"Thunderbolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published—may be spreading while she thinks about it—and in addition to the thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse—in this visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... entirely to Eunice and her mother-in-law those little things which most wives would have been delighted to do for their husbands' comfort. Ethelyn was very unhappy, very angry, and very bitterly disappointed. The fact that she was not going to Washington had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt, paralyzing her, as it were, so that after the first great shock was over she seemed like some benumbed creature bereft of care, or ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... multiplied by a dozen or so—to make you feel Hamlet's long indecision, and to allow you no escape from the knowledge that Claudius' crime would bring about its karmic punishment. It is a unity: one thunderbolt from Zeus;—first the growl and rumbling of the thunders; then the whirr of the dread missile,—and lo, the man dead that was to die. And through the bolt so hurled, so effective, and with it—the eagle-bark—Aeschylus crying Karma! ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... with an answer, which, as far as I could understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent witch, whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, alone of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for sacring the elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and reduced her to ashes.[12] That the most single-hearted handmaid of the Holy Church, whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, should survive in this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire upon the vanity of earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... such exhaustive particulars concerning its environment, and the details of its perpetration and supposed authors, that the public at large, so instructed and informed, become detectives. Hence "crooked" and wicked people are really more afraid of the thunderbolt exposure of the newspapers than of the slower and more uncertain action of ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... through hamlet, village, and town—swept like a thrill of electric fire throughout the land. News was news in those days! You didn't get it at all till you got it altogether, and then you got it like a thunderbolt. There was no dribbling of advance telegrams; no daily papers to spread the news (or lies), and contradict 'em next day, in the same columns with commentaries or prophetic remarks on what might or should ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... some lofty soul Who in a deck-chair lolls, and marks the map And says, "Push here," while I and all my kind Scrabble and slaughter in the appointed slough. But I, presumptuous, wore it, till the gods Called for my laundry with a thunderbolt. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... come like a thunderbolt to poor Dave, and for the time being he knew not what to do or say. The others, too, especially his sister Laura and his dear friend, Jessie, were almost equally affected. But they clung to him, refusing to believe the story that Ward Porton ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... from the motionless torso, and the metal sceptre fell like a thunderbolt. The second messenger rolled on the ground by the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... free again, and now I shall speak the word; for now, Olof, we are standing on the mountain. Behold the people crawling on their knees before those two men seated on their thrones. The taller holds two keys in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. That is the Pope. Now he hurls his thunderbolt, and a thousand souls pass into perdition, while the rest kiss his foot and sing Gloria Deo—but he who is seated on the throne turns about and smiles. Now behold his companion. ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... have a better opinion of our music in heaven than I have down here," he says in his notes. "If they don't, a thunderbolt will knock this vessel endways." It is perhaps worthy of mention that on the night of the 27th of July he records having seen another "splendidly colored, lunar rainbow." That he regarded this as an indication of future good-fortune is not surprising, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... came a loud, penetrating call: "To bed, to bed!" Ritz had just found a fine hiding-place in the henhouse, where he had comfortably settled, secure from being discovered, when this terrible call reached him. It struck him like a thunderbolt. Yes, it took his breath away so that he turned white and hadn't the strength to rise; for, with the call came the remembrance of the three sentences which he had to write: three whole sentences and nine different qualities, and he had forgotten everything, ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... intelligence, supposed to control the visible forces. As science—which is the knowledge of physical laws—extends, the object of prayer becomes more and more intangible and remote. What we formerly feared, we learn to govern. No one would pray God to avert the thunderbolt, if lightning rods invariably protected houses. The Swiss clergy opposed the system of insuring growing crops because it made their parishioners indifferent to prayers for the harvest. With increasing knowledge and the security ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... far-away things. He sat on his own folding stool, which he had brought along from his winter studio hard by in the old Boul' Miche'. He had arrived early that morning, all the way from Como, to find a thunderbolt driven in at his feet. Across his knees fluttered an open newspaper, the Paris edition of the New York Herald. All that kept it from blowing away was the tense if sprawling fingers of his right hand; his left ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... who stirs you from within by himself, as the jaws are stirred by the tongue? You shake the sky, as if on the search for food; you are invoked by many, like the solar horse of the day. Where, O Maruts, is the top, where the bottom of the mighty sky where you came? When you throw down with the thunderbolt what is strong, like brittle things, you fly across the terrible sea! As your conquest is violent, splendid, terrible, full and crushing, so, O Maruts, is your gift delightful, like the largess of a liberal worshipper, wide-spreading, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... success upon their evil-doing. His purpose is, according to the succeeding words in the psalm, "to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth." This is a terrible, an appalling sentence, before which a heart may well be prostrated as from a thunderbolt. And ungodly hearts would be thus appalled were they not so hardened as ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... turn out well, he was ready to be put to death. It is said also that Sulla in his sleep had a vision of the goddess, whose worship the Romans had learned from the Cappadocians, whatever her name may be, Selene,[196] Athena, or Enyo. Sulla dreamed that the goddess stood by him and put a thunderbolt into his hand, and as she named each of his enemies bade him dart the bolt at them, which he did, and his enemies were struck to the ground and destroyed. Being encouraged by the dream, which he communicated to his colleague, at daybreak Sulla ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... telegraph news of this accident in time for the evening papers," said a dingy sheet called the "Barahoo Thunderbolt," as it lay atop of the heap in its ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... finances out a' yer master's pocket. That's the place where he keeps all his morals. Now, run twenty paces and I'll gin ye a fair chance! The nigger understands me, ye see, and moves off, as if he expected a thunderbolt at his heel, lookin' back and whining like a puppy what's lost his mother. Just when he gets to an honourable distance,—say twenty paces, according to fighting rule,—I draws up, takes aim, and plumps the plugs into him. The way the critter jumps reminds me of a circus rider vaultin' and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... rally the men. At that moment a bold idea flashed upon Will Osten. He suddenly put spurs to his horse, galloped round to the lowest part of the barricade, leaped over it, and, drawing his sword, charged the leader of the rebels like a thunderbolt. The man faced him, and raised his sword, to defend himself, but Will's first cut was so powerful that it broke down his guard, cleft his helmet, and tumbled him out of ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... thunderbolt burst on board, or had the vessel struck on a rock in the middle of the ocean, the alarm that was instantly spread on board could not have been greater; and where all had been listless inactivity but a moment before, was now all life, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... struck by lightning. If the Aryans, as some think, roamed the wide steppes of Russia or Central Asia with their flocks and herds before they plunged into the gloom of the European forests, they may have worshipped the god of the blue or cloudy firmament and the flashing thunderbolt long before they thought of associating him with the blasted oaks in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... has often shot and killed men himself. I'm afraid he's been rather wicked, you know. He's lived alone in the woods like a hermit without seeing a soul, and then, again, he's been a chief among the Indians, with Heaven knows how many Indian wives! They called him 'The Pale-faced Thunderbolt,' my dear, and 'The Young Man who Swallows the Lightning,' ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and I slipped and fell." The doctor, who looked troubled, gave directions; and when he went away he heard his man behind the door asking the doctor about the strange storm in the night, that had seemed like an earthquake, or as if a thunderbolt had struck the house. But the doctor said very gruffly, "It is no time to talk thus, when your master is sick to death." But Anthony knew in himself that ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... white men with predictions long extant in the country, and with supernatural appearances, which filled the hearts of the whole nation with dismay. Comets were seen flaming athwart the heavens. Earthquakes shook the land; the moon was girdled with rings of fire of many colors; a thunderbolt fell on one of the royal palaces and consumed it to ashes; and an eagle, chased by several hawks, was seen, screaming in the air, to hover above the great square of Cuzco, when, pierced by the talons of his tormentors, the king of birds fell lifeless in the presence of many of the Inca nobles, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... health, bewildered too by the frantic cries of 'Stop the engine: Clear the track!' that resounded on all sides, completely lost his head, looked helplessly to the right and left, and was instantaneously prostrated by the fatal machine, which dashed down like a thunderbolt upon him, and passed over his leg, smashing and mangling it in the most horrible way. (Lady W— said she distinctly heard the crushing of the bone). So terrible was the effect of the appalling accident that except that ghastly 'crushing' and poor Mrs. Huskisson's piercing shriek, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... his place at the reins, his picturesque velvet jacket, wide hat, bright hair, and gay shirt, thighings, belt, and boots, deserving all Patty Cannon's encomiums as he made a polite adieu and threw his whip like a thunderbolt, and a cheer rose from the discarded volunteers loitering about the tavern as he drove ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of Saint-Stephen of which he was the patron. With these funds, which the bishop increased by means of a new levy of taxes and by indulgences, he was preparing to restore his Cathedral, when in 1007 a thunderbolt achieved ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... forcibly the weary indifference which had crept over him. Contrast that picture with the early days of swift energy and eager interest in all things. Is this half-comatose old man the David who flashed like a meteor and struck swift as a thunderbolt but a few years before? Yes, and a like collapse of power befalls us all, if life is prolonged. Those who most need the lesson will be least touched by it; but let not the young glory in their strength, for it soon fades away; and let them give the vigour of their early days to God, that, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wooden swords, and were having a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard. Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and shouting out, 'Room, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, seventy-five pieces of artillery belched forth their sheets of flame and howling shells; and in an instant, our whole division was thrown into the most perfect confusion by the deadly missiles which ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... as in wisdom and goodness? Are we to think that the Almighty has just for once set a universe in motion, and forever withdrawn Himself from all meddling with its affairs? He permits us to control the electric power: but is never permitted to direct a thunderbolt upon the guilty, or to turn one aside from any path ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... could wage one sharp and terrible battle with the murderers of Judie and Tom and Joe, before suffering death at their hands. The lightning struck a tree just ahead of him, but he seemed not to observe the fact. He was going into battle, and what was a thunderbolt more or less at such a time. The rain followed, drenching him instantly, but not dampening ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... prince, turning to the young man, "I cannot help you; my help would but unchain the thunderbolt that overhangs you; and I can but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... riddled by the Austrian's shot, The brothers Bandiera, who accuse, With one same mother-voice and face (that what They speak may be invincible) the sins Of earth's tormentors before God the just, Until the unconscious thunderbolt begins To ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... were to be seen. A cloud stayed always above our ship and beneath that cloud the sea was darkened. The West Wind came in a rush, and the mast broke, and, in breaking, struck off the head of the pilot, and he fell straight down into the sea. A thunderbolt struck the ship and the men were swept from the deck. Never a man of my company did ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... extreme large and brawny, that their wings may have a stronger and more rapid motion: and so those creatures, though somewhat heavy, soar aloft and tower up easily to the very clouds, from whence they shoot, like a thunderbolt, on the quarry they have in view. Other animals have horns. The greatest strength of some lies in their backs and necks; and others can only kick. Every species, however, has both offensive and defensive arms. Their hunting is a kind ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... arrived news, which fell upon him with the force of a thunderbolt, that the revolt had extended to the Spanish provinces, and was headed by Galba. He fainted upon hearing this; and falling to the ground, lay for a long time lifeless, as it seemed, and speechless. Upon coming to himself again, he tore his robe, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and lightening in Royat, it goes on for hours. The surrounding mountains play an interminable game of which the thunderbolt is the football. They make an infernal noise about it, and the denser the deluge the ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the midst of connubial and communal peace the thunderbolt has fallen on the King.[MENELAUS tugs at ANALYTIKOS' robe.] Broken in spirit as he is, he is already pawing the ground like a battle steed. Never will we lay down our arms! We and Jupiter! [Cheers.] Never until the Queen is restored ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... him at that time, seated on a sofa, beside a table on which lay his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large letters on a sheet of white paper." Such was the power of ennui over Napoleon, at a time, when, in his own language, nothing but a thunderbolt could ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... that grand parade, so artfully planned, I said to myself: "This is like running the gauntlet; [1] now may God assist me." I placed the statue, and having arranged it as well as I was able, waited for the coming of the King. The Jupiter was raising his thunderbolt with the right hand in the act to hurl it; his left hand held the globe of the world. Among the flames of the thunderbolt I had very cleverly introduced a torch of white wax. Now Madame d'Etampes detained the King till nightfall, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to the Prophet Ilya that the power once attributed to Perun is now ascribed. The pagan wielder of the thunderbolt is represented in modern traditions by more than one Christian saint. Sometimes, as St. George, he transfixes monsters with his lance; sometimes, as St. Andrew, he smites with his mace a spot given over to witchcraft. There was a village (says one of the legends of the Chernigof Government) ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... the storm-king hurled a mighty thunderbolt at the oak-tree, and the brave, strong monarch of the greenwood was riven. Then, with a shout of triumph, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... mighty hero, King Dushyanta, Protector of the earth; who, at the head Of the celestial armies of thy son, Does battle with the enemies of heaven. Thanks to his bow, the thunderbolt of Indra Rests from its work, no more the minister Of death and desolation to the world, But a ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... of an adventure. They were at once drawn together by secret fibres. Besides, how can we explain sympathies? Why does a certain peculiarity, a certain imperfection, indifferent or hateful in one person, prove a fascination in another? That which we call the thunderbolt is true as regards all ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the Lord is good!" Then raising his voice and reaching out his arm he would exclaim, "There's noan so bloind as those that weant see! but remember, yo' weant always be able to play th' bloind man, God will crack a thunderbolt close to your ear some day, and yo'll open your eyes to see th' judgment before yo', and ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... eye, withered limbs, paralysis, leprosy, and especially the plague. There is no disease that resists the sign of the Cross. In a crowd, the suffering and the feeble are placed together, that they may be cured in a mass, as if by a thunderbolt. Death itself is conquered, and resurrections are so frequent that they become quite an everyday affair. And when the saints themselves are dead the wonders do not cease, but are redoubled, and are like perennial ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Onward at full gallop went that gallant band of horsemen, their leaders still fifty yards in advance, while a shower of bullets poured from the Russian ranks. Every moment it was expected that the Russians would charge, but still motionless they stood awaiting their foe. Now, like a thunderbolt, Scarlett and his three hundred horsemen hurled themselves on the Russian cavalry, he and his companions still keeping the lead, and appearing like a sharp point of the mighty wedge of red which was clearing its onward ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... causes of the calamity were little understood, portents were plentifully noted. The previous winter had been mild. A thunderbolt fell in the autumn. There was a blight on the gooseberries, and Master Salter had a calf with two heads. As to the painter, a screech-owl had been heard to cry from his chimney- top, not ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... A thunderbolt fell upon the Capitol, causing the destruction of the Sibylline books and of many other things. (Mai, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... us!" she said, laughing rather shrilly. "Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, we're all struck ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... she replied. "Oh, if only Joan would come to her senses. It seems like a thunderbolt always hanging over us. I believe that if she were to see us ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Hel[)i]os and Clym[e]n[^e]. He obtained leave to drive his father's sun-car for one day, but was overthrown, and nearly set the world on fire. Jove or Zeus (1 syl.) struck him with a thunderbolt for his presumption, and cast him ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... their inmost being, as sunbeams are through a crystal prism. Exhibiting material nature spiritualized, well do these passages show the uplifting character of poetic imagination. But this displays a higher, and its highest power when, striking like a thunderbolt into the core of things, it lays bare mysteries of God and of the heart which mere prosaic reason cannot solve or approach, cannot ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... adventure brought neither the thunderbolt signal of love's coming, nor yet that gradual revelation of an inward fairness which draws two natures by degrees more and more strongly each to each. For there are but two ways of love—love at first sight, doubtless akin to the ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... Potiphar's wife, and favours the impression that in Sodom and Gomorrah the inhabitants were dissipated and sat up late. This sort of thing wouldn't work with Sally. If the story were to be told at all, her thunderbolt directness would have it all out, down to the ground. Her mother went through the pros and cons again and again, and always ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... smell of blood, and our bones scattered at the grave's mouth; murdered people; a White League with its "covenant of death and agreement with hell." And who cares? What city pauses one hour to drop a pitying tear over these mangled corpses, or has forged against the perpetrator one thunderbolt of furious protest? But let there be a supposed or real invasion of Southern rights by our soldiers, and our great commercial emporium will rally its forces from the old man in his classic shades, to clasp hands with "dead rabbits" and "plug-uglies" in ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... a thunderbolt to him, to hear Beatrice acknowledge herself positively engaged, and yet wilfully resolve to encourage his attentions, and thus trifle with his feelings. Before Beatrice came, he had been much pleased with the unaffected manner of Ethelind, whose character he highly respected; but her reserve ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... suddenly, like a thunderbolt, confiscating the elephants; how they fled to a near-by temple, bribed the dancers for masks and garments, fled still farther into the wooded hills, and hid there with small arms ready, needs but little telling. Umballa returned to ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... critical moment, and the signal is given for half the party to fire. If they are not successful in laying him dead on the spot with this first volley, he springs like a thunderbolt upon the horses. The remainder of the party then fire, and seldom fail to put an end to him but generally one or more of the horses are either killed or so wounded as to be destroyed in consequence; and sometimes, although rarely, one or more of the hunters share the same fate. So you observe ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Antony, and that her lust was so extravagant, as to have thus showed herself, though she was absent, to a man that ran mad after women, and to a man that had it in his power to use violence to her. This charge fell like a thunderbolt upon Herod, and put him into disorder; and that especially, because his love to her occasioned him to be jealous, and because he considered with himself that Cleopatra was a shrewd woman, and that on her account Lysanias the king ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... pride of might and dominion. But the same cannot be said for the Sung period. From a political standpoint its history is one of cumulative disaster. Ancient China retreated by degrees before the thrusts of the barbarians, until the great thunderbolt of Genghis Khan's conquest, reverberating with formidable echoes throughout all Asia, announced the approaching downfall of culture in the red ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... which I have you told, That shone with feathers as of gold, Which that so high began to soar, I gan beholde more and more, To see her beauty and the wonder; But never was there dint of thunder, Nor that thing that men calle foudre,* *thunderbolt That smote sometimes a town to powder, And in his swifte coming brenn'd,* *burned That so swithe* gan descend, *rapidly As this fowl, when that it beheld That I a-roam was in the feld; And with his grim pawes strong, Within his sharpe nailes long, Me, flying, at a swap* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... to her, and she drank it. Beyond that I cannot say that any of them partook with much heartiness of the meal. They sat there, as they would have sat if no terrible thunderbolt had fallen among them, and no word further was spoken about Crosbie and his conduct. Immediately after breakfast they went into the other room, and Lily, as was her wont, sat herself immediately down to her drawing. Her mother looked at ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... can bring a thunderbolt crashing down out of a perfectly clear sky! Is it ever justifiable to shield ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... a bench and a chair, and on one side a huge tambourine, with two curved iron drum-sticks. The bench was covered with bells, handsomely carved with idols, and censers with juniper-ashes; and on it lay the dorge, or double-headed thunderbolt, which the Lama holds in his hand during service. Of all these articles, the human thigh-bone is by much the most curious; it is very often that of a Lama, and is valuable in proportion to its length.* [It is reported at Dorjiling, that ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... straighten, Your brain to bubble cool, — Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... thunderbolt has fallen with a vengeance now. On Friday night after leaving you, in the course of conversation, my father put me one or two questions as to beliefs, which I candidly answered. I really hate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the Amlaki will be seen on the cornices of the Institute, and towering above all is the symbol of the thunderbolt. It was the Rishi Dadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his bones to smite evil and exalt righteousness. It is but half of the Amlaki that we can offer now. But the past shall be reborn in a yet nobler future. ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... not attempt to interrupt her or defend themselves until she had finished her scolding. Then her nephew let his thunderbolt fall. ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... by our Constitution, I shall not be factious. I shall point my finger whither an invisible influence is pushing us; and neither my action nor my words shall be irritating. I shall stir up the cloud, and, though I should cause it to launch the thunderbolt, I should be innocent. In this solemn investigation to which the Academy invites me, I have more than the right to tell the truth,—I have the right to say what I think: may my thought, my words, and the truth be but one and ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... detest forces, that meditate every kind of impiety. The hundred-handed Gyges is an evidence of the sentiments I allege: and Orion, the tempter of the spotless Diana, destroyed by a virgin dart. The earth, heaped over her own monsters, grieves and laments her offspring, sent to murky Hades by a thunderbolt; nor does the active fire consume Aetna that is placed over it, nor does the vulture desert the liver of incontinent Tityus, being stationed there as an avenger of his baseness; and three hundred ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves up. Here, to make their peace with the authorities, they told all they knew of the position and purposes of their countrymen at Fort Caroline, and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... I have been a tyrant to you—but, I tell you, Rattlin, there is a tyrant in the ship greater than I—it is that horrible Dr Thompson. He is plotting to take away my commission, and to get me into a madhouse!— oh, my God!—my God! remove from me this agony. Hath Thine awful storm no thunderbolt—Thy wave no tomb! Must I die on the straw, like a beast of burden worn to death by loathsome toil?—and so many swords to have flashed harmlessly over my head, so many balls to have whistled idly past my body! But, God's will be done! Bear yourself, my dear body, carefully ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... reply, the farthest centre of the Heaven was rent as by a thunderbolt; and the divine herald covered his face with his hands, and a voice low and sweet and mild, with the consciousness of unquestionable power, spoke forth to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the rope around his neck she was an angel from heaven as she stood there so slim and straight, her dark eyes shining like stars. Some of these men were old enough to be her father. Any of them could have crushed her with one hand. But if a thunderbolt had crashed in their midst it could not have disturbed ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... herself, contemplating the beautiful slumbering queen, "oh, that grief might pass away from her like a dark cloud—that no thunderbolt burst forth from it and strike that beloved head! But I am afraid the lightning will at last blight all the blossoms of her heart. O God, give her strength, nerve her in her sufferings, as Thou hast blessed her in her happiness! ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... answered solemnly, "Phidias stood before it and prayed to Zeus to tell him whether it pleased the god. Great Zeus heard the prayer, and in his joy at the beautiful thing he hurled a blazing thunderbolt and smote the floor before the statue as if to say, 'This image is Zeus himself.' But I have never seen it, for a slave may not pass the ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... mean. He certainly does look as if a pistol would be no adequate defense against him. What you want is a nice, self-cocking, automatic thunderbolt." ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... yet it moved Frontispiece FACING PAGE The eagle screamed, descended like a thunderbolt ... ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... greater blame if he had remained innocent. For, in short, can a heart be truly enamoured which does not dread as well as hope? And could you believe I loved you if this ominous letter had not alarmed me; if I had not trembled at the thunderbolt which I imagined had destroyed all my happiness? I leave it to yourself to judge if such an accident would not have caused any other lover to commit the same error; if I could disbelieve, alas, a proof which ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls." [Footnote: Tennyson, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang into the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the Cumberland sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have Carmel see me. Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting, I could not live in my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had struck her had spared her life and reason she must know from my own lips that I was not only a free man, but as innocent of the awful charge conveyed in Sweetwater's action as was the brother, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... and parsimonious praise due to humble industry. It is no less true, however, that measures which go straight and direct to a great general object, without noticing intervening impediments, must often resemble the fierce progress of the thunderbolt or the cannon-ball, those dreadful agents, which, in rushing right to their point, care not what ruin they make by the way. The sounder and more moderate policy, accommodating its measures to exterior circumstances, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... to rule and direct the lightning. Indeed, the bounteous rains which fell ensuring a full harvest after several years of drought, were universally attributed to the good influence of her presence in the land. In the same way when a thunderbolt struck the hut of a doctor who but a day or two before had openly declared his disbelief in her powers, killing him and his principal wife, and destroying his kraal by fire, the accident was attributed to her vengeance, or to that of the Heavens, who were angry at this lack of faith. After ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... Ogeechee. The enemy occupied not only the city itself, with its long line of outer works, but the many forts which had been built to guard the approaches from the sea-such as at Beaulieu, Rosedew, White Bluff, Bonaventura, Thunderbolt, Cansten's Bluff, Forts Tatnall, Boggs, etc., etc. I knew that General Hardee could not have a garrison strong enough for all these purposes, and I was therefore anxious to break his lines before he could receive reenforcements from Virginia or Augusta. General Slocum ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... himself? There was tremendous passion under his assumption of calm. I understand now that old Prince Soderini, the father of the Duchess d'Argaiolo, came here to take back his daughter's letters and portraits. This was the thunderbolt that fell on Albert's head, and he went off, no doubt, to try to justify himself. But how is it that in fourteen months he has given us ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... who dost sway mortal and immortal things with eternal command and the terror of thy thunderbolt, how can my Aeneas have transgressed so grievously against thee? how his Trojans? on whom, after so many deaths outgone, all the world is barred for Italy's sake. From them sometime in the rolling years the Romans were to arise indeed; from ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... thunderbolt broke over the Brandenburger Thor, and rolled like the breaking of a wave to the other end of the street. The king had left the Potsdam railway station a quarter of an hour ago, and the crowd greeted him with a tremendous shout as his carriage ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... myself up to all my passing sensations, and cheated myself, turning away from memories, and shutting my eyes to what I foreboded before me.... This weakness would not most likely have lasted long in any case ... a thunderbolt cut it all short in a moment, and flung me into a ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... was as a thunderbolt falling in the midst of them, and the poor woman perceived this instinctively. Her son's impatience had been the spark which set the smouldering fire in her alight, but even he was astounded by the quick and sudden blaze which lit up the dull wonder in his sisters' ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Across the depths of heaven; with horrid hair A blazing comet stretched from east to west And threatened change to kingdoms. From the blue Pale lightning flashed, and in the murky air The fire took divers shapes; a lance afar Would seem to quiver or a misty torch; A noiseless thunderbolt from cloudless sky Rushed down, and drawing fire in northern parts Plunged on the summit of the Alban mount. The stars that run their courses in the night Shone in full daylight; and the orbed moon, Hid by the shade of earth, grew pale and wan. The sun himself, when poised in mid career, Shrouded ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... incongruous question was never put in an Arab town in the heart of Africa by a sheikh dressed in bernouse and turban, with a jewel-hilted yataghan at his side, sitting cross-legged on a cushion. No wonder Daireh was flabbergasted; such a thunderbolt out of a clear sky has ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... am told, what wonder means, save from some prodigy. Seeing no marvel in the daily glory of the sunlight, he is startled out of his usual stupidity and carelessness by the occurrence of an eclipse, an earthquake, a thunderbolt. The uneducated, whatever their rank may be, are apt to be more interested by the sight of deformities, and defects or excesses in nature, than by that of the most ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... back. "Why, child!" she exclaimed, "I should think you'd expect a thunderbolt. Where do your folks go ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... number, but weighty in character, was of course a painful shock to the hitherto unbroken unity of the church and clergy of Connecticut. But it was not quite like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. It had been immediately preceded by not a little conference and correspondence with Connecticut pastors on the one hand, and on the other hand with representatives of the powerful and wealthy Propagation Society, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... are; if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;" and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying, "Come back, Senor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Burgesses went back to their hundreds, but my house at Weyanoke knew me no more. In a tone that was apologetic, but firm, the Governor had told me that he wished my company at Jamestown. I was pleased enough to stay, I assured him,—as indeed I was. At Weyanoke, the thunderbolt would fall without warning; at Jamestown, at least I could see, coming up the river, the sails of the Due Return or what other ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the cars stopped, we listened with much amusement to the story of a fat, comfortable-looking individual, who was cured by lightning in the following manner:—He was in the last stage of a decline, when, one hot July morning, he was knocked down by a thunderbolt, a ball of fire, which entered his side, ran all through his body, and came out at his arm. At the place where the ball made its exit, a large ulcer was formed, and when it dispersed he found himself in perfect health, in which he has continued ever since! In such cases ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... yell, rather than a human expression of terror, the Landgrave fell, as if shot by a thunderbolt, stretched at his full length upon the ground, lifeless apparently, and bereft of consciousness or sensation. A sympathetic cry of horror arose from the spectators. All rushed towards The Masque. The young cavaliers, who had first stepped forward as volunteers in the Landgrave's defence, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... objections to this mixture of metaphysics and science, and among other things declares that "the fatty, sticky material of a comet may be kindled from sparks falling from fiery heavenly bodies or from a thunderbolt"; and, again, that the thick, fatty, sticky quality of the comet holds its tail in shape, and that, so far are comets from having their paths beyond the moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought, he himself in 1618 saw "a bearded comet ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... eying the glittering expanse of unclouded blue overhead, "a storm is certainly brewing. I can feel it in my bones. It reminds me of the afternoon we removed the Governor of Silesia. He was fused by a thunderbolt, from just such a summer sky. Obviously, what he lacked was a lightning conductor. Now, the question is, even if he had owned one, whereabouts would he have ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the cold misty bosom of a cloud, at which, only a little while before, Bellerophon had been gazing, and fancying it a very pleasant spot. Then again, out of the heart of the cloud, Pegasus shot down like a thunderbolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his rider headlong against a rock. Then he went through about a thousand of the wildest caprioles that had ever been performed either by a bird or ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... whom de Jars had bestowed the title and name of Chevalier de Moranges, and whose acquaintance the reader has already made at the tavern in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. His appearance had as great an effect on the notary as a thunderbolt. He stood motionless, trembling, breathless; his knees ready to give way beneath him; everything black before his eyes. However, he soon pulled himself together, and succeeded in overcoming the effects of his surprise and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... flower- faced nymphs who dwell in this forest-clad mountain, but if in thy folly thou speakest out, and boastest to have been the lover of fair-garlanded Cytherea, then Zeus in his wrath will smite thee with the smouldering thunderbolt. Now all is told to thee: do thou be wise, and keep thy counsel, and speak not my name, but revere ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag, and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, much to Rob's disgust. The hurtling missile came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly went ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... shall with ravening fangs Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily! Such ire shall Typho from his living grave Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge, Hot and unslaked, altho' himself be laid In quaking ashes by Zeus' thunderbolt. But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me To school thy sense: thou knowest safety's road— Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain, Till Zeus relent from wrath, my ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... for what I have heard and read has struck me like a thunderbolt. You do not bid me write again, my little mother"—here he uses one of the caressing untranslatable Polish diminutives. "I see that you have been prevailed upon by his [her husband's] persuasions. I see that ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... almost the worst proportioned. After all, there is something appropriate in the fact that, just as the pretensions of the popes expanded and their powers decreased, so their churches should become vaster and yet less impressive. St. Peter's was intended to be a marble thunderbolt; but like so many of the papal thunders of that age, it was but a ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... they 'ave it loaded up, and now they're takin' aim. . . . Rat-tat-tat-tat! Oh here, says I, is where I join the game. And my right arm it goes swingin', and a bomb it goes a-slingin', And that "typewriter" goes wingin' in a thunderbolt ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... several hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the association. To all appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on November 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not to employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the ground, but, ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... mingle a little of the bitter as a condiment to the roasted flesh. Gathering his men well together, and approaching very close to the foe without being discovered, he gave the order to charge. His men needed no second command. They fell upon the feasting savages like a thunderbolt, scattering them right and left without mercy. Eight of the warriors were killed in the short conflict which ensued. The remainder were allowed to escape. With some difficulty they next succeeded in recovering all their horses, except the six which ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... mute figure of the ruined man between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible arm ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... from the troubled sky. Hark to the thunder! To him it is not thunder; It is the noise of battles and the din Of cannons on the field of Austerlitz, The sky to him is the whole world disturbed By war and rumours of great wars. He tumbled like a thunderbolt from heaven Upon the startled earth, and as he came The round world leapt from out her usual course And thought her time was come. Beat on him, rain; And roar about him, O thou voice of thunder. But what are ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... not killed by a thunderbolt," Matvey went on, crossing himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "My dead mother must have been praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the town looked upon me as a saint, and ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... himself, to the effect that he had nothing whatever to do with the bill and disapproved it. Upon Bismarck's colleagues in the ministry, who thought that his silence had given consent, this came like a thunderbolt; and those who had especially advocated the measure saw at once that they had fallen into a trap. The general opinion was that the illness of the chancellor had been a stratagem; that his sudden disclaimer, after his leading colleagues had thus committed themselves, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... maid of smoky war, All hot and bleeding, will we offer them: The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours.—Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt, Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales: Harry and Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.— O, that Glendower ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... thunderbolt," she said, "and when I think of it, all that is English in me rises up in revolt. In my heart I know so well that it is Germany and Germany alone who will provoke this war. I am terrified for your country. I admit it, you see, ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stranger,"—thus burst the song from the lips of the poet. "Vortigern wedded with the stranger; thence came the first wo upon Britain, and a sword upon her nobles, and a thunderbolt upon her palace. We wed not with the enslaved Saxon— the free and princely stag seeks not for his bride the heifer whose neck the yoke hath worn. We wed not with the rapacious Norman—the noble hound scorns to seek a mate from the herd of ravening wolves. When was it ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... half fainting (for she had no physical courage), she cried for Dennis, and never did knightly heart respond with more brave and loving throb to the cry of helpless woman than his. He came with almost the impetus of a thunderbolt, and the man, startled, looked around, and catching a glimpse of Dennis's blazing eyes, dropped his hold on Christine, and shrank and cowered from the blow he could not avert. Before his hand could instinctively reach the pistol it sought, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... most heroic of any of Shakspeare's actors; but it is, perhaps, that one also of which his reader last acquires the intelligence. The intellectual and warlike energy of his mind—his tenderness of affection—his loftiness of spirit—his frank, generous magnanimity—impetuosity like a thunderbolt—and that dark, fierce flood of boiling passion, polluting even his imagination,—compose a character entirely original, most difficult to delineate, but ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... 1547. His family, although honorable, was very poor, but he received a liberal education. He became a page, chamberlain, and afterward a soldier, and fought at the naval battle of Lepanto, "Where," he said, "I lost my left hand by an arquebuse under the conquering banner of the son of that thunderbolt of war, Charles V., of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... on the 30th of July, 1555, just six months after Palestrina had resigned his important post at Saint Peter's. He was a young man with a family, and apparently keenly sensitive, for when this sonorous thunderbolt was launched at his head, he immediately fell ill of a fever and came nigh to death. But he recovered, and two months later found another post as canon of the Lateran, of which by the 1st of October, 1555, he was maestro. Eleven years later, a year after he had written his immortal ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... man like a thunderbolt, albeit he had been expecting it. He attempted to make his usual excuse, but the kindly old professor who had notified him smiled into his face, and, patting his shoulder, said, "It 's no use, Brent. I 'd go and make the ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he had swung a heavy chair over his head, and was rushing furiously at us. We all fired our pistols into him together, but nothing could stop that thunderbolt of a man. With the blood spurting from his wounds, he lashed madly out with his chair, but his eyesight happily failed him, and his swashing blow came down upon the corner of the table with a crash which broke it into fragments. ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... over, looking at it thoughtfully. If what she had been thinking was really true, why was it that he wanted this particular needle back? what was there about it? ... All at once it came upon her like a thunderbolt that it was soon after the last injection, only a few hours, that she had noticed the change in Sir Charles. Iron and arsenic, that could have no bad effect—on the contrary, it put strength into one. With an idea forming in her mind, she furtively raised the needle ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... then, I can see that Army of Northern Virginia on the march. At its head rides one august and knightly figure, Robert E. Lee, the knightliest gentleman, and the saintliest hero that our race has bred. He is on old "Traveler," almost as famous as his master. On his right rides that thunderbolt of war, Stonewall Jackson, on "Little Sorrel," with whose fame the world was ringing when he fell. On Lee's left, on his beautiful mare, "Lady Annie," the bright, flashing cavalier, "Jeb" Stuart, the ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... July 31st, the first in importance next to the Stock Exchanges themselves were the so-called bond houses. These firms, which included in their number many prominent private bankers, were dealers on a great scale in investment bonds, and when the thunderbolt of war struck they were carrying large lines of those bonds on borrowed money which, in the ordinary course of events, would have been placed among their numerous clients. When the crisis of early August had developed, all these houses (some of them not being members of the Stock Exchange) ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... trees waved their heads on high, And shrunk from the storm's fierce stroke; The lightning flash'd as from GOD'S own eye, The thunderbolt crash'd through the startled sky, As it ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... pretty inventor of slight prose; But there's no spirit in his grov'lling speech. Hang him, whose verse cannot outbelch the wind, That cannot beard and brave Dan Aeolus; That, when the cloud of his invention breaks, Cannot outcrack the scarecrow thunderbolt. Hang him, I say![77] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe's feet would not have produced a deeper impression upon him than the sight of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... civil law of all European nations was founded on them. There was no government that had not adopted them and shown itself inclined to be entirely guided by them. The formal condemnation of the cherished ideas of the age was as a thunderbolt hurled against the social elements of the day. But why disturb their peace? They had no peace. They were already discordant. "Non esi pax impiis." Peace could not be born of unbelief. It could come only through the truth, even as health conquers disease by the most ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... applied to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve bishoprics, besides innumerable abbacies. The edict came like a thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany; dreadful even in its immediate consequences; but yet more so from the further calamities it seemed to threaten. The Protestants were now convinced that the suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and the League, and that the overthrow ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the hands of the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance of escape. The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled to regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... A thunderbolt falling in the midst of them would not have produced a more terrible effect upon the four gentlemen than did ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... lightning before him. He took in his hands a net wherewith to catch Timat, and he placed the four winds near it, to prevent her from escaping from it when he had snared her. He created mighty winds and tempests to assist him, and grasped the thunderbolt in his hand; and then, mounting upon the Storm, which was drawn by four horses, he went out to meet and defeat Timat. It seems pretty certain that this description of the equipment of Marduk was taken over from a very ancient account ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum |
