothiere did vanish entirely from view in that moment. This fact is ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton
... Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the representatives of our so-called justice? Like a thunderclap this explanation drives away my hesitation and sadness, which are now replaced by indignation and a limitless horror; and while Nadine, sick and worn, throws herself upon my bed, I mount to my window in order to communicate the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... tempestuous, and just as he raised his knife and fork to attack the savory morsel, a violent clap of thunder nearly frightened him out of his senses. Gathering courage, he essayed a second time, but another thunderclap warned him to desist. A third attempt was foiled in the same way. Whereupon he threw down his knife and fork and made for the door, exclaiming "What a dreadful fuss about a little ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... the glacier, on the ridge of which it hung for a moment, as if unwilling to exert itself, it seemed to awake to the reality of its position. Making a lively rush, that seemed tremendously inconsistent with its weight, it shot over the edge of a yawning crevasse, burst with a thunderclap on the opposite ice-cliff, and went roaring into the dark bowels of the glacier, whence the echoes of its tumbling masses, subdued by distance, came up like the mutterings of ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... here the explanation, as we afterwards learned it, of this most unexpected reappearance of the enemy,—which came upon General Walker like a thunderclap, whilst he dreamed they had left him for good and all. It seems that the Vanderbilt Company, whom Walker had made enemies by ousting them from the Transit route, sent an agent (one Spencer) to the disheartened Costa Ricans, who showed them that they might easily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... rounding on him with a fierceness which astonished himself. It was a show to see the way in which Gosse collapsed under this thunderclap of righteous indignation. He looked round at Dick out of the corners of his eyes, very much as a small dog contemplates the boot that has just helped him half-way across the road, and positively forgot to keep ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... through the room a thunderclap of memory. There had been words drawled there the night before that now detonated in Ellen's mind.... "What am I to do, Ellen, to keep my sons from ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... undertone she would add: "Now, then, Tartarin!" Whereupon Tartarin of Tarascon, with crooked arms, clenched fists, and quivering nostrils, would roar three times in a formidable voice, rolling like a thunderclap in the bowels of ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... up the cry, 'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,' there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, 'Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!' Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... contrast, peculiarly vivid. Each flash appeared to fill the world for a moment with lambent fire, leaving the painful impression on observers of having been struck with total blindness for a few seconds after, and each thunderclap came like the bursting of artillery, with scarcely an interval between the flash and crash, while the wind blew with almost ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled; the report startled the woods, a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there arose from the allies a yell which, says Champlain, would have drowned a thunderclap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a moment the Iroquois stood firm, and sent back their arrows lustily; but when another and another gunshot came from the thickets on their flank they broke and fled in uncontrollable terror. Swifter ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... beauty of a picture, or evidence in terms of light or sound for the moral character of a friend, or mathematical proof for the love of a mother for her child. This very elementary idea seems to have come like a thunderclap upon many who claimed the name of 'thinkers'; for it entirely destroyed a whole artillery of arguments previously ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... thing!" cried Dr. Van Noostile. "When it is about to rain, you will observe that the swallows fly low! and as I don't see a sign of a swallow, you may depend that——" His speech was interrupted by a thunderclap, and then down poured the flood! in one of those sudden, heavy showers that so often take place in summer, wetting the whole party to the skin in less than two minutes. It was of no use to run, and ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... once, like a thunderclap, a half-dozen voices somewhere in the Quad gave the yell. Craig stopped speaking and looked at the class, who gazed back at him. A man with his back to the windows stood up and looked out. The seats creaked ominously. Then, like ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... when Jahveh was addressed, he answered, if at all, with a thunderclap. Since then he has ceased to reply. Zeus was more complaisant. One might enter with him into the intimacy of the infinite. The father of the Graces, the Muses, the Hours, it was natural that he should be debonair. But he had other children. Among them were ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the night we came across That dreadful common, called the Moss, 'Midst wind and rain, and tempest tossed— And thunderclap I did begin to fear thy loss, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... rendered the "Verily, verily" of our Lord's parables. It should be said aloud by every member of the congregation, as testifying his assent to the prayer or praise offered, who thus makes it his own. St. Jerome says the primitive Christians at their public offices "echoed out the Amen like a thunderclap." ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... "A thunderclap! You have heard but few of them in Louisiana, I guess, or you would know the difference betwixt thunder and the crack of a backwoodsman's rifle. To be sure, yonder oak wood has an almighty echo. That's James's rifle—he has shot a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... thunderclap on a moonlit night. It was sudden tempest prefaced by the lull of perfect calm. It was the signal to combat sounded when peace seemed assured. The young man perceived now how much of his early zeal had deserted him. He shrank from the task the Governor had assigned ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... answer came. For at that moment, accompanied by a fearful thunderclap, there shot from the storm overhead, which had now nearly passed away, one of those awful flashes that sometimes end an African tempest. It lit up the scene with a light vivid as that of day, and in the ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the passion of the mood, the fierce indignation, rises and breaks, as it were, in a dreadful thunderclap:— ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ugly. I like fair play as well as any man. But it can't be done. There must be a surprise, a coup de main, as the French say" (poor Crossthwaite was always quoting French in those days). "Once show our strength—burst upon the tyrants like a thunderclap; ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... look to the lowerin' frown The dull sky wore; and the lightnin' glanced Tel my old mare jest MORE'N pranced, And tossed her head, and bugged her eyes To about four times their natchurl size, As the big black lips of the clouds 'ud drap Out some oath of a thunderclap, And threaten on in an undertone That chilled a feller clean to ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... extraordinary fervor, he betook himself to his room, to deliver to the crowds that resorted to him his last paternal admonitions. He continued without interruption till mid-day, and at that hour precisely, turning to the lay-brother that assisted him, said, "Shortly a thunderclap will lay me prostrate on the ground, you will have to raise me thence, but this is the last I shall experience." Accordingly, at two hours and a half after sunset, an apoplectic stroke threw him on the ground. At first the nature of his disease ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... query to himself, Juve shook from head to foot. Like a thunderclap he thought he grasped the truth he had followed so eagerly. What had become of Lady Beltham? Must he not come to the conclusion that this woman whose face had been crushed out of all recognition by the murderer ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... waiting," said he, "for this intelligence from week to week, with the fullest expectation that it would come; and yet, when it has come, it strikes like a thunderclap. This is the third night that I have sat in this hovel, at this table, unable to go to rest, and looking for the despatch from hour to hour.—You see, sir, that our life is at least not the bed of roses for which the world is so apt to give us credit. It is like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... stood before me with the invitation, that I might become his medium. I looked into his inner state, and the magnetic outward splendor disappeared, and his inner wretchedness and distress were manifest, and he could not stand any longer before me, and, with an explosion like a powerful thunderclap, he left me and took the direction to Europe. The title of my third volume, if we translate it from ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... collected, Sir Nigel quivering in every fibre with eagerness and fiery resolution. Then, amid a long-drawn breath from the spectators, the glove fell from the marshal's hand, and the two steel-clad horsemen met like a thunderclap in front of the royal stand. The German, though he reeled for an instant before the thrust of the Englishman, struck his opponent so fairly upon the vizor that the laces burst, the plumed helmet flew to pieces, and Sir Nigel galloped on down the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lightning, anything that darted swiftly and struck violently, was compared to the hurtling arrow or the whizzing lance. Especially did this apply to the phenomenon of the lightning. The belief that a stone is shot from the sky with each thunderclap is shown in our word "thunderbolt," and even yet the vulgar in many countries point out certain forms of stones as derived from this source. As the refreshing rain which accompanies the thunder gust instills new life ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... progressing as evenly as though nothing in the least extraordinary had occurred. The incident was closed—that abrupt swoop of terror and impending death dropping down there from out the darkness, cutting abruptly athwart the gayety of the moment, come and gone with the swiftness of a thunderclap. Many of the women had gone home, taking their men with them; but the great bulk of the crowd still remained, seeing no reason why the episode should interfere with the evening's enjoyment, resolved to hold the ground for mere bravado, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of Pietro de' Medici increased. In the autumn of that year Savonarola delivered a famous course of sermons on Noah's Ark, warning all to take refuge from the coming flood in the mystical Ark of mercy. The flood came indeed, for suddenly all Florence was startled as if by a thunderclap by the news that a foreign army was pouring over the Alps for the conquest of Italy. The terror was overwhelming. Italy was unprepared, for the princes had no efficient armies ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... stone where he could be well seen by the choral singers on either side of the vale, and there for about a minute he stood, waving his baton-like stick, conducting his strange double choir, who sang more loudly their cheery mill-song, and at their best, till in an instant, like a thunderclap, there was a sharp report, the song became a wail of agony, and the voice of the master ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... another and hoists the first; and so on, until the one holding the spirit can lift him into Bullimah. As the spirit is hoisted in, one of the Mooroobeaigunnil, knocks the lowest one in the ladder of spirits down; thud to the earth come the rest, making a sound like a thunderclap, which the far away tribes hear, ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... which followed he found himself looking into her ardent face with a wonder not unmixed with awe. To his rather cynical view of the Fletchers such an outburst came as little less than a veritable thunderclap, and for the first time in his life he felt a need to modify his conservative theories as to the necessity of blue blood to nourish high ideals. Maria, indeed, seemed to him as she stood there, drawn fine and strong ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... of 1879 was signalised by the commencement of operations in Zululand and by the news of the terrible disaster at Isandhlwana, which fell on Pretoria like a thunderclap. It was not, however, any surprise to those who were acquainted with Zulu tactics and with the plan of attack adopted by the English commanders. In fact, I know that one solemn warning of what would certainly happen to him, if he persisted in his plan of advance, was addressed to ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... circle of light shone plainly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. Ricky's breath was warm on Val's cheek and she moved with a faint crackling of her cape which sounded as loud as a thunderclap in his ears. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called to ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... explanation, the names of every girl who had attended Cora's spread—save Cora herself—and ordered that they be deprived of recreation, as had Nancy, "for being out of their dormitories after hours." The blow fell like a thunderclap upon ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... execution of John Brown was another thunderclap. And Abigail showed me what was being said about it. A certain Henry Thoreau, a strange, radical soul living in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts, had compared John Brown to Christ. "Some eighteen hundred years ago," Thoreau said, "Christ was crucified; this morning perchance ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... near the end of his term. Then, acting as usual on his own responsibility, he issued a circular commonly called the "Specie Circular," requiring payments for public lands, which had formerly been made in bank paper, to be made in coin. That was like the thunderclap which precedes the storm: but the storm broke on ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... low, but in the tomb-like stillness a thunderclap could not have been more distinct. The hail, however, produced no response. The angered Vose drew his Winchester to a level, with his finger on the trigger, but when he ran his eye along the barrel, he failed to perceive ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Cacama's arrest and imprisonment came like a thunderclap. He was in the habit of frequently seeing Malinche, who still retained the warm feeling of friendship for him that had originated at Tabasco, and with whom he often had long talks of their life in those days; but she had let no word drop as to the doings of Cacama. She had questioned ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... was the consternation, which reigned that day at Raynham Castle. Already Sir Oswald's guests had been making hasty arrangements for their departure; and many visitors had departed even before the discovery of that awful event, which came like a thunderclap upon all within ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... were tremendous. From the moment that small-pox was declared, the princes had not been admitted to Meudon. The Duchess of Burgundy alone had occasionally seen the king. All were living in confident expectation of a speedy convalescence; the news of the death came upon them like a thunderclap. All the courtiers thronged together at once, the women half dressed, the men anxious and concerned, some to conceal their extreme sorrow, others their joy, according as they were mixed up in the different cabals of the court. "It was all, however, nothing but a transparent veil," says ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... both had said the same thing. Two uprights flashed up above their heads—the arm of the priest making the sign of the cross, and the sabre of the commander of the shooters, glistening at the same instant. . . . A dry, dull thunderclap, followed by ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... twilight flashed through the air with its fluttering of red wings. Closely following came a thunderclap that made the houses and ground tremble.... The sunset gun! Aguirre, in his agony, could see in his mind's eye a high wall of crags, flying gulls, the foamy, roaring sea, a misty evening light, the same as that which ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... stabbing the aching stillness as vivid and sudden as an unexpected thunderclap, came a clang and rattle as though great gates of metal had suddenly ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... doubtless premeditated, and had its special object, yet Evgenie Pavlovitch at first seemed to intend to make no show of observing either his tormentor or her words. But Nastasia's communication struck him with the force of a thunderclap. On hearing of his uncle's death he suddenly grew as white as a sheet, and turned ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Thunderclap after thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... and jest with the carbineers gay As they cleaned their steeds at break of day, But like a thunderclap there fell In the midst of the horses and men a shell, And the sight we saw was a fearful one After that shell from the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... is at an end and that to regulate the government and police of their own State is all that remains to be done, but it is devoutly to be wished that a sad reverse of this may not fall upon them like a thunderclap that is little expected. I do not mean to designate particular States. I wish to cast no reflections upon any one. The public believe (and if they do believe it, the fact might almost as well be so) that the States at ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... construct myths of Phoebus, nor can we seriously picture the moon descending to dally with Endymion. We can no longer see Hamadryads in the oaks or Naiads in the streams. We do not hear Zeus or Thor in the thunderclap, nor recognize in volcanic eruptions the struggles of imprisoned Titans breathing flame. But what of that? Does the essence of poetry lie at all in myths and superstitions? Because we know of what the sun is made, and how many miles distant he is, do we find his risings and settings ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... left Calcutta late in March, 1862; at Malta they parted never to meet again in this world. Lord Canning proceeded to England, and Yule joined his wife and child in Rome. Only a few weeks later, at Florence, came as a thunderclap the announcement of Lord Canning's unexpected death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present writer remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule's deep anguish, not assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the loss of a most noble and magnanimous friend, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI. (Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved among the awestruck ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... and women who come to God will have already a certain righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind that have brought them to God will already have brought their lives into a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there will ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... looked there was the very faintest noise heard—a whisper, a mutter, a noise so slight that it might have passed a hundred times unnoticed. But to the architect's ear it spoke as loudly as a thunderclap. He knew exactly what it was and whence it came; and looking at the crack, saw that the broad paper strip was torn half-way across. It was a small affair; the paper strip was not quite parted, it was only torn half-way through. Though Westray watched for an hour, no further change took place. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... salute sounded—shattering out like a thunderclap over the jungle. Then challenger and ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... two, a storm cloud had swept up over the horizon behind them, and the sky overhead was blotted now with its black. They had not seen it nor heeded the distant flashing of lightning. A sudden thunderclap startled them now into consciousness of the scene about them. The wind rushed on them from behind. The sea was rising rapidly; the boat ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... night in our sophomore club when the news came like a thunderclap that one of our members had been killed pole-vaulting at a track meet in New York. It was our habit, in our new-found manliness, to eat with our hats on, shout and sing, and speak of our food as "tapeworm," "hemorrhage," and the like. I remember how we sat that night, silent, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... this was unimaginable disaster. She had never dreamt that Marian, the still, gentle Marian, could be driven to revolt. And it had come with the suddenness of a thunderclap. She wished to ask what had taken place between father and daughter in the brief interview before dinner; but Marian gave her no chance, quitting the room upon those ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... been keeping pace with the times, Boyd. A man to succeed nowadays must make a boom with something, it matters not what. For years I've been experimenting in secret, and some day I will show them further results of my researches—and they will come upon the profession like a thunderclap, ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... made up. I will speak as soon as I have seen Zinca Klork. The poor girl must be told with consideration. The death of her betrothed must not come upon her like a thunderclap. Yes! To-morrow, as soon as ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... my girls had such discernment as to select you as one of their, I might really say august, number. You took your honors in precisely the spirit I should have expected of you—sweetly, modestly, without any undue sense of pride or hateful self-righteousness. Then, a few days ago, there came a thunderclap; and teachers and girls were alike amazed to find that you were no longer a member. By the rules of the club we were not permitted to ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... Dedlock had suffered much. The knowledge that Hawdon had not been drowned as she had supposed, had come to her like a thunderclap. And the news of his death, following so soon after this discovery, had unnerved her. She felt Mr. Tulkinghorn's suspicious eyes watching her always and began to tremble in dread of what he ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... gruff, sarcastic tones of Wilhelm Mencke, burst upon the lovers like an unexpected thunderclap, and, starting to her feet, Violet turned to find her sister's husband standing not ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... he stood there in the doorway, glowering; then, doubtless in obedience to some signal that I failed to note, the spear which every warrior held in his right hand was raised aloft, and the royal salute of "Bayete! Bayete! Bayete!" pealed out like a thunderclap on the startled air, and all ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman—and the object of his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... thunderclap of war; and in the lightning flash I saw the folly of the advocacy of peace. I felt that I, like others, had held back preparation for this great war, that had been foreseen by trained minds. I felt that extra graves ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... sent out warnings, and kept a close eye on the different lodges of the Algonquins. But nothing happened till weeks later, when the tragedy on the Rapidan fell on us like a thunderclap. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... therefore drew up, and waited the result in silent apprehension. Of course they had not long to wait—scarce a second—for the huge bundles bounding on, each moment with increased impetus, came down with the suddenness of a thunderclap; and before the words "Jack Robinson" could have been pronounced, they went whizzing past with the velocity of aerolites, and with such a force, that had one of them struck either mule or pony it would have hurled both the quadruped and ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... of argument could not efface. It is not strange, therefore, that the king was troubled when Petri, in February, 1525, violated every rule of Church propriety by being married publicly in Stockholm. The marriage fell like a thunderclap upon the Church. Brask apparently could not believe his ears. He dashed off a letter to another prelate to inquire whether the report was true, and finding that it was, wrote to the archbishop as well as to the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... wife!" The sentence was like a thunderclap in the ears of Madame des Ursins, so long accustomed as she had been to govern and domineer. Where to find one—one like Marie Louise of Savoy, who would consent to retain her in the same functions, and who, like her, with intelligence ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... tin side of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him. A hot wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... hath not withdrawn so many and noble princes from the world without sending forth strange and wonderful signs to forewarn the land; for, without speaking of the great thunderclap which was heard all of a sudden in the middle of clear fine weather, the winter after Sidonia's death, and the numberless mock suns that appeared in different places, or of that strange rain, when a sulphureous matter, like starch in appearance, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Drexley answered shortly. "I couldn't myself. I'd have given the lie to anybody who had dared so much as to hint at it. It was like a thunderclap to me." ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... were born in an atmosphere of superstition and reared in it. It is in their blood and bones. We imagined we had educated it out of them; they thought so, too; the Interdict woke them up like a thunderclap! It revealed them to themselves, and it revealed them to me, too. With boys it was different. Such as have been under our training from seven to ten years have had no acquaintance with the Church's terrors, and it was among ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find that it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... the strange confusion of triangles he stood and uttered in a husky voice the invocation. He murmured uncouth words in an unknown language, and bade Satan stand forth.... He expected a thunderclap, the flashing of lightning, sulphurous fumes—but the night remained silent and quiet; not a sound broke the stillness of the monastery; the ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... life I have never known such rain. Its noise drowned the thunderclap. It fell in no drops or threads of drops, but in one solid flood as from a burst bag. It extinguished the blaze in the rigging as easily as you would blow out a candle. It beat me down prone upon the bowsprit, and with such force that I felt my ribs giving upon ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honour of his family, preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him; a hot wind knocked him senseless, and red fire singed his fur. The man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shot-gun into ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... one to the other. She was literally dazed. When her husband first appeared with her former lover she had clasped her hands over her forehead with that instinctive gesture with which in a great storm one waits for the approach of the thunderclap. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... ATTENTION.—Attention may be secured in three ways: (1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure entrance into the mind, it is called involuntary attention. This form of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental life that we shall not ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... drew near, the whale stopped for an instant, probably to recover breath. Krake raised his spear—the fish raised his tail. Whizz! went the spear. Down came the tail with a thunderclap, and next moment mud, sand, water, stones, foam, and blood, were flying in cataracts everywhere as the monster ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been by her manner for some dire Calamity, it came upon them like a thunderclap. The awful calm manner of the chieftain's widow impressed them more than if she had thrown up her hands in wild despair and given way to the noisiest ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... it necessary to interfere, and to order all interests to be lowered to ten per cent. This order, which contained no exception, though it by no means pointed particularly to this class of debts, came like a thunderclap on the Nabob. He considered his political credit as ruined; but to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he again added to the old principal twenty per cent interest accruing for the last year. Thus a new fund was formed; and it was on that accumulation of various principals, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the high green scarp of an island, but on the side of the ports no land was visible—only a circle in which sea and sky melted into the quintessence of light. The air was very hot and very quiet. Inside a lamp had been lit, for in those latitudes night descends like a thunderclap. Its yellow glow joined with the red evening to cast orange shadows. On the wall opposite the ports was a small stand of arms, and beside it a picture of the Magdalen, one of two presented to the ship ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan |
