"Lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... huge thunder-heads, already jagged with forked lightnings, pushing up into the blue. Before I reached the skirmishers, great drops of rain fell, and then a downpour, utterly blotting out the landscape. Lightning flashed, the thunder unremitting, the rain a flood, water leaped down the side of the hill in cascades, and, blinded, I drew my horse back into the slight shelter of the wood, and waited, gripping him by the bit. Men ran ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... under certain conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St. Honore begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... heath wrapped in one of those storms of wind and rain and thunder and lightning, which this wizard only of all the children of men knows how to raise, that he chooses for his physiological exhibition of majesty, when the palace-door has been shut upon it, and the last 'additions of a king' have been subtracted. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... thoughts ascend More fleetly than the lightning's flame To that blest place where lowly bend God's saints, In worship ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... Her hand shot out like lightning and seized the small bottle. Let anything come,—love, shame, heaven, damnation; it should ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... united. There have been men, and still are such, leaders of their age in moral courage, and yet physically timid. This is not as it should be. God placed man at the head of the visible universe, and if he is to be thrown from his control, daunted by a bullet, or a wild horse, or a flash of lightning, or a lee shore, then man is dishonored, and the order of the universe deranged. No matter what the occasion of the terror is, a mouse or a martyrdom, fear dethrones us. "He that lives in fear of death," said Caesar, "at every moment feels its tortures. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... branch-lets, while the head becomes dome-shaped, and is the first to feel the touch of the rosy beams of the morning, the last to bid the sun good night. Perfect specimens, unhurt by running fires or lightning, are singularly regular and symmetrical in general form though not in the least conventionalized, for they show extraordinary variety in the unity and harmony of their general outline. The immensely strong, stately shafts are free of limbs for one hundred and fifty feet or so. The large ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... set the camp fire spluttering and drove us to the shelter of our tent; then it rained! Lord help us! the water came down in such torrents that on account of the spray we could not see thirty feet; then came hailstones as large as hen's eggs. There was some lightning and thunder, but either the splashing of the water drowned the rumbling or the electric fluid was so far distant that the reports were not loud when they reached us. Suddenly there was a ripping noise, followed by a ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... about one o'clock in the morning were awakened by heavy claps of thunder, and most vivid flashes of lightning. It did not rain as yet, but it soon promised to do so, and then regular cataracts would be precipitated from the cloudy zone, owing to the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... involved in what were called 'funeral discourses' to be narrated. They did not recognize their daily faults or temptations under the grand aliases befitting their appearance from a preacher's mouth. But they knew the old, oft-repeated words praying for deliverance from the familiar dangers of lightning and tempest; from battle, murder, and sudden death; and nearly every man was aware that he left behind him some one who would watch for the prayer for the preservation of those who travel by land or by water, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a burst of fury and noise. The lightning flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant, and even—Bob thought—up. The thunder roared and reverberated and reechoed until the world was filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with youth and natural courage, but ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... continued and Dilke would not wait their passing. Chamberlain was included in these attacks, 'for having kept me out of the box,' and wrote in reply to Sir Charles: 'I was only too glad to be able in any way to share your burdens, and if I can act as a lightning conductor, so much the better.... Of course, if you were quite clear that you ought to go into the box, it is still possible to do so, either by action for libel or probably by intervention of the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... should be awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about in his laboratory, though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully as possible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere. In that safe in your library. News of this kind moves like lightning. At this very moment, there may be people watching for a chance of ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... is loved by her neighbours, But she will let none come to her and answers them not. They say: 'Since God has made you so beautiful, open your litter and let yourself be seen!' He who sees her is struck as by lightning, she shoots her lover with the darts of her eyes, invisible herself. She will not go to her husband's house till he has her brought by the Government. When she goes her father's village is left empty. She ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... poured over it, drenched it, battered it, and the leech grew frantically, trying to contain the titanic dose. Still small, it quickly reached its overload limit. The strained cells, filled to satiation, were given more and more food. The strangling body built new cells at lightning speed. And— ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... a stampede is always some trifle. A heavy clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, the breaking of a stick, the howl of a wolf, will start the herd off in a blind rush in any direction, heedless of cliffs over which they may tumble, or of rivers whose current will sweep hundreds of the frightened ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... sky, warm and fragrant, suddenly became dour and overcast. Within a day thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Men glanced up in startled surprise, then clenched their jaws. Women who were laughing gayly turned suddenly white. Orders were speeded over the wires and through the clouds to the remotest hamlets of France. In a few hours men began to ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... accompanied by Captain Jones in the Macedonian, 38, and Captain Biddle in the Wasp, 20, left New York, passing through Hell Gate, as there was a large blockading force off the Hook. Opposite Hunter's Point the main-mast of the States was struck by lightning, which cut off the broad pendant, shot down the hatchway into the doctor's cabin, put out his candle, ripped up the bed, and entering between the skin and ceiling of the ship tore off two or three sheets ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... themselves again. From Austria there came no sign of any unreasonable demand which might lead to trouble with Servia, and so with Slavonic feeling generally, and by degrees that threatening of storm, that sudden lightning on the horizon passed out of the mind of the public. There had been that one flash, no more, and even that had not been answered by any growl of thunder; the storm did not at once move up and the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... struggling to escape from its prison. It seems to me that, by gathering my forces, I shall be able to effect this. Sometimes—even for an interval brief as a lightning-flash—I feel myself, as it were, suspended in mid-air; then ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... so hotly in Melissa's veins as she realized all this, that she could scarcely breathe; but like a lightning flash a thought followed which sent the tide surging back to her heart, and left her cold and faint. She remembered that this knowledge was a trust. That she had given her word not to betray it. With instant recoil, she leaped to the thought that ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... range; and it's the most welcome sight these weary old eyes have rested upon for full many a long and dreary moon. They've probably located us from our power-plant rays. We're an awful long ways off yet, though, and going like a streak of greased lightning, so they're having trouble in holding us. They're friendly, we already know that—they probably want to talk to us. It'd make it easier for them if we'd shut off our power and drift at constant velocity, but we'd use up valuable time and ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... growth of that family to which he belonged, over the different branches growing from one parent stock, whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived. And for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled, insatiate appetites amidst a blaze ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... indeed, the wind blew so hard, and the ship rolled and tossed and tumbled about so much, that many wished the calm back again. One night the thunder roared and rattled overhead with crashing peals; bright lightning darted from the skies. All hands were on deck, for it was impossible to say what might next occur. The masts strained and cracked, and it seemed every instant that the canvas would be blown out of the boltropes. The ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... injury to the men who were working in the kitchen at the time of the explosion, and owing to the fact that all the guests in the hotel just then were girls and women, the men having gone to the city, there really were not enough persons to cope with the flames that followed the lightning. ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... on me, my back can carry two such as thou." The tailor's courage came back to him; he jumped up in one bound, and the horse went full speed into the town, and right up to the court-yard of the castle. It galloped as quick as lightning thrice round it, and at the third time it fell violently down. At the same instant, however, there was a terrific clap of thunder, a fragment of earth in the middle of the court-yard sprang like a cannon-ball ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... if not expect, be afraid of, any attack on himself? But before I could make any comment on my companion's information, my attention to the subject was diverted. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break—there was thunder about. And now, with startling suddenness, a flash of lightning was followed by a sharp crack, and that on the instant by a heavy downpour of rain. I glanced at Miss Raven's light dress—early spring though it was, the weather had been warm for more than a week, and she had come out in things ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... agile forms, almost stripped of garments and painted in wild imitation of the rainbow and sunset sky on human canvas. Some had undertaken to depict the Milky Way across their tawny bodies, and one or two made a bold attempt to reproduce the lightning. Others contented themselves with painting the figure of some fleet animal or swift bird on ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... in thy good cause make thee prosp'rous Be swift like lightning in the execution, And let thy blowes doubly redoubled, Fall like amazing thunder on the Caske Of thy amaz'd pernicious enemy. Rouze vp thy youthfull blood, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... was a most delicious day; and my shin being past danger, I walked like lightning above two hours in the Park. We have generally one fair day, and then a great deal of rain for three or four days together. All things are at a stop in Parliament for want of Mr. Harley; they cannot stir an inch without him in their most material affairs: and we fear, by the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... said Mrs. Leigh, and Miss Opie coughed dryly. But why need Bluebell have blushed so consciously, as she dashed into Lightning galops and Tom Tiddler quadrilles, till Trove, like a dog of taste, took his offended ears and outraged nerves off to his lair in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... "Like lightning the thing flashed through my brain. Of course he could. He drew better ones every day of his life, by dozens, on the old blackboard, with crumbling bits of chalk. Again and again I had racked my brains to devise ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... which might make This land from her foundations shake, 150 Might tear up Freedom by the root, Destroy a Wilkes, and fix a Bute. Deep Horror held her wide domain; The sky in sullen drops of rain Forewept the morn, and through the air, Which, opening, laid its bosom bare, Loud thunders roll'd, and lightning stream'd; The owl at Freedom's window scream'd, The screech-owl, prophet dire, whose breath Brings sickness, and whose note is death; 160 The churchyard teem'd, and from the tomb, All sad and silent, through the gloom The ghosts of men, in former times, Whose public virtues were ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... other side has opened their eyes. Of course, it all depends on speed and the ability of the line-men to make holes. You've got to be on your toes, and you've got to get off them like a streak of lightning." ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... And, O king, the gratified Kesava thereupon conferred on them the eight-fold attributes called Aiswarya and other objects that they desired. And having bestowed upon them these, that god disappeared in their sight like lightning in the clouds. And it is for this, O Bharata, that that tirtha became known by the name of Saptacharu, and if one offereth Charu there to the seven flamed deity, he obtaineth merit superior to that of the gift of a hundred thousand ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... said the captain. "We'll feel 'em first, boys. Keep at the old game. Close and steady till we get inside their heads. Watch their quarters. They're lightning in a pass." ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... and not a little of mine, as I sat with a book in a summer-house near by, laughing at his pretty fury and spiteful onset. On two occasions the wren rushed under the chair in which I sat, and a streak of blue lightning almost flashed in my very face. One day, just as I had passed the tree in which the cavity was located, I heard the wren scream desperately; turning, I saw the little vagabond fall into the grass with the wrathful bluebird fairly upon him; the latter had returned just in time to catch him, and ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave!— Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave. Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning, and ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... mysterious. When we recollect his gloomy anticipations and unconquerable anxiety; the security from human malice which his character, the place, and the condition of the times, might be supposed to confer; the purity and cloudlessness of the atmosphere, which rendered it impossible that lightning was the cause; what are the conclusions ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... unbent, for all its loneliness, it had stood against the raging tempest; and green still, in all its giant strength of stem and branch, in all its kingly robe of unwithered foliage. Unscathed, unshaken, it yet stood. Neither storm nor lightning, wind nor rain, sun nor snow had prevailed against it to dry it up and cast it down that another might ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... back, but, checking herself, said despairingly, "I can deceive neither him nor myself. Oh, mamma, it is of no use." And indeed she felt that it would be impossible to carry out the scheme that promised so much for those she loved. As the lightning flash eclipses the sun at noonday, so all of her gratitude and self-sacrificial enthusiasm now seemed but pale sickly sentiment before that vivid flame of honest love—that divine fire which consumes at touch every motive save the one for the ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... by promising she should not be beaten again, and that in truth her godmother would be very kind to her for the future. That was all she wanted! And they added that if she dared touch a hair of her head, lightning of God! he would wring her neck like a chicken's! and would give her a sound whipping with his horse's bridle. And the countenance of that gentleman was so fearful as he uttered these threats that the child never doubted ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... and as for the work I have to do with my own hands, there is no end to it; such complications! it is all I can do to get through with it. It is not as if I had only the main issues to attend to, the rain and hail and wind and lightning, and as soon as I had arranged them could sit down, feeling that my own particular work was over: no, besides all that, I must be looking every way at once, Argus-eyed for theft and perjury, as for sacrifice; the moment a libation has been ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... might have yawned wide and belched water without end, till everything had been beaten down as with sledge hammers! She had used every morning to go to mass and had diligently prayed for divine protection against flood. Now the thunder might crash and the lightning strike and hailstones come rattling down as big as hen's eggs—why did ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... advertising you get, the better, and this shows that the right people are behind you. Mrs. Pomfret's a smart woman, all right. She knows her job. And here's more advertising," he continued, shoving another sheet across the desk, "a fine likeness of you in caricature labelled, 'Ajax defying the Lightning.' Who's Ajax? There was an Italian, a street contractor, with that name—or something like it—in Newcastle a couple of years ago—in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... any one, if you wish on the other side, will easily persuade yourself that I am wholly in error, and no doubt I am in part in error, perhaps wholly so, though I cannot see the blindness of my ways. I dare say when thunder and lightning were first proved to be due to secondary causes, some regretted to give up the idea that each flash was caused by the direct ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... soundless bark on viewless seas. Piercing the purple storm cloud, he makes The sun his neighbor, and shakes His wrinkled neck in mock dismay, And swings his slow, contemptuous way Above the hot red lightning's play. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... husbanding its fuel until the grass was yellow and the forests sere. But fire is a mere creature of man's; our world before his coming knew nothing of it in any of its habitable places, never saw it except in the lightning flash or remotely on some volcanic coronet. Man brought it into the commerce of life, a shining, resentful slave, to hound off the startled beasts from his sleeping-place and serve him ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... moorland confines like the cloudy palaces of a dream; the habitations of the mining folk shall not be seen to-day, and their handiwork quickly returns to primitive waste; fern and furze hide the robbed cairn and bury the shattered cross; flood and lightning and tempest roam over the darkness of a region sacred to them, and man stretches his hand for what Nature touches not; but the menhir yet stands erect, the "sacred" circles are circles still, and ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... it. Suddenly, as if by magic, from all quarters came hurrying up dark lowering clouds, covering the whole concave of heaven, a lurid light only gleaming out from near the horizon. Then, amidst the most terrific roars of thunder, the brightest flashes of lightning, and the rushing, rattling, crashing sound of the tempest, there burst upon us a wind, which made the ship reel like a drunken man, and sent the white foam, torn off the surface of the harbour, flying ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... mountains and down the valleys on the shortest notice, had no terror for him; he had sat on horseback under an oilskin slicker through the worst of them; but to-night! Even as he watched, the distant glare of lightning threw the heaving proportions of the thundercloud ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... large will be able to count rapidly and correctly, to add, subtract or multiply, and he understands the relation of numbers to each other, their properties, and because of his superior sense in this direction he becomes a "lightning calculator" and is regarded as a mathematical prodigy. There are others who have this sense deficient, but they may be superior in development to the mathematical prodigy ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Maxwell says that the ordinary lightning rod is a great mistake. It acts to discharge electricity from the clouds at all possible opportunities, but these discharges are smaller than would occur without the rod. The true method is to encase the building in a network of rods, when it will take its charge ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Unequal he may have been, perhaps often so, but there were moments in his acting which were, without exaggeration, moments of inspiration. Coleridge is reported to have said that to see Kean act was "like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." This often-quoted sentence embodies perhaps the main feature of Edmund Kean's greatness as an actor; for, when he was impersonating the heroes of our poet, he revealed their natures by an instant flash of light so searching that every minute feature, which by the ordinary light of day was hardly ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... flashed up brightly, and everything about them seemed to have plunged in darkness. It is thus that in the flash of lightning all other lights are instantly darkened and the heavy yellow flame casts ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... her excuse. The substitute, her cheeks glowing with excitement, yet calm-voiced and pretending valiantly, saw the door open nearly an hour later, and a hand thrust through waving an envelop, as though it were a lightning-rod that might attract the storm of her wrath away from the one who ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... dread of what may be than there is when the hamlet, with its little roofs and tall trees, is folded in the arms of the night, as the sunset dies behind the hill. Beauty may be a terrible thing, as in the sheeted cataract, with all its boiling eddies, or in the falling of the lightning from the womb of the cloud. There is desolation behind that, gigantic movement, ruthless force; but charm comes like a signal of security and good-will, and even its inevitable end is lit with something of mercy and quietness. The danger of charm is that ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... loved him. And he, beloved by the noblest girl ever fashioned, why should he hang his head, and shrink at the thought of human faces, like a wretch doomed to the pillory? He visioned her last glance, and lightning emotions of pride and happiness flashed through his veins. The generous, brave heart! Yes, with her hand in his, he could stand at bay—meet any fate. Evan accepted Rose because he believed in her love, and judged it by the strength ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... northern moor, and there study mathematics and the science of astronomy. Twenty words would explain the whole situation to him. He had ceased to speak; he had told her once more how he loved her and why. She summoned her courage, fixed her eyes upon a lightning-splintered ash-tree, and, almost as if she were reading a writing fixed ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... might enjoy the beauty of their blossoms in spring and their foliage and outlines the rest of the year. The trees had attained noble proportions when the refinery started work and very soon killed most of them. They looked as if they had been struck by lightning. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... was exposed to the full fury of the tempest. No sign was given by the master that he was conscious of this commotion of the elements. With the subsidence of the storm at dusk, the watcher was startled by a flash of lightning, which illumined everything. This was succeeded by a terrific peal of thunder which penetrated even Beethoven's ears. Startled into consciousness by the unusual event, the dying man suddenly raised his head from Huettenbrenner's embrace, threw out his right arm with the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... the untimely frost? Once born, there is naught but sorrow; for who is there can escape death? From the first moment of life, the result of passionate love and desire, there is nought but the bodily form transitional as the lightning flash." Yet apart from all transitory passions and the ephemeral results of mortal love, the song of the Taoist lover soars unstained, untrammelled. Man attains not by himself, nor woman by herself, but, like the one-winged birds of the Chinese legend, they must rise together. To be a great lover ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... heart and keepeth down the soul from her true flight. I count the wit and wisdom of thy daughter even as I count her beauty. She hath all, I think—as they are known to and regarded by men. But all is nothing. Beauty hath a day's life like the butterfly; wit shineth like the sudden flash of the lightning, leaving only the cloud behind it; and oh! for the vain wisdom of man which makes him vain and unsteady—likely to falter—liable to fall—rash in his judgment—erring in his aims—blind to his duty—wilful in his weakness—insolent to ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... places. When others retreat, they advance boldly. They infallibly travel by the train that shall leave the rails, they pass underneath the tower at the exact moment of its collapse, they enter the house in which the fire is smouldering, cross the forest on which lightning shall fall, entrust all they have to the banker who means to abscond. They love the one woman on earth whom they should have avoided, they make the gesture they should not have made, they do the thing they should not have done. But when fortune beckons and the others are hastening, urged ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... advanced, holding his club with both hands towards the ground; while Whagoo kept his elevated above his shoulders, as if ready to bring it down on his antagonist's head. For a minute or more they stood facing each other, their eyes glaring like balls of fire, when like lightning Oamo bounded towards his antagonist and dealt a blow of force sufficient to bring an ox to the ground; but Whagoo, actively leaping on one side, avoided it, and prepared to strike in return. In an instant ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... she had heard that night as she sat at the window: his farewell to her; and it seemed to come home to her like a stroke of lightning, that in his despair he ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... sciences, but persecuted the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is most probable they would not have lived to finish them; and had Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it would have been at the hazard of expiring for it ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... above their sex, divinely vulgar, with brogues of true Milesian race! Supper so crowded that Caroline Pakenham and I agreed to use one arm by turns, and thus with difficulty found means to reach our mouths. Caroline grows upon me every time I see her; she is as quick as lightning, understands with half a word literary allusions as well as humour, and follows and leads in conversation with that playfulness and good breeding which delight the more because they are so seldom found together. We stayed till between three ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... half a dozen of the factor's men lashing them in the faces with long caribou-gut whips. The sting of a lash fell in a fierce cut over an Eskimo dog's shoulder, and in snapping at the lash his fangs struck Kazan's rump. With lightning swiftness Kazan returned the cut, and in an instant the jaws of the dogs had met. In another instant they were down and Kazan had the Eskimo dog by ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... restored and repainted in 1848. And just round the corner from Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is the Pantheon. The inscription on the porch says that it was built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus. I try to take that in. But when I have partially done that, I learn that the building was struck by lightning and entirely rebuilt ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... "Thunder and lightning!" Magin's heavy voice resounded in the portico very like a bellow. "You, Ganz, sent this man to the Father of Swords? He might be one of those lieutenants from India who go smelling around in their holidays, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... met this spirit in a class in the Manila High School. A certain boy insists that he has seen the iron head of a thunderbolt, and although he makes "passing grades" in physics, he does not believe in physics. He regards our explanations of the phenomena of lightning as a parcel of foolishness in no wise to stand the test of his own experience, and nothing can silence him. "But, ma'am," he says, when electricity is under discussion, "I am see the head of a thunder under our house." This young gentleman will graduate in a year or two, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... the trees, thunder and sudden flashes of lightning add to the horror of a journey, which resembles Mrs. Radcliffe's description of Emily's approach to Udolpho. When Count Fathom takes refuge in a robber's hut, he discovers in his room, which has no bolt on the inside of the door, the body of a recently murdered man, concealed beneath some ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... thou ill-starred midnight ranger! dark, forlorn, mysterious stranger! Wildered wanderer from the eternal lightning on Time's stormy shore! Tell us of that world of wonder—of that famed unfading "Yonder!" Rend—oh rend the veil asunder! Let our doubts and fears ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... gracious satisfaction, (feeling it to be sympathy, not vulgar praise,) that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. A storm had suddenly come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, and the thunder broke; but I hope, and have great pleasure in believing, that it was a sunny hour for Leigh Hunt. Nevertheless, it was not to my voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... straight home on the wet glistening pavement. A heavy shower passed over him; distant lightning played faintly against the fronts of the dumb houses with the shuttered shops all along the Rue de Carouge; and now and then, after the faint flash, there was a faint, sleepy rumble; but the main forces of the thunderstorm remained massed down the Rhone valley as ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... I used to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and nearly always stopped him at the time. But if it happened that I upset his thought the thunderbolt was apt to fly. He ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... parched ground and wilted humanity. One morning, as usual, Molly hung her wash on the lines, then she took a pail and went to gather blackberries on a near-by hillside. As she came back later with a full pail, she saw a horseman, as she afterward said, "riding like lightning up to General Irving's house." Perhaps he had brought news from her husband, was her instant thought, and she broke into a run, for she had received no tidings from him for a long time, and was eager to know where he was and how he fared. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... safety-valve through which fancy and poetry conduct away foul vapors; it is an alembic, retaining only the pure and valuable of all that is poured into it, to be stored for future use. It is a lightning-rod that conducts away from the body all superfluous electricity. It does not harm a sensible child to put it to study early, but it destroys a dull one. Let your poor soil lie fallow, but harvest your rich mould, and you shall be repaid, without ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... altogether, but from that moment I must date the change of my father: a change that to remember makes me shudder and then filled me with the deepest grief. There were no degrees which could break my fall from happiness to misery; it was as the stroke of lightning—sudden and entire.[23] Alas! I now met frowns where before I had been welcomed only with smiles: he, my beloved father, shunned me, and either treated me with harshness or a more heart-breaking coldness. We took no more sweet counsel together; and when ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... car comes on. It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. I see great flashes where the far trail turns. Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, It comes like lightning, goes past roaring, It will hail all the windmills, taunting, ringing, On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills— Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, Ho for the gay-horn, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... the inviting waters. Before I got up to my middle, however, I saw something before me that looked like a dark rock just below the surface. I made towards it, intending to get upon it, and dive off on the other side; but lo! as I approached, it stirred; then it darted like a flash of lightning towards one side of the bay, whilst I, after standing motionless for a moment, retreated with the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... his going to America, but he had disliked the idea, and she had not dreamed that he would even seriously consider it. There was not the slightest doubt that his decision was entirely due to the little scene of the evening before. That moment when his nervous horror of the lightning had impelled him to put his arms round her had, she knew, opened his eyes to his own danger. And it was characteristic of the man to act immediately and without hesitation. He would go—it was Saturday, and very probably he would leave by the noon train for ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... exercise of high endowments. The finest mind, when thus destitute of a fixed purpose, passes away without leaving permanent traces of its existence; losing its energy by turning aside from its course, it becomes as harmless and inefficient as the lightning, which, of itself irresistible, may yet be rendered ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... of goodness—had lit the wick with her own hand—'for luck.' How Roy had made her so completely their ally, she had no idea. But who could resist him,—after all? Waiting alone, her courage ebbed a little; but he came quick as lightning, arrayed in a choga of some dark material and the larger turban of the North;—so changed, she scarcely knew him till he saluted and, with a gesture, bade her ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on with some lightning and several claps of thunder and heavy rain. Though it was but two o'clock in the afternoon, the air was so dusky that the men had to feel for the ropes; and when the first of the tempest stormed down upon us the appearance of ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... come, dreadfully agitated, into the cabin; and while his own lips quivered, and his own voice trembled, he endeavored to quiet my fears, by telling me that there was no danger; that the ship had been struck with lightning; but that the fire occasioned thereby would readily ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... guttural rasp and click of the kitchen and the bazaar. So she moved off, and, in a little, the second woman disappeared into the crowd. Most likely it was no more than some question of the programme or dress, but the prompt, feline stealth and coolness of it, the lightning-quick return to and from world-apart civilisations stuck ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... blood is mingled With its crimson and its gold. See how calm he looks and stately, Like a warrior on his shield, Waiting till the flush of morning Breaks along the battle-field! See—oh, never more, my comrades, Shall we see that falcon eye Redden with its inward lightning, As the hour of fight drew nigh! Never shall we hear the voice that, Clearer than the trumpet's call, Bade us strike for king and country, Bade us win the field, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... was devoutly thankful that angels now assume more tangible shapes, which chivalric sentiment, finding expression only in my eyes, was recognized but by Henrietta, who rewarded me with a lightning smile. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... them a sharp edge. This cylinder is let down so close to the steel plate that there isn't room for the cloth to pass between it and the cylinder without having the face or nap sheared off by the sharp knives of the cylinder that is going round like lightning. That's 'bout all there is to it. Do you get any ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... these experiments in 1791, accompanied by Galvani's theory of animal electricity, produced a sensation in scientific circles only inferior to that caused by Franklin's demonstration of the identity of lightning with electricity, thirty years before. The murder of innocent frogs extended from the marshes of Bologna to the swamps of all Christendom. "Wherever," says a writer of the time, "frogs were to be found and two different metals could be procured, every one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... the door open, in spite of the flashing lightning. Lil shrieked and even some of the other girls cowered as the lightning played across the sky. But before the thunder burst forth again, Laura heard another sound—and it was not the ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... as a rule, mayors' and recorders' courts are mills for grinding out negro convicts; negroes charged with petty offenses are brought into these courts, convicted and sentenced with lightning speed, before they even realize that they are on trial unless they are able to hire attorneys, whose fees often equal the fine that would be imposed. They are beaten at will by arresting officers, frequently shot ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... were in requisition and of importance—an instance of a want of delicacy of perception Rosamund was not sorry to detect. For good-looking, refined-looking, quick-witted girls can be grown; but the nimble sense of fitness, ineffable lightning-footed tact, comes of race and breeding, and she was sure Nevil was a man soon to feel the absence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on oysters that his owner could ill afford; and after Johnson had spent the little fortune that belonged to his wife, the lady was regaled on the best and choicest that his income, or credit, could secure. But if one of those lightning-flashes of wit ever escaped him in her direction, we do not know it. Garrick evidently was the first flint that tried his steel. The distinctions of teacher and scholar were soon lost between these two, and the lessons took the turn of a fusillade ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the rest now, in two words. In Moscow their fortunes changed with the swiftness of lightning and the unexpectedness of an Arabian fairy-tale. That general's widow, their nearest relation, suddenly lost the two nieces who were her heiresses and next-of-kin—both died in the same week of small-pox. The old lady, prostrated with grief, welcomed Katya as a daughter, as ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... form of a burning bush, to express himself to be as formidable as a devouring fire: again, he rains sulphur; and often, before he speaks, he attracts the attention of the multitude by flashes of lightning. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... you'll say, and in my heart of hearts I don't, because I'm a reasonable man, and know that you don't make a row about sunstroke or lightning-shocks. We call 'em the Act of God, and rule 'em out in insurance offices. No, no, I see what I've let myself in for. I've been away too much; she's got sick of it. I shall have to work at it—to bring her round. By God, and she's worth ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... portraits which line the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It is ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... steel-gray eyes a look which reminded Kincaid of the play of a jagged flash of lightning. He spoke slowly and enunciated ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... drive three days ago to Cumae, a perfect summer's day; since then sunshine, heat, cold wind, calms all durcheinander, with thunder and lightning last ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... of somewhat uncertain moral character is Indra, who as a nature god is closely connected with the violent phenomena of the air (rain, thunder, and lightning). In this relation he is often terrible, often beneficent, but with low tastes that it is difficult to explain. His fondness for soma, without which he attempts nothing, is perhaps a priestly touch, a glorification ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... with bursts of rain and fitful flashes of lightning, which lighted up the decks of the American ship as she tossed on the waves. The storm had left her in a sadly disabled condition. The shattered top hamper had fallen forward, cumbering up the forecastle, and so tangling the bow tackle that the jibs were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... darts of anger hurled From heart to heart throughout the world; Fierce as the lightning—flashing far, From cloud ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... against the enemy. They pressed forward with irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five imperial brigades was immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third put to flight. But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to their progress. With the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to rally his discomfited troops; and his powerful word was itself sufficient to stop the flight of the fugitives. Supported by three regiments of cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and pressed vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... end. He had never thought it possible to feel as mean as he felt now. Besides, his natural sympathy with women tempted him to stand by the girl and prevent Curtis from robbing her. He was still deliberating, when he saw two long dark objects, with lightning rapidity, swoop down on the plates and dishes. There was a loud clatter, and the next moment the whole place seemed alive ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... yet struck the key-note of his destiny. To be counted the follower of Cooper was not the meet guerdon of an intellect to which the shapely monuments of ancient literature yielded the clue to their hieroglyphic labyrinths of knowledge, and that pierced with lightning swiftness the shell of events, and possessed the latent principles of life in their warm hearts. He returned, therefore, to Europe, leaving behind him a reputation which at no distant day was destined to spring from a new and more noble foundation into a ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... and all the more bitter enemies as they are bound together by a chain which it is impossible to break. And undoubtedly, a good many of the insults which the baron had heaped upon Van Klopen must have been intended for the baroness. These thoughts darted through Pascal's mind with the rapidity of lightning, and showed him the horrible position in which he was placed. The baron, who had been so favorably disposed toward him, and from whom he was expecting a great service, would undoubtedly hate him, undoubtedly become his enemy, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was symbolical. That the child's life might be preserved, the heart of a tree was used for the cradle board. Along the wooden bow above the child's head, which symbolized the sky, zigzag furrows were cut to represent lightning, the power of which was designated by suspended arrows. Through holes in the upper part of the board was threaded a leather thong, or burden-strap, which Tecumapease passed about her forehead when carrying ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... thought in many books, certainly they will be disappointed. Thought dwells by the stream and sea, by the hill and in the woodland, in the sunlight and free wind, where the wild dove haunts. Walls and roof shut it off as they shut off the undulation of light. The very lightning cannot penetrate here. A murkiness marks the coming of the cloud, and the dome becomes vague, but the fierce flash is shorn to a pale reflection, and the thunder is no more than the rolling of a heavier truck loaded with tomes. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... life as the field of its influence and realization, trusting that what best fits men to live and employ and enjoy their spiritual nature here, is what best prepares them for the future life. Dewey, like Franklin, who trained the lightning of the sky to respect the safety, and finally to run the errands of men on earth, brought religion from its remote home and domesticated it in the immediate present. He first successfully taught its application to the business of the ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... had set. A sudden, violent rain, without thunder and without lightning, had just swooped down upon our ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... lightning breaks the gloom, Nor flashing thoughts unsought for come, Nor fancies wake in time of need; I labour much with little speed; And when my studied task is done, Too well, alas! I mark ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... round the farmstead and the ricks, and there is not a sound, nothing but the rustle of a leaf falling from the hollow oak by the gateway. But at midnight, just as the drier is drawing the hops, a thunderstorm bursts, and the blue lightning lights up the red cone without, blue as the sulphur flames creeping over the charcoal within. It is lonely work for him in the storm. By day he has many little things to do between the greater labours, to make the pockets (or sacks) ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... river, for example, was at first regarded as itself an animated being; then the will it manifests was separated from the material phenomena, and by personification became a river-god who rules the phenomena. So the sun gave rise to the conception of Apollo; and, by a double remove, the lightning became a weapon in the hand of Zeus. There was thus added to man's world of things a second world of spiritual beings who animated and swayed the things. The change was momentous; but it held fast to the original root idea of nature ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... moment had poured some whisky upon the flames, the leathern bottle had exploded, with a blaze like lightning, and, at the expense of thousands crushed to death, the animals had swerved from contact with the fierce, blue column of fire which had been created. Before and behind, all around us, we could see nothing but the shaggy ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... center pole was split from end to end. The lightning bolt had followed it from its peak to the ground. Several of the side poles had already given way, and the lad saw the dome ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... floor for his enemy, and set his teeth as he thought how he would tear it and mangle it. It was light enough, but first he would put on his boots. He leant over cautiously, and lifting one on to the bed, put it on. Then he bent down and took up the other, and, swift as lightning, something issued from it, and, coiling round his wrist, ran up the ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... the aspirants entertained hopes that lightning might be so kind as to strike the little rod which each had modestly erected. There were doubtless burning regrets when the long list had been finished, many disappointed fellows trying to laugh, and appear as though they had never wanted the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... south feels the chill air of a northern spring. Poor Tom's 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 suspicions ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Ottoman Turks, surnamed ILDERIM, i. e. Lightning, from the energy and rapidity of his movements; aimed at Constantinople, pushed everything before him in his advance on Europe, but was met and defeated on the plain of Angora by Tamerlane, who is said to have shut him in a cage and carried him about with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with such magnificent ease. In much the same way the ceaseless struggles of Assyria with the Chaldaeans, and with the mountain tribes of the Zagros Chain, were unconsciously preparing her for those lightning-like campaigns in which she afterwards overthrew all the civilized nations of the Bast one after another. It was only at the cost of unparalleled exertions that she succeeded in solidly welding together the various provinces within her borders, and in kneading (so to speak) the many and diverse ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to the simple and just demands we make for our cause. The chief difficulty in the way is the indifference of the people; they need an awakening. Some Stephen S. Foster or Anna Dickinson should come forward, and with their thunder and lightning, arouse the people from their deadly apathy. I am glad to know that you are to have with you our valued friend, E. M. Davis, of Philadelphia. We are indebted to him more than all besides for whatever of life is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... godlike train, That with thee the goblet drain; Or with many a huge compeer, Lift, as erst, the shadowy spear! Whilst Hela's inmost caverns dread Echo to their giant tread, And ten thousand thousand shields Flash lightning o'er the glimmering fields! 40 Hark! the battle-shouts begin— Louder sounds the glorious din: Louder than the ice's roar, Bursting on the thawing shore; Or crashing pines that strew the plain, When the whirlwinds hurl the main! Riding through the death-field red, And ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... ended, was beyond that of any other man in his day. He found Brandenburg annihilated, and he left Brandenburg sound and flourishing—a great country, or already on the way toward greatness: undoubtedly a most rapid, clear-eyed, active man. There was a stroke in him swift as lightning, well aimed mostly, and of a respectable weight withal, which shattered asunder a whole world of impediments for him by assiduous repetition of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... in a farmyard constantly chained on account of its fierceness. A gentleman who went to stay at the farm was an especial object of dislike to the animal. One night, during a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, the bull was heard to roar piteously, evidently alarmed at the strife of the elements. The servants were ordered to lead the bull from its open shed into a close stable, where it would be less exposed; but they were afraid to go. The visitor, therefore, compassionating ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze: As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies, And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise; Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, And all th' expanse with rich ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... contrast to these passengers who came with the veterans from North Russia via Brest, which they remember for its Bokoo Eats and its lightning equipment-exchange mill, is the story of one of the fifty general prisoners whom they guarded on the "Von Steuben." One of them was a bad man, since become notorious. He was missing as the ship dropped anchor that night in the dark harbor. It was feared ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the monster at all, so small a portion of the body was exposed and so heavily was the Gull pitching. The whale, instead of sounding directly, dived at a sharp angle and the line ran out like lightning. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... now like small flashes of lightning, or as if the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... our success in using it, and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their Transactions. One paper, which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with electricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one of the members also of that society, who wrote me word that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The papers, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... thing to demonstrate, another to convince; and many of the good people of Magdeburg shook their heads over this "devil's contrivance," and predicted that Heaven would punish the Herr Burgomaster, as indeed it had once by striking his house with lightning and injuring some of his infernal contrivances. They predicted his future punishment, but they did not molest him, for to his fellow-citizens, who talked and laughed, drank and smoked with him, and knew him for the honest citizen ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the turtle an animal symbolical of the lightning basing his opinion, as Brinton (1895, p. 74) tells us, on Dresden 40b where a human figure with animal head is holding two torches in his hands. This figure does not seem to us to represent a turtle, as is commonly supposed, but a parrot, as will be pointed out later (p. 343). Foerstemann ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... house; and he drank to that excess in the path that he died within six or seven hours."[49] From the Eutaws in the same state a correspondent wrote in 1798 of a gin-house disaster: "I yesterday went over to Mr. Henry Middleton's plantation to view the dreadful effects of a flash of lightning which the day before fell on his machine house in which were about twenty negro men, fourteen of which were killed immediately."[50] In 1828 the following appeared in a newspaper at New Orleans: "Yesterday ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... spread the most appalling confusion. The hissing sounds of these novel messengers of death; the train of fire; the explosion; with the ghastly wounds inflicted by the bursting of the rockets; led them to suppose that this terrible instrument could be nothing less than thunder and lightning. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... are produced slowly, with great embarrassment and after much afterthought. It might be said my heart and understanding do not belong to the same individual. A sentiment takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see nothing; I am warm but stupid; to think I must be cool. What is astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I can make excellent impromptus ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... later, at the time of eating, seems very likely, but I cannot say anything for certain, because the sequel escapes me. The first few, however—there are never many—are enough to impart inertia and loss of all feeling to the mollusc, thanks to the prompt, I might almost say, lightning methods of the Lampyris, who, beyond a doubt, instils some poison or other by means of ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... breath's space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, 60 Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... well, La Fleur, said I.—'Twas sufficient. La Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, in his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me, with such a delight in his countenance, that I could not help taking ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... the motion of a lightning scrawl of the pen. Braintop looked at the paper, which now appeared to recede from his eyes, and flourish like a descending kite. The nature of the task he had undertaken became mountainous in his imagination, till at last he fixed his forehead in his thumbs and fingers, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... change now visible in his person and deportment. They saw he had ratted from courage, and joined love. Heretofore his life had been all winter, darkened by storm and hurricane. The fiercer virtues had played the devil with him; every word was thunder, every look lightning; but now all that had passed away;—before, he was the Jortiter in re, at present he was the suaviter in modo. His existence was perfect spring—beautifully vernal. All the amiable and softer qualities began to bud about ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... moment, as luck had it, the oratory came to a sudden end. A sportive bull-pup, malevolently released by some one in the crowd, danced up to the horse-block, barking joyfully, and made a lightning dive for the spellbinder's legs. The spellbinder dexterously side-stepped; the dog's aim was diverted from that fleshy portion of the thigh which his fancy had selected; but his snapping teeth closed firmly in the tail of the pretty light-gray coat, which the little man wore rather ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... lover, and she could bring his death about. She knew that if he could be brought to look into a calabash in which was water so that a reflection of him was made, and the reflection were broken by hurtling the water, he would die as though he had been struck by lightning; for the reflection was his soul. But none knew better than he the danger, and he could be made to look only by a guile which had lulled his least suspicion. He must never think that he had an enemy who was on the watch to cause his destruction. She knew what she had to do. But ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... will hear the voice of his cannon," cried the queen, impetuously; "the thunder of our artillery and the anger of God will annihilate them, and they will fall to the ground as if struck by lightning before the swords blessed by our ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... without finishing the ceremony of prayers. None of them were prepared for the storm, and all got drenched with the rain. From this the rain continued to pour down, and the surface of the sea became as it were tapestried with white, over which the lightning darted and the thunder rolled. It seemed as if thunderbolts were crashing overhead, and the force of the rain appeared to penetrate the earth. Everyone was frightened, for they thought the end ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... "He rides through the sky and hurls his hammer at clouds and at mountains. That makes the thunder and the lightning and cracks the hills. His hammer never misses its aim, and it always comes back to his hand and is eager to ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... the lacquey, she sent the two little ones up to her with small bits of money. But, as the woman would not lift her head, she and Laura prepared to pass her, Laura coming last. The blow, like all such unexpected incidents, had the effect of lightning on those present; the woman might have escaped, but after she had struck she sat down impassive as a cat by the hearth, with a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to mark how trifling a thing will sometimes connect, arrange, and render clear as day to the mind all that has before been vague, imperfect, and indistinct. It is like the touch of lightning on an electric chain, link after link starts up till we see the illumined whole. We have said Nigel had never heard the particulars of the tradition; but he looked on that misshapen plank, and in an instant a tale of blood and terror weaved itself in his mind; in that ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar |
