"Thunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them whose faith an' truth On War's red techstone rang true metal, Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men Thet rived the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... dreary she found it, and over it she fell fast asleep. Her head dropped on her outstretched arm, and the quill dropped from her sleeping fingers—for when Annie slept she all slept. But she was soon roused by the voice of the master. "Ann Anderson!" it called in a burst of thunder to her ear; and she awoke to shame and confusion, amidst the titters of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebuse, which I had loaded with four balls, and aimed straight at one of the three chiefs. The shot brought down two, and wounded another. On this, our Indians set up such a yelling that one could not have heard a thunder-clap, and all the while the arrows flew thick on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished and frightened to see two of their men killed so quickly, in spite of their arrow-proof armor. As I was reloading, one of my companions fired a shot ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... women in the renascent world. The cloudbanks of India lay under a quivering haze, and the blaze of the sun fell full upon the eastward precipices. Ever and again as they talked, some vast splinter of rock would crack and come away from these, or a wild rush of snow and ice and stone, pour down in thunder, hang like a wet thread into the gulfs ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... sunshine had added immeasurably to the welfare of the devoted company, Saturday morning dawned gray and threatening. Before breakfast was over the ominous prediction of storm was fulfilled. Amid reverberating peals of thunder, heavy raindrops began to fall. They were merely the prelude to a furious downpour which descended in silvery sheets, and fairly overflowed the discouraged landscape. A strong wind rose, lashing the leaden expanse of sea into a white-capped fury quite ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... an hour huddled under a canopy beneath the cannonading of a sudden storm. They had silently watched titanic battallions of thunder-clouds riding the skies in gusty puffs of gale, and raking the earth with lightning and hail and water. The crags had roared back echoing defiance, and the great trees had lashed and bent and tossed like weeds in the buffeting. Every gully had become a stream, and every gulch-rock a waterfall. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... riding on an eagle, and sometimes attended by an eagle, has been considered as the Jupiter of the Greeks; and the Lui-shin of the Chinese, or spirit of thunder, is figured under a man with the beak and talons of an eagle, sometimes surrounded with kettle drums, carrying in one hand a batoon and in the other a flame of fire. The Osiris of the Egyptians, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... without making such a noise.' Indeed, that was what the honest fellow could not do. On the most trifling matter his eyes kindled, his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a man; I think the devil was in him. He had two favourite expressions: 'it is logical,' or illogical, as the case might be: and this other, thrown out with a certain bravado, as a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many a long and sonorous story: ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ravens came down, flapping their wings about him and making dashes with their great beaks at his eyes; while stones were loosened, rattled down into the gulf and startled clouds upon clouds of birds, which came circling up, their wings beating the air, till there was a noise like thunder. ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... place in Roman literature. To this school belongs Ovid, [Footnote: Born B.C. 43. Died A.D. 18.] whose "Metamorphoses" will always retain their interest. He, with that self- conscious genius common to poets, declares that his poem would be proof against sword, fire, thunder, and time,—a prediction, says Bayle, [Footnote: Bayle, Dict.] which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr [Footnote: Lect., vol. ii. p. 166.] thinks that, next to Catullus, he was the most poetical of his countrymen. Milton thinks ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... an hour Baringa sat and chafed and watched; and then suddenly he and those with him sprang up, for a sound like thunder came over to them, and a cloud of white smoke curled up from the ship's side; she had fired one of her big guns. Presently Baringa and his people saw that the boat which had gone ashore was pulling back fast, and that some of the crew who were sitting ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living beings, saying, with a voice like thunder, Come! And I saw, and behold, a white horse: and he, who sat on him, had a bow; and a crown was given him: and he went forth conquering and to ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... as to be ready to drive him out of the country. He would have been quite done for if he had not still kept the hat. As soon as he could get his hands free he pulled it twice forward on his head; and then the cannon began to thunder and beat all down, till at last the king's daughter had to come and to beg pardon. And as she so movingly prayed and promised to behave better, he raised her up and made peace with her. Then she grew very ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... which are the cause of disease and death. And thus primitive medicine is inseparable from primitive modes of religious belief. All these phenomena which we consider today natural—the rustling of leaves in a forest, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, winds, clouds, storms, and earthquakes—were to primitive man the outward and visible signs of angry gods, demons, and spirits. Similar spirits caused disease and death, and these evil spirits that produced disease and death were to be placated ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... abruptly blotted, left a deeper darkness, in which the confused herding movements of startled figures were indistinguishably merged. A flash of silence followed; then the liberated forces of the night broke in rain and thunder on the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Hogginarmo by his side, upon whom His Majesty was observed to look very fiercely; the fact is, royal spies had told the monarch of Hogginarmo's behaviour, his proposals to Rosalba, and his offer to fight for the crown. Black as thunder looked King Padella at this proud noble, as they sat in the front seats of the theatre waiting to see the tragedy whereof poor Rosalba ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction. But ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to the head of the cot and seized the ends of the tent poles and Van Shaw had stepped up to one of the poles at the other end when Esther, who perhaps sensed some electricity in the air not caused by the recent thunder ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... existence of this kind of weapons; and although their modern hieroglyphical annals were found to contain vague allusions to the use of them in the conquest of the surrounding country, by means of a peculiar kind of thunder and lightning, and several old Spanish muskets and pistols were found in their scant collection of foreign curiosities, yet, not even the most learned of their priests had retained the slightest notion of the uses ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... teeth, so we lay quiet and reviewed the legion of tormenting thoughts that marched through our minds. The jungle, like the three natives, seemed to be waiting for a happening. The silence was more horrible than the thunder of an earthquake. It seemed to well out from the silent three, till we longed with a great longing for some terrific and prolonged noise to shiver it and send battalions of echoes to ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... deckt, Doth private sacrifice effect. Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate; Ostents that threaten her estate; The strange, yet physical, events, Leander's counterfeit presents. In thunder Cyprides descends, Presaging both the lovers' ends: Ecte, the goddess of remorse, With vocal and articulate force Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan, T' excuse the beauteous Sestian. Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses, Creates the monster Eronusis, Inflaming Hero's sacrifice With lightning ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... standard-bearer, unhorsing Hastings, who threw himself on his path; and Edward, setting his teeth in stern joy as he saw him, rose in his stirrups, and for a moment the mace of the king, the axe of the earl, met as thunder encounters thunder; but then a hundred knights rushed into the rescue, and robbed the baffled avenger of his prey. Thus charging and retreating, driving back with each charge farther and farther the mighty ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... centre cast up its streams of water, which mingled with the rain, and the central jet shone in the lays of the arc-lights; now and again the livid brilliance of lightning illuminated the stone arches and the rumbling of thunder was heard... ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Woodchuck was frightened. He was afraid of Johnnie Green, for he saw that it was Johnnie who made the wind blow, and turned loose the thunder and the clouds. He noticed that Johnnie was doing something to that strange stick; and he expected that in another minute it would begin to rain. But he didn't wait to see. He felt that he would be far safer indoors. So he ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... of many a field on their bodies, oppressed with the curse of a Brahmana, while deprived of reason from drink, impelled by the fates, slew each other on the shores of the Salt Sea with the Eraka grass which (in their hands) became (invested with the fatal attributes of the) thunder. In this, both Balarama and Kesava (Krishna) after causing the extermination of their race, their hour having come, themselves did not rise superior to the sway of all-destroying Time. In this, Arjuna the foremost among men, going to Dwaravati (Dwaraka) and seeing the city destitute of the Vrishnis ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... under the hollow of an oak, and was again with her. It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness deepened, and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her affrighted vision as the thunder came booming along the heights from ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... at this point that they glided in front of the cave, and drew forth the yell which burst upon them like a clap of thunder. The shock to the nervous system of each was terrific. In the case of O'Connor it was visible, for he fell flat back into the bottom of the boat and fetched Jarring a tremendous whack on the head with the boat-hook in falling. Afterwards, Terrence asserted ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... that Jupiter sent thunder from one side of the heavens and lightnings from the other, and that the people rejoiced in the omens as good and went on cheerfully building the walls. The poet Ovid says that the work of superintending ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... to whisper when their heads were bowed. There were some pale faces in the crowd, and some which the galling of tears had made red. There was in the atmosphere something of the same tense silence that follows a terrific thunder-clap. And so the service ended, and the people filed out of church silent still. Some few remained behind to shake the preacher's hand, but as soon as the benediction was over he hurried out the side door, and, before any one could intercept him, was on his way home. But he left a ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... dramatic. The meeting with the pickpocket as a thimble-rigger at Greenwich might pass muster were it not for the rencontre with the apple-woman's son near Salisbury. The Dingle episode may be accepted, for Mr John Sampson has verified even the famous thunder-storm by means of the local press. Isopel Berners is not so easy to settle; yet the picture of her is so convincing, and Borrow was unable to do more than colour his narrative, that ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... highway"—the broad Rue de la Republique! In an instant the drama of September 2nd—eve of the Marne battle—sprang to our eyes and knocked at our hearts. We could smell the smoke, and see the flames, and hear the shots, the cries of grief and rage, the far-off thunder of bridges blown up by the retreating French army. Suddenly we knew how the people of Senlis had suffered that day, and—strangely, horribly—how ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... faithfulness and heroism. The least we can do for such is to bring to light their actions and preserve their history. When beneath the shade of the forest, on the trackless desert, on the rushing river, in tempest and thunder, or when watching in the vicinity of an old fort or near the log cabin of the early colonists, the Red man has been found a faithful friend and guide; should not his deeds of kindness, faithfulness and bravery be recorded side by side with those of the ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... this? Why has our country, with all the ten plagues raging around her, been a land of Goshen? Everywhere else was the thunder and the fire running along the ground,—a very grievous storm,—a storm such as there was none like it since man was on the earth; yet everything tranquil here; and then again thick night, darkness that might be felt; and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bodies, low notes by heavy bodies. But that is not always true. It has been said, again, that high notes in nature are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head. All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse analogies ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he dressed himself and went to the window. High in the heavens swept clean of clouds by the furious blasts floated a wandering moon, throwing her ghastly light upon the swirling, furious sea. Shorewards rushed the great rollers in unending lines, there to break in thunder and seethe across the shingle till the sea-wall stopped them and sent the spray flying upwards ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... of the later afternoon, so pleasant after the heat of the day, came on, felt an increase of satisfaction. All his great forces would be massed in the morning. Now and then he heard in the east the far sound of cannon like muttering thunder on the horizon, but after a while it ceased entirely. He heard that distant thunder in the south, too, but it passed farther and farther away, and he felt sure that it came from his valiant guns hanging on the rear guard ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... see anything better to do than tell him his son bought the house of our next-door neighbor here. (With a shrug.) Thunder, I've heard that a steaming lie is the best kind. (Mock-heroically.) 'Tis the will of the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... mentions that, as the bishops came down the Thames in their boat after their acquittal, a perpetual series of men, linked knee to knee, knelt down along the shore. The blessing given, up rose a continuous thunder of huzzas; and these, by a kind of natural telegraph, ran along the streets and the river, through Brentford, and so on to Hounslow. According to the illustration of Lord L., this voice of a nation rolled like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... very cold, and the snow and ice lie for months on the ground; but the night on which these merry children met it froze with more than ordinary severity, and a keen wind shook the trees without, and roared in the wide chimneys like thunder. ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... Prussia took leave of their visitors, still under heavy rain. The weather cleared afterwards for a time, however, and beautiful Bingen, with the rest of the Rhenish country, was seen in sunshine. The only inconvenience remaining was the thunder of cannons and rattle of muskets which every loyal village ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... In violent thunder-storms, when the whites have got between feather-beds to be safe from the lightning, I have often seen negroes, the aged as well as others, go out, and, lifting up their hands, thank God that judgment was ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... air, and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beating. A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. The night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but there was no lightning and no storm coming. He stopped and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder. Perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the Judgement Day was at hand! Terror seized him and he ran home ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... They are like unto one who kindleth a fire, and when it hath enlightened all around him, God taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, they shall not see; they are deaf, dumb, and blind, therefore will they not repent. Or like a stormy cloud from heaven, fraught with darkness, thunder, and lightning, they put their fingers in their ears, because of the noise of the thunder, for fear of death; God encompasseth the infidels: the lightning wanteth but little of taking away their sight; so often as it enlighteneth them, they walk therein, but when darkness cometh on them, they stand ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... sights we lost touch of the Salvation Army ladies, who wormed their way through the crowd as easily and quickly as a snake does through undergrowth, and set out to find them. Big drops began to fall, the thunder growled, and in a moment the concourse commenced to melt. Five minutes later the rain was falling fast and the streets had emptied. That night's ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... late in the afternoon, being very warm weather, there arose a most terrific thunder-storm; the huge trees, by the violence of the wind and sharp lightning, were uprooted and rent into thousands of particles, and the panic-stricken herd scattered in every direction. I have seen the havoc made in forests through which one of these tornadoes has taken its ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... knees smote for a second as he heard what seemed a low, ominous roar. Having a confused impression that the sound came from the street he rushed toward it, but by the time he reached the front of the house the awful sound had grown into a thunder peal which was in the earth beneath and the air above. Obeying the impulse to reach his father, he sprung up the steps and dashed through the open door. As he did so the solid mansion rocked like a skiff at sea; the heavy portico ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... kid who needs him, you kick up your hind-heels and howl your head off. Sort of a boomerang, isn't it? You came up to my studio, old man, and unloaded some facts. Let me unload one right now. I'm with Brian. I think he's a brick and a jewel for sense. And you can go to thunder!" ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... at an upper window. Within doors and without Limbert's life was overhung by an awful region that figured in his conversation, comprehensively and with unpremeditated art, as Upstairs. It was Upstairs that the thunder gathered, that Mrs. Stannace kept her accounts and her state, that Mrs. Limbert had her babies and her headaches, that the bells for ever jangled at the maids, that everything imperative in short took place—everything that he had somehow, pen in hand, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... the impression produced upon the imagination by a study of Pindar's odes, the writer proceeds with his characterization, in the following language: "He who has watched a sunset attended by the passing of a thunder-storm in the outskirts of the Alps—who has seen the distant ranges of the mountains alternately obscured by cloud and blazing with the concentrated brightness of the sinking sun, while drifting scuds of hail ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... towards solving the O'Hara difficulty. He did ride about among the tenants, and gave some trifling orders as to the house and stables. His brother was still with him, and Miss Mellerby remained at the Manor. But he knew that the thunder-cloud must break over his head before long, and at last the storm was commenced. The first drops fell upon him in the soft form of a ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... bamboo grove which is behind the house, and to creep round the verandah, and I can listen to these fellows holding their consultation: they will certainly be raking up all sorts of scandal about me. It will be all in harmony, then, if I kick down the shutters and sliding-doors with a noise like thunder. And what ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... good fellow," said Max, "don't lose heart. We'll go up to the tower and see how your barrow got there. Thunder and cannon! we'll lend you a hand! Come ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of a country tavern while the couch changed horses. A thunderstorm was going on, and, with that pleasant European air of indirect self-compliment in condescending to American merit, which is so conciliating, he said to a countryman lounging near, "Pretty heavy thunder, you have here." The other, who had taken his measure at a glance, drawled gravely, "Waal, we du, considerin' the number ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... beards so black as coals: Girt stocky Jim, an' lanky John, An' poor wold Betty dead an' gone; An' cleaen-grown Tom so spry an' strong, An' Liz the best to pitch a zong, That now ha' nearly half a score O' childern zwarmen at her door; An' whindlen Ann, that cried wi' fear To hear the thunder when 'twer near,— A zickly maid, so peaele's the moon, That voun' her zun goo down at noon; An' blushen Jeaene so shy an' meek, That seldom let us hear her speak, That wer a-coorted an' undone By Farmer ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... (R.C.) leads up to a door with a portiere of crimson velvet, with the Duke's arms embroidered in gold on it: on the lowest step of the staircase a figure draped in black is sitting: the hall is lit by an iron cresset filled with burning tow: thunder and lightning outside: the ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... ham-smoker's man. ''Tis a thought to look at that a chap will take all this trouble to get a woman into his house, and a twelvemonth after would as soon hear it thunder as hear her sing!' ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... there was not in the whole chapel a person whose imagination was not centred on what was invisibly taking place within the vestry. The thunder of the minister's eloquence echoed, of course, through the weak sister's cavern of retreat no less than round the public assembly. What she was doing inside there—whether listening contritely, or haughtily hastening to put on her things and get away from the chapel and all it contained—was ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... heart—the priceless— To our dear Redeemer's shore! Lo! we bring with us the hero— Lo! we bring the conquering Graeme, Crowned as best beseems a victor From the altar of his fame; Fresh and bleeding from the battle Whence his spirit took its flight, 'Midst the crashing charge of squadrons, And the thunder of the fight! Strike, I say, the notes of triumph, As we march o'er moor and lea! Is there any here will venture To bewail our dead Dundee? Let the widows of the traitors Weep until their eyes are dim! Wail ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... that a man knew not his neighbour, and they smeared their faces with black like unto pitch, and they lost all thought like one who falls into the waves of the sea. And then the Christians drew nigh unto the walls, crying out unto the Moors with a loud voice like thunder, calling them false traitors and renegados, and saying, Give up the town to the Cid Ruydiez, for ye cannot escape from him. And the Moors were silent, and made no reply because ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... from head to foot, looked like a big black sheep, Newstyle was thrown upon his own experimental heap; "That weather-glass," said Oldstyle, "canna be in proper fettle, Or it might as well a tow'd us there was thunder in the kettle." ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... aunt's school, "when what he did," says Pip, "was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge, throwing his bloodstained sword in thunder down, and taking the war-renouncing trumpet with a withering look." There may be a club for making things out of the Beard books, for the study of sleight-of- hand, for exchanging postcards with children in other countries and reading about the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... proved by others that my lungs were weak, and showed them the blood of a slain dog in my fields that they said had come from my lungs. Ah, they were curs! My lungs weak! Strike my chest with all your might. Does it not sound like the king's thunder? Strike, I say!" and as the enfeebled American struck his bare breast he cried:—"Harder, harder! Pooh, you are a child, see this, and this," and he emphasized his words with thunderous blows ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... orator's joys! To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat, To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself, To lead America—to quell ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... a light frost. This semi-civilized world had long been asleep; but it had begun to dream. In the generation before Elizabeth a great man who, with all his violence, was vitally a dreamer, Martin Luther, had cried out in his sleep in a voice like thunder, partly against the place of bad customs, but largely also against the place of good works in the Christian scheme. In the generation after Elizabeth the spread of the new wild doctrines in the old wild lands had sucked Central Europe into a cyclic war of creeds. In this the house which ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... of the current would appear at a distance of 576,000 miles in a second[B]. We have, therefore, in this view of the matter, on the one hand, an enormous quantity of power equal to a most destructive thunder-storm appearing instantly at the distance of 576,000 miles from its source, and on the other, a quiet effect, in producing which the power had taken an hour and a half to travel through the tenth of an inch: yet these are the equivalents to each other, being effects ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... long lean arms. There were whisperings, too, "clicks" made by the tongue, and Venning, opening his eyes, suddenly heard these sounds at once, notwithstanding the walls of the cavern trembled to the hollow thunder of the waters. His eyes fell upon something beyond-the fire. He did not move, or cry out, or wonder where he was; his mind was focussed like his wide-opened eyes on that object. It was like a face, and yet he could not make out whether it was ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... a quiet, warm day in June. The wind is westerly, but there is only just enough of it to waft now and then a sound from the far-off town, or the dull, subdued thunder of cannon-firing from ships or forts distant some forty miles or more. Massive, white-bordered clouds, grey underneath, sail overhead; there was heavy rain last night, and they are lifting and breaking a little. Softly and slowly they go, and one of them, darker than ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... "'Taint youster; 'tis. This here taown is Ridgeboro, Noow York, and so it'll stay, by thunder!" ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the beautiful Pamina sleep, and remarking that, if he dared, he certainly should kiss her. In short, he was a person not to be trusted for a moment. He stole toward her, but in the same instant the thunder rolled and the Queen of the Night appeared from the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... too much for the fat and greasy bourgeoisie to be brought face to face with the horrors of the weaver's existence. It was too much because of the truth and reality that rang like thunder in the deaf ears of self-satisfied ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... battle out there by Pont-a-Moussons, kissing the girl who lived in the back room, waking in the morning as darkly as she, leaving the room to another. Soldiers, new-fledged, coming up from Germany, trembling in the room as they heard the thunder out at Pont-a-Moussons. An officer—that ugly, wooden boy who stared at her from the wall above the mantelpiece. (What a mark he had left on the household that they should frame him in velvet and keep him staring at his own bed for ever!) ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... thunder-stroke for the farmer's wife, and from the moment that she heard of the catastrophe she had no repose. Every day she kept running to the lawyers, or to her neighbours to complain of her hard lot, and the nights she spent in ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... animal, and very fierce. He was discovered crouching in a thicket backed by a precipice, from which he could only escape by charging through the ranks of his enemies. He did it nobly. With a roar that rebounded from the face of the high cliff and echoed through the valley like a peal of thunder, he sprang out and rushed at the savages in front, who scattered like chaff right and left. But at the same instant fifty blow-pipes sent their poisoned shafts into his body, and, after a few convulsive bounds, the splendid monarch of the American ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... roar on a summer night Like thunder in the air; Was never man in Highland garb Would ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Don't for thunder's sake, think us a kind of a Damon and Pythias twins, because I've joined hands with you against Peterkin and for Jerrie. Herod and Pilate, you know, became friends, but I guess at heart they were ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... thunder shower was lashing the trees on the lawn when he awoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close the window. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out his watch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... under. It lasted 24 hours, began at North East and went round northerly till it came to west and soe on till it came to South East where it ceased. It was accompanied with a most violent raine, but no Thunder. The night of it was the most Dismall tyme that ever I knew or heard off, for the wind and rain raised soe Confused a noise, mixt with the continuall Cracks of falling houses.... The waves (were) impetuously beaten against the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... world within us; for what is a world of grass and granite compared with a world of blood and tears? What is the cleaving of an Alp compared with the breaking of a heart? What is the sweep of a tornado, the roar of a prairie-fire, or the booming thunder of an avalanche, compared with the cry of a child in pain?' All visible things,' as Carlyle has taught us, 'are emblems. What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking is not there at all. Matter exists ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... a summer's day before a thunder plump. He pulled a gun. "Keep them there or I'll blow your heads off," ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... a harsh voice, that fell upon the turmoil like a thunder-clap, and there stood Sir James Lee. Instantly the struggle ceased, and the combatants scrambled ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Yet it is scarcely too much to say that they are all in a tale about Crabbe. In this unexampled chorus of eulogy there rose (for some others who can hardly have admired him much were simply silent) one single note, so far as I know, or rather one single rattling peal of thunder on the other side. It is true that this was significant enough, for it ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... over, the grinders poured into the works, and the grindstones revolved. Henry Little leaned against an angle of the building, and listened with aching heart to their remorseless thunder. He stood there disconsolate—the one workman out of work—and sipped the bitter cup, defeat. Then he walked out at the gates, and wandered languidly into the streets. He was miserable, and had nobody to mourn ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Black thunder-clouds were rising up behind, The waxen taper burned full steadily; It seemed as if dark midnight had a mind To hear what lovers say, and her decree Had passed for silence, while she, dropped to ground With raiment floating ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... is fighting! I know the difference between the two sets of guns, English and French. Listen—that quick, spasmodic firing is French; the steady-as-thunder is English. Well, we've got all sail on. Now, make ready the ship ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... winged ministers of vengeance. A figure suggested perhaps by Horace, Odes, Bk. IV., 4: "Ministrum fulmims alitem"—the thunder's ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... or listening to human witnesses below; and then they would gravely converse, as the regular zephyrs moved in and out among them, and pause again, as if their decision was almost dreaded by themselves. At intervals, a stern spirit in the pines would rise and thunder and shake the shafts of the trees, and others would answer him, and patience would have a season again. And so, with scarcely ever a silence that remained more than a moment, this council went on all day, continued all night, was resumed as the sun arose to comfort the world ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... you, watch and pray! Strew ashes on your heads, and fall down on your knees and pray to God for mercy, for the enemy is before your gates, and ere the sun sets the Russians will enter your town! I say unto you, verily I say unto you, God spoke to me in a voice of thunder, and said, 'The Russians are coming!' Fall down and pray, for the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... heads is still more curious: A young Dyak having dreamed the previous night that he should become a great warrior, observed two deer swimming across the river, and killed them; a storm came on with thunder and lightning, and darkness came over the face of the earth; he died immediately, but came to life again, and became a rumah guna (literally a useful house) and chief of his tribe; the two deer still live, and remain to watch ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... began to weep, and declare that he could stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue, compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke upon the gloomy air. "There will be a storm," said he, anxiously. "Come ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... meeting together in teaching Love to God and man, commanded in fact perfection, without which no man could be fit to stand in the sight of God. He spoke it with His own Mouth, from amid cloud, flame, thunder, and sounding trumpets, on Mount Sinai, while the Israelites watched around in awe and terror, unable to endure the dread of that Presence. The promise of this Covenant was, that if they would keep the Law, they should dwell prosperously in the Promised Land, and be ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... gullies. It was necessary to head them or to climb in and out. Miles of travel really meant little progress straight ahead. But Slone kept on. He was hot and Nagger was hot, and that made hard work easier. Sometimes on the wind came a low thunder. Was it a storm or an avalanche slipping or falling water? He could not tell. The sound ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... a worship of the whole congregation, and not of the minister alone. I have read of a great church in the East, in days long, long ago, in which the responses of the vast congregation were so unanimous, so loud, that they sounded (says the old writer) like a clap of thunder. That is too much to expect in our little country church: but at least, I beg you, take such an open part in the responses, that you shall all feel that you are really worshipping together the same God and Christ, with the same heart and mind; and that ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... A noise like distant thunder sounded over the plain. Then, about three miles away, there arose something that looked like ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... took from the table a polished dagger and placed it in his belt; he called for candles and bade the lackeys lead on. Janet was well-nigh distraught at this awful cloud of anger that was about to break forth in the thunder of his tongue and stroke of sword. The steward of the household was aroused, and keys were brought to unfasten Mistress Penwick's door, that they might ascertain if she had fled afar. Her hoods and hats were all ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... sat down and waited. The sun set, and black clouds covered the sky, but, yet the ball did not shine. All the other chickens had gone to roost hours before; but Mr. Dorking kept on watching. It began to rain; the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. The rooster was wet to ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... To my mind? Knowest thou, Kare, what were more to my mind? (In a voice of thunder.) To hew off thy nose and ears, thou vile thrall. Little dost thou know old Ornulf if thou thinkest to have his help in such a deed ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... that of the lady abbess, and her bedchamber fell to Mrs. Cooper. "The girls were put into cells, where girls ought never to be put," wrote their father. He "sallied forth alone, in quest of sensation," and got it in the muttering of thunder, and the flashing of lightning over the "pitchy darkness of the seven mountains." And he and the fiercely howling winds from the trees had a chase through the gloomy cloisters, whence he saw, in the vast, cavern-like kitchen, the honest ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... ony mon luvun' or dead thot can answer? Who can tell the WHY o' like? My Jamie was fair daft on buttermilk, he would drunk ut tull, oz he said humself, hus back teeth was awash. But my Tumothy could no abide buttermilk. I like tull lussen tull the thunder growlun' an' roarun', an' rampajun'. My Katie could no abide the noise of ut, but must scream an' flutter an' go runnun' for the mudmost o' a feather-bed. Never yet hov I heard the answer tull the WHY o' like, God alone hoz thot answer. You ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... was not to be accounted for in any such way. I meant that. The horror, though, of which I had been telling you was quite gone. It was as if there had been a fearful storm, with the constant roll of thunder, and suddenly a calm. I hadn't the least feeling of fear or dread, and I haven't had all day; but to-night I may ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... trees and blowing her dress about her, that the dust had suddenly risen and was flying in a cloud along the road.... Large drops of rain were falling, she did not even notice it; but it fell faster and heavier, there were flashes of lightning and peals of thunder. Elena stood still looking round.... Fortunately for her, there was a little old broken-down chapel that had been built over a disused well not far from the place where she was overtaken by the storm. She ran to it and got under ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... minutes they were back on the top of the great stone wall that held the waters back, listening in the darkness amidst the rush and roar of sluices and chute, supplemented by the distant thunder of the heavy falls high up the stream, for the peculiar thumping whose repetitions had ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... before the country with a strong individuality which had separated him from the machine politicians, and placed him among the statesmen of the Republic. Before the roll of the Northern drums was heard in the South, he had defiantly denounced the slave-holders in the Capitol, and when the thunder of artillery drowned the voice of oratory, he earnestly labored to have the war overthrow and eradicate slavery. Just as his hopes were realized, and as he was battling for civil rights for the enfranchised ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... during this conversation of an intermittent noise like distant thunder. I now perceived that it came from Glossop's classroom, and was caused by the beating of hands on the door-panels. I remembered that the red-moustached man had locked Glossop and his young charges in. It seemed to ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... to say that this is true?' exclaimed Mr. Woodbourne, in a voice which sounded to Elizabeth like a clap of thunder. ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excess of wretchedness had deadened her sensibility. Utter prostration paralyzed her energies and benumbed her mind. Ruin seemed so inevitable that she no longer thought of avoiding it; she awaited it with that blind resignation displayed by Spanish women, who, when they hear the roll of thunder, fall upon their knees, convinced that lightning is about to strike their defenceless heads. She tottered to her room, flung herself on the bed, and instantly fell asleep. Yes, she slept the heavy, leaden slumber which ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... great voice filling the room like thunder, "here's my little girl come back to me again. I was beginning to think you'd deserted your uncle in his old age, Connie, lass. When did you get back? And who are these other very pretty young ladies you ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... I could start back for the show. Perhaps I had absorbed some of the weather wisdom of the animals from long association with them, but, at any rate, I was uneasy at the delays and as I whizzed along in the trolley I congratulated myself on my foresight in having warned Barton, as the thunder heads were gathering and I knew the animals would have the jumps and be unsafe to work with. But my heart sank as I drew near the building and saw that it was brilliantly lighted up, for that could only mean one thing at that time of night—Leotta must be rehearsing. The ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... gaiters; no "tights," with silk stockings and pumps for evening wear; no big low-crowned hats, no striped vests for valets, and, above all, no gorgeous "uniforms," light blue, crimson, and gold, or "orange plush," such as were worn by the Bath gentlemen's gentlemen. "Thunder and lightning" shirt buttons, "mosaic studs"—whatever they were—are things of the past. They are all gone. Gone too is "half-price" at the theatres. At Bath, the "White Hart" has disappeared with its waiters dressed so peculiarly—"like Westminster boys." We have ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... have reached the station, the storm was coming—great rounded masses of cloud, with silver-foamed edges and red lurid caverns, began to climb slowly up the sky, distant grumbles of thunder came gradually nearer, a few fitful gusts of wind came like sirocco, adding to the stifling heat, and were followed by exceeding stillness, broken by the first few big drops of rain, the visible flashes, and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual thunder to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly consolation to bind up the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners of Giant Despair, and directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City. Thus were blessings in rich abundance showered down upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Shoreditch, which was so pleasant a piece of simplicity in him and us, that made us mighty merry. So back again late, it being wondrous hot all the day and night and it lightning exceeding all the way we went and came, but without thunder. Coming home we called at a little ale-house, and had an eele pye, of which my wife eat part and brought home the rest. So being come home we to supper and to bed. This day come our new cook maid Mary, commended ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... electrical phenomena. Black thick clouds, marked by strong outlines, rose on the east, and it seemed as if a squall would have forced us to hand our topsails; but the breeze freshened anew, there fell a few large drops of rain, and the storm dispersed without our hearing any thunder. Meanwhile it was curious to observe the effect of several black, isolated, and very low clouds, which passed the zenith. We felt the force of the wind augment or diminish progressively, according ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... in midst of epic pantheism. Although Indra has no such hymn as has S[u]rya, yet is he still lauded, and he is a very real person to the knight who seeks his heaven.[14] In fact, so long as natural phenomena were regarded as divine, so long as thunder was godly, it was but a secondary question which name the god bore; whether he was the 'chief and king of gods,' or Vishnu manifesting himself in a special form. This form, at any rate, was to endure as such till the end of the cycle. There are other Indras. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... politics, would take no part, and remember that on the day of the election in November I was notified that it would be advisable for me to vote for Bell and Everett, but I openly said I would not, and I did not. The election of Mr. Lincoln fell upon us all like a clap of thunder. People saw and felt that the South had threatened so long that, if she quietly submitted, the question of slavery in the Territories was at an end forever. I mingled freely with the members of the Board of Supervisors, and with the people of Rapides Parish generally, keeping aloof ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid the book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned out on the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. "What is it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we go out and play with the pugs?" At the mention of going out Triss cocked his ears and barked. "I suppose I must ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... so used to din and broken rhythm, would call the Vina, that Oriental harp-string of the soul, a relic of barbaric times. But Vina's magic cry at evening brings the very elementals about the player. The voices of Nature, the lapping of water, bird-song, roll of thunder, the wind in the pines—these are sounds that bring one some slight whit of the grandeur and majestic harmony of the Universe. These are the voice of kung, 'the great tone' in Oriental music, corresponding somewhat to F, the middle note of the piano, supposed to be peace-invoking. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... glimpses of the early religion of this people. In the sixth century they are represented as regarding with awe the deity whom they designated as the creator of thunder. The spectacle of the majestic storms which swept their plains and the lightning bolts hurled from an invisible hand, deeply impressed these untutored people. They endeavored to appease the anger of the supreme being by the sacrifice of bulls and other animals. They also peopled ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... peaceful, for no cloud sullied the sky. One moment Hallblithe saw all this hanging above the turmoil of thundering water and dripping rock and the next he was in the darkness of the cave, the roaring wind and the waves still making thunder about him, though of a different voice from the harsh hubbub without. Then he heard Fox say: "Sit down now and take the oars, for presently shall we be at home at ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... persistency which characterizes an intelligent horse having a definite aim in view. The clouds were gathering behind her, but she did not notice them. The horse pressed on and on. Closer and closer came the storm. The road grew dark amid the clustering oaks which overhung its course. The thunder rolled in the distance and puffs of wind tossed the heavy-leafed branches as though the trees begged for mercy from the relentless blast. A blinding flash, a fierce, sharp peal, near at hand, awoke her from her reverie. The horse ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... in hot and sultry. Hope Mills started, but many another place did not open. There was a strange, deathly-quiet undercurrent, like the awful calm before a thunder-shower. Wages took another tumble, and now no one had the courage to make much of ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... distinct lights in which we may consider him. The horse in the light of an useful beast, fit for the plough, the road, the draft; in every social useful light, the horse has nothing sublime; but is it thus that we are affected with him, whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, neither believeth that it is the sound of the trumpet? In this description, the useful character of the horse entirely disappears, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... flew so high that different trials to reach them with a capital rifle proved ineffectual, and not even the report disturbed them in the least. A black hawk now appeared in their rear. At once like a torrent, and with a thunder-like noise, they formed themselves into almost a solid, compact mass, all pressing towards ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... gathered where the bees, As downy, bask and boom In sunshine and in gloom of trees. But get you in, a storm is at my heels; The whirlwind whistles and wheels, Lightning flashes and thunder peals, Flying and following hard ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... old Rover's place I suggest that we get a rough-haired Irish terrier." He rolled the "r's" round his tongue. "Something robust that can bark and chase cats, and not lie all day on a cushion, like one of those dashed Chinese ..." His voice died away in muttered thunder. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... art speaking, ripes in me a plan, Most wonderful, note well, and based on this: He now is but the shadow of himself, And though he still stands threatening there, his feet Are clay. His wrath is thunder without lightning. And—mark me well—all this his lustfulness ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various |
