"Thunderbolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this sentence on me was like that of a thunderbolt; I returned home like a man in a dream. I immediately sat down and wrote to Manucci, asking him why I had been subjected to such an insult; but Philippe, my man, brought me back the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the young nobleman flung, like a thunderbolt, at his head, the fisherman bounded like a lion. He drew a deep breath, as though he had lifted a weight that had long ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... this mighty force at his back, yet knowing that the neighboring countries could eventually call into the field armies much larger in size equipped with repeating rifles and supplied with modern artillery, the "Jupiter of Paraguay" nevertheless made ready to launch his thunderbolt. ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... winter, on the night of the ball at the palace Servilio. She had resisted many sorrows, she had come forth victorious from many dangers, had suffered, without succumbing, terrible agonies, and died suddenly without leaving any trace, as if carried off by a thunderbolt. Every one here knew her more or less, but no one so well as I, because none loved her so much, and she only let herself be known according as she was loved. Others do not believe in her death, although she has not appeared since the night of which I tell thee: they say it has often happened ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... have a sort of family resemblance to the freaks of lightning or the thunderbolt. Indeed, so striking is the similarity, that people have been prone to think, that, previously to an explosion, the steam in the boiler must have become in some inexplicable way charged with electricity like a thunder-cloud, and that the discharge must have occasioned the catastrophe. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... quickly and quietly between the chairs, removed the traces of the Webster thunderbolt and placed fresh bottles of soda water on the table, whereupon the officers carefully prepared ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... caught up the heavy little whiskey glass and hurled it at the crouching dog. It thudded heavily, but it brought no yelp of pain; instead, a black thunderbolt leaped from the corner and lunged down the room. It was the silence of the attack that made it terrible, and Strann cursed and pulled his gun. He could never have used it. He was a whole half second too late, but before the dog sprang a ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... took up a mighty mace. Deprived by them of his bow and car and sword, and divested also of his wheel by his foes, the mighty-armed Abhimanyu (mace in hand) rushed against Aswatthaman. Beholding that mace upraised, which looked like the blazing thunderbolt, Aswatthaman, that tiger among men, rapidly alighted from his car and took three (long) leaps (for avoiding Abhimanyu). Slaying Aswatthaman's steeds and two Parshni charioteers with that mace of his, Subhadra's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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 then what ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... reanimation of external Venice. But there was a thunderbolt in it; for about an hour before sunset, when the ladies were superintending and trying not to criticize the ingenious efforts to produce a make-believe of comfort on board for them, word was brought down to the boat by the count's valet that the Marquis de ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nail, to typify that her decrees were unalterably fixed. The name of the supreme god was Tinia. He was the central power of the world of divinities, and was always represented, like Jupiter Tonans, with a thunderbolt in his hand. There were twelve great "consenting gods," composing the council of Tinia, and called "The Senators of Heaven." They were pitiless beings, dwelling in ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... us!" she said, laughing rather shrilly. "Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, we're all struck ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... the morning room. It was her day and hour and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was absolutely irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand of God. This particular telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt. "Bishop examining confirmation class in neighbourhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your hospitality ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... soldier, and chiefly for that reason he was respected rather than disliked. But the kindest critic could not have called him either popular or attractive. And the news of his marriage in England had fallen like a thunderbolt upon his Indian acquaintances, for he had long ago come to be regarded among them as the last man in the world ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... peculiar value, because the physical character of Vulcan, as fire, is indicated by his wearing the [Greek: endromides] of Hermes, while the antagonism of Zeus, as the adverse chaos, either of cloud or of fate, is shown by his striking at Hephaestus with his thunderbolt. But Plate IV. gives you (as far as the light on the rounded vase will allow it to be deciphered) a characteristic representation of the scene, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 had been killed. With their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... still to come. Another chief having so far forgotten himself as to jeer at a priest, a thunderbolt fell so close to him that he was knocked senseless, and lay as dead. These two events confirmed the Jesuits' power, and things began to flourish in their four new missions. But the Great Power, so careful of the individual effort of His priests, ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... storm lasted until November twenty-second. On the morning of that day, while the ship was in the trough of the waves, and with topmasts shipped, it was struck by a squall of rain and hail, accompanied by great darkness. A thunderbolt, descending the mainmast, struck the vessel amidships. It killed three men besides wounding and maiming eight others; it had entered the hatches, and torn open the mainhatch, with a blaze of light, so that the interior ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... discovery, the baron descending as a thunderbolt, the banishment of the squire, the lady driven at last to wed the young knight, her weeping and bewailing herself under his ill-treatment, which extended to pulling her about by the hair, the return of the lover, notified by a song behind the scenes, a dangerously affectionate meeting, interrupted ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 it might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... delirium of pure joy in which they had dreamed away their days and nights for the last few weeks—joy that both were too young and untried to know could not last for ever, could not indeed even last long—joy so elevated in its insanity as almost to tempt some thunderbolt of malignant fate to fall upon it with destroying force, even as the highly rarefied air sometimes draws on the whirlwind and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... dropped the fish, shining in the sun like a bar of silver. King Eagle's wings half closed and he shot down like a thunderbolt. Just before the fish reached the water King Eagle struck it with his great claws, checked himself by spreading his broad wings and tail, and then in triumph flew over to the very tree towards which Plunger had started when he had caught ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... upon me like a thunderbolt," Maxendorf proceeded. "I heard unexpectedly that Maraton had entered Parliament, had placed his hand in the hand of a Minister—not even the leader of the people's Party. You do not read the Press of my country, perhaps. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... time, Missus," began old Gert, "a thunderbolt has burst on the native settlement on the farm, and Dashfontein is no longer a home to ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... them, to bestow blessing or 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 to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of these events burst like a thunderbolt. He had been duped; and for the moment he bent before the burst of popular fury which the danger to German Protestantism called forth throughout the land. The cry for a Parliament, the necessary prelude to a war, overpowered the king's secret resistance; and the Houses were again called ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... here, my Sergius," answered the master of the house, drawing aside a piece of crimson drapery, which covered a small niche or recess in the wall, and displaying by the movement a silver eagle, its pinions wide extended, and its talons grasping a thunderbolt, placed on a pedestal, under a small but exquisitely sculptured shrine of Parian marble. Before the image there stood a votive lamp, fed by the richest oils, a mighty bowl of silver half filled with the red Massic wine, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... traveler have but one day for the Louvre Gallery, he cannot afford to spend it all in one corridor; and as California is one great picture gallery, filled with the masterpieces of Him who paints with sunshine and dew and fire, and sculptures with chisel of hurricane and thunderbolt, we cannot afford to pass more than once before any canvas ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... audacious words, joined in the cry. But never for a moment did Henry flinch. Fixing his eye upon the Speaker, and throwing his arm forward from his dilating form, as though to hurl the words with the power of a thunderbolt, he added in a tone none but he himself could command, "May profit by their example." Then, with a defiant look around the room, he said, "If this be treason, make ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... 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 have been, but wasn't, until news got muddled up into ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... which led into the village from the valley below. Almost breathless with exertion, he uttered a few words to the first he met. His communication flew like lightning among the crowd. They scattered in every direction, as if a thunderbolt had fallen among them. Masks were torn off and hastily concealed, dresses were changed, and the block and axe, and all the things connected with the representation, were carried away, while the people ran along the streets, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... mariage vpon K. Edward, as before ye haue heard. But other write, [Sidenote: Will. Malm.] that he had but one son by Cnutes sister, the which in riding of a rough horsse was throwen into the riuer of Thames, and so drowned. His mother also was stricken with a thunderbolt, & so perished worthilie (as is reported) for hir naughtie dooings. She vsed to buy great numbers of yoong persons, and namelie maids that were of anie excellent beautie and personage, whome she sent ouer into Denmarke, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (8 of 8) - The Eight Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... longer." The restless energy and the magnificent tranquillity of his character made him a hero among princes, an idol with his officers, a popular favorite every where. The promptness with which, at much personal hazard, he descended like a thunderbolt in the midst of the Ghent insurrection; the juvenile ardor with which the almost bedridden man arose from his sick-bed to smite the Protestants at Muhlberg; the grim stoicism with which he saw sixty thousand of his own soldiers ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... but it passed away. It is the portion of my life which I look back upon with the most pleasure. I did my utmost to atone for a wasted youth, and in some measure I succeeded. My fears had grown fainter and fainter, and when the blow came it was like a thunderbolt falling from a clear sky. One morning I received a letter in Irene's writing, a little fainter and less firm than of old, but still familiar to me. It contained only a few lines. She had told her son all, and he elected to assert his rightful name and position. ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls." [Footnote: ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... launching of that thunderbolt. Eugene stood with open mouth, staring now at Genevieve, now at his father. Andrea set his arm about his bride's waist, and her fair head was laid trustingly upon his shoulder. The Chevalier's eyes rolled ominously. At length he spoke ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... not stopped the words on your lips, you were about to speak of that fatal instrument of death, and that would have stricken down Madame de la Chanterie like a thunderbolt. It is time you should know all, for you will really belong to us before long,—we all think so. Here, then, is the history of ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... absolution which he had wrung from Mother Church after his own fashion, he was entirely absorbed in preparations for a campaign against the Moors which was to widen his dominions. Therefore when at length the thunderbolt descended, it fell—so far as he was concerned—from a ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... except for the snow which trigged feet and runners in some degree; it was damp and heavy; but the frantic threshing of the plunging beasts kicked up a smother of snow none the less. It was like a thunderbolt in a nimbus—the rush ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... got a claim on YOU. I'm going to stake one out right now." He got up and gesticulated, taking in the big room and its big furniture. "Look at all this! It fell on me like a thunderbolt. It's nearly knocked the life out of me. I'm like a lost cat on Broadway. You can't go away and leave me, Miss Alicia; it's your duty to stay. You've just GOT to stay to take care of me." He came over to her ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mistress in the halls of her ancestors. To confront you with your father and grandfather, I have called you to Paris, and when I have talked with Uncle Orme, whose step I hear, I shall be able to tell you definitely of the hour when the thunderbolt will be hurled into the camp of our enemies. Kiss me good-night. God bless ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... play the base part which he had once thought he never could play. He must be civil to Daniel Granger, mask his batteries, win his footing in the household, so that he might have easy access to the woman he loved, until one day the thunderbolt would descend, and an honest man be left desolate, "with his household gods shattered." It was just one of those sins that will not bear contemplation. George Fairfax was fain to shut his eyes upon the horror and vileness of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... seize them all is to warn them," said Peyrade to Corentin. "At the moment when they are well frightened and are trying to save their papers or to escape we'll fall upon them like a thunderbolt. The gendarmes surround the chateau now and are as good as a net. We ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... morally stunned and for a long time the agony of his mind was blunted. But gradually the first shock passed and full realization rushed over him. His hands dug convulsively into the soft earth and he writhed at his helplessness. What he had done was irremediable. It was a sudden thunderbolt that had flashed across his clear sky. This morning the sun had shone as usual and everything had seemed serene to him whose life had always been easy—tonight he was wrestling in a hell of his own making. Why had it come to him? He knew that his life had been comparatively blameless. Why should ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... were full of dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... the pressure of this secret. The air was full of thoughts that he could not apprehend. Behind the benignant evasiveness of the doctors he seemed to discern a fact, like a thunderbolt withheld. He recoiled from his conjectures, to cower amid these shadows which he felt might be less agonizing than ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... Rode first in ranke; on whose imperiall head A triple crowne was plac't, at which before Two matchlesse diamonds for worth he wore: On whose right hand Idalian Ganymed A massie scepter strongly carried: But on his left, swift-winged Mercurie A dreadfull thunderbolt (earths feare) did whurrie. Next Ioue, Apollo came: him followed Fame Baring a lawrell, on which sweet Sydneys name In golden letters, plainly to be read, By the Nine Muses had beene charrectred: On whose each side Eternitie and Praise Enroll'd mens deeds, ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... remember they are men; Strain not the laws, to make their tortures grievous. Lucius, the base, degen'rate age requires Severity. When by just vengeance guilty mortals perish, The gods behold the punishment with pleasure, And lay th' uplifted thunderbolt aside. ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... hard at school would give him some chance of rejoining Robert. Thence, too, he had watched to please Mrs. Falconer, and had indeed begun to buy golden opinions from all sorts of people. He had a hope in prospect. But into the midst fell the whisper of the apprenticeship like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. He ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... as a postmark usually is. Could she utilise this date in any way to sow the seeds of doubt of the authenticity of the letter? She saw no way open. The letter was a thing familiar to Mrs. Prichard, but a sudden thunderbolt to Ruth Thrale. Had Gwen been in possession of Daverill's letter announcing Maisie's own death, she might have shown it to her. But could such old eyes have read it, or would she have ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... up as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt; then he endeavored to clasp her in his arms, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... length rose the great elephant, Airavata, of huge body and with two pair of white tusks. And him took Indra the wielder of the thunderbolt. But with the churning still going on, the poison Kalakuta appeared at last. Engulfing the Earth it suddenly blazed up like a fire attended with fumes. And by the scent of the fearful Kalakuta, the three worlds were stupefied. And then Siva, being ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Iroquois, there was a long and ominous silence. It was broken at last by the crash of a thunderbolt. On the night between the fourth and fifth of August, a violent hail-storm burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence a little above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, fifteen hundred warriors landed at La Chine, and silently posted themselves about the ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... him who knows the most and of least use to him who knows little. For as the sword of Hercules in the hand of a pygmy or dwarf is ineffective, while the same sword in the hand of Achilles or Hector strikes down everything like a thunderbolt, so dialectic, if it is deprived of the vigor of the other disciplines is to a certain degree crippled and almost useless. If it is vigorous through the might of the others, it is powerful in destroying all falsehood and, ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... fell like a thunderbolt on the assembled group. Even Frida was shocked. Your most open-minded woman begins to draw a line when you touch her class prejudices in the matter of marriage, especially with reference to her own relations. "Why, really, Mr. Ingledew," she said, looking up at him reproachfully, "you ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... It was a thunderbolt that for a moment left them all dazed. Then Babel was reenacted. The main body of them welcomed the announcement as only men who have been preparing to die can welcome a new lease of life. But many could not resolve one way or the other until they were satisfied ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... ground. The force of the lightning had stripped every garment and ornament from her body, and the dead steed lay a few paces off with its trappings riven and scattered around it.[831] Death by a thunderbolt had always a meaning, which was sometimes hard to find; but here the gods had not left the inquiring votary utterly in doubt. The nakedness of the stricken maiden was a riddle that the priests could read. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... wrote to her aunt in Devonport—her only living relative in this country—asking her as a great favor to forward an addressed letter to the prisoner, a fortnight after receipt. The aunt obeyed implicitly. This was the letter which fell like a thunderbolt on the prisoner on the night of December 3d. All his old love returned—he was full of self-reproach and pity for the poor girl. The letter read ominously. Perhaps she was going to put an end to herself. His first thought was to rush up to his friend, Constant, to seek his advice. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... and a stiff breeze had arisen, so that the long and laborious search that was made for the body of poor Mrs. Ellice proved utterly fruitless. Captain Ellice, whose wound was very severe, was struck down as if by a thunderbolt, and for a long time his life was despaired of. During his illness Fred nursed him with the utmost tenderness, and in seeking to comfort his father, found some relief to his own ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... without compare, Which from the devil's bookcase start, Albums magnificent which scare The fashionable rhymester's heart! Yea! although rendered beauteous By Tolstoy's pencil marvellous, Though Baratynski verses penned,(45) The thunderbolt on you descend! Whene'er a brilliant courtly dame Presents her quarto amiably, Despair and anger seize on me, And a malicious epigram Trembles upon my lips from spite,— And madrigals I'm ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Orindo are, Brimarte the scaler, and with him Suifant The breaker of wild horses brought from far; Then the great wresteler strong Aridamant, And Tisapherne, the thunderbolt of war, Whom none surpassed, whom none to match durst vaunt At tilt, at tourney, or in combat brave, With spear or lance, with sword, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the Osprey had the cannon from the brigantine on board, came like a thunderbolt upon the negroes. The prospect of a fight with the men who had so easily captured the brigantine was unpleasant enough, but that they were also to encounter cannon was altogether too much for them, and a general shout of "Don't fire; we go ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... rested one of those unquiet birds whose flight is ever westward, building himself a rude nest of such material as the oak-wooded "bays" of the Red River afforded, and multiplying—in spite of much opposition to the contrary. His eldest had been struck dead in his house only a few months before by the thunderbolt, which so frequently hurls destruction upon the valley of the Red River. The settler had seen many lands since his old home in Cavan had been left behind, and but for his name it would have been difficult ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... we require to withstand a day's run?" Sherman flung the question at him like a thunderbolt. And almost as though the impact of some verbal missile had deprived him of speech, the man ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... gone the judge paced his study nervously for a half-hour, giving uncertain glances towards the hall door, as if he expected the advent of an incarnate thunderbolt. In the afternoon he sent over a bottle of his best Madeira as a peace-offering. Mrs. Webb acknowledged the Madeira, not the truce. The following day General Battle called upon the judge and requested in half-hearted tones the withdrawal of Amos Burr's son. He looked excited ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... such a thunderbolt launched," Kendricks continued. "They are all either stupefied or hysterical. Freudenberg left Berlin an hour after he saw the article. You tell me you've met ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was old), and the windows were heavily barred. The Prince, followed by the Chancellor, still trotting to keep up with him, brushed swiftly through the little library and the long saloon, and burst like a thunderbolt into the bedroom at the farther end. Sir John was finishing his toilet; a man of fifty, hard, uncompromising, able, with the eye and teeth of physical courage. He was unmoved by the irruption, and bowed with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste. Nature has provided against the absolute destruction of any of her elementary matter, the raw material of her works; the thunderbolt and the tornado, the most convulsive throes of even the volcano and the earthquake, being only phenomena of decomposition and recomposition. But she has left it within the power of man irreparably to derange the combinations ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... of lapis lazuli. Grasping that fierce dart, which resembled a second dart of death, and uplifting and aiming it, the mighty son of Radha hurled it at Bhimasena with a force sufficient to take away Bhima's life. Hurling that dart, like Purandara hurling the thunderbolt, Radha's son of great strength uttered a loud roar. Hearing that roar thy sons became filled with delight. Bhima, however, with seven swift arrows, cut off in the welkin that dart endued with the effulgence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... time. The largest is a portrait in the French style of one of the earl's ancestors, who traverses the canvas triumphantly. A cannon explodes below him, a comet is seen above; and in his right hand, notwithstanding his cuirass and voluminous Queen-Anne peruke, he brandishes the thunderbolt of Jupiter. Judith and Holofernes, St. Sebastian, The Murder of Abel, David and Goliath, The Martyrdom of St. Laurence, are some of the rest, all of which, it is perhaps needless to note, belong to those "dismal dark subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental," ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... whom this thunderbolt was to be launched, kept patiently at her work. She had heard of the efforts being put forth, and often wondered why the great people bothered about one of so little consequence as herself. She did not fight back, ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... parting with his companion, walked leisurely toward the tree behind which the young Kentuckian was hiding, until about twenty yards separated them. Then he stopped as abruptly as if stricken by a thunderbolt. There was "something in the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Sir Piercie Shafton looked like a man stricken by a thunderbolt, while, notwithstanding the seriousness of the scene hitherto, no one of those present, not even the Abbot himself, could refrain from laughing at the rueful and mortified expression ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... admiration even of Bossuet, and for all who, after his example, exult, were it only in words, over their enemy dead or dying; who usurp I know not what holy speech, and involuntarily believe themselves to be, with the thunderbolt in their hand, in the region and place of the Most High. Men eloquent and sublime, you are far too much ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... I've got you! Such a thunderbolt as you have just let fly ought to have made me jump out of my chair, but it didn't stir me the least little bit, you see. And for a very simple reason: I have read the morning paper. You can look at it if you want to. The fastest ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a thunderbolt. He said it as though he were merely carrying his previous remarks on to their natural conclusion; but Palliser felt himself so suddenly unadjusted, so to speak, that ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... turned and gazed at the speaker in open-mouthed astonishment. They none of them expected for a moment that the three youngsters had come for any more important purpose than to solicit orders for new caps or "journey-money," and this confession came like a thunderbolt from ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... artistic symmetry is superinduced upon solid excellence. This peculiarity is especially noticeable in narratives where the element of horror is central, as in 'The Avenger.' The gentle whisper rises, gradually and by insensible degrees, to the awful voice of the thunderbolt. The prelude is calm enough, sweet enough, but soon the music ascends to a fiercer key; the plot darkens; the crisis gathers; louder and more tumultuous waxes the fiendish tumult, until all lesser passions are swallowed up, and the empire of a blank, rayless ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... only the albatross moving athwart the sky, no longer slow sailing as before, but with the swift-cutting flight of a falcon pouncing down upon its prey. It seemed descending not in a straight line, but in an acute parabolic curve, like a thunderbolt or some aerolite projected toward the surface of the sea. But the bird, with a whirr like the sound of running spindles, was going in a definite direction, the point evidently aimed at being ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Sir Henry never seemed to recollect the precise nature of the alarm, which had at once, and effectually as the shock of the thunderbolt, for the moment suspended his faculties. Something he said more than once of being certain he had done mischief with that stramacon, as he called it; but his mind did not recur to that danger, as having been incurred by his son. Alice, glad to see that her father appeared to have ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... thereupon wrote to Aspinall, gave him a full, true, and particular account of Acton's campaign against Phil, and asked him to release me—and Phil—from our promise of secrecy regarding the football-match accident. His reply comforted me, and I knew that, come what might, I had a thunderbolt in my pocket in Aspinall's letter, which could knock Acton off the Captain's chair if he tried for that ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and riddled a Boer laager. While however Botha was thus sullenly retreating eastward, he secretly despatched a strong detachment round our left wing to the north-west of Pretoria under the leadership of Delarey, who on the 11th flung himself like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky on a weak post at Nitral's Nek, and there captured two guns with 200 prisoners. On July 16th, Botha himself once more attacked our forces, but was again driven off by Generals Pole Carew and Hutton; and the surrender on the 29th of General ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... fluttered, and became intensely interested. The major's eyes twinkled as he assumed a perfectly impassive expression, and rapidly delivered himself of the following thunderbolt,— ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp of surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... water a peculiar taste and smell, and that the infusion, taken in very small quantities, sensibly affects both palate and stomach. And I suggested that Belemnite water, deemed sovereign of old, when the Belemnite was regarded as a thunderbolt, in the cure of bewitched cattle, might be in reality medicinal, and that the ancient superstition might thus embody, as ancient superstitions not unfrequently do, a nucleus of fact. The charm, I said, might ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... she penned these lines, when, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, another stunning blow fell upon her. On the 19th of May, after an illness of a few hours, Bessie, too, was folded forever in the arms of the Good Shepherd. Here is the mother's own ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... her locks of gold-shine, The daughter of Nereus, lord of the brine, To Peleus wedded, by Jove's high decree; I sing her, the Venus so fair of the sea. Of the spearman tremendous, the Mars of the fight, Thunderbolt of old Greece, she was quickly made light, Of Achilles divine, to whom Pyrrha an heir, The boy Neoptolemus, gladly did bear, The destroyer of Trojans, of Grecians the shield— Thy protection to us, Neoptolemus yield! Who blessed doth slumber in Pythia's green plain; To ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,—a buoyant, elastic gladness,—a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth. Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she could not do, and giving way utterly, she shrieked and rushed from the room. She rushed upstairs. She stood in the middle of the floor listening to the silence, her thoughts falling about her like shaken leaves. It was as if a thunderbolt had destroyed the world, and left her alone in a desert. The furniture of the room, the bed, the chairs, the books she loved, seemed to have become as grains of sand, and she forgot all connection between them and herself. ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... can say nothing; if she did, the result would be shame and anguish, inward remorse for self-treachery. Nature would brand such demonstration as a rebellion against her instincts, and would vindictively repay it afterwards by the thunderbolt of self-contempt smiting suddenly in secret. Take the matter as you find it: ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread, and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrized; do not doubt that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 Joe Johnson and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... If a thunderbolt had suddenly fallen before Kennedy's feet and cloven its sulphurous passage into the abyss, he could hardly have been more startled or more alarmed. Without a word he sat down half stupefied. Was any one else in the inner room? For very ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... my surprise depends on preconceived ideas of conversions. I have heard of sudden and violent crises of the soul, of a thunderbolt, or even of faith exploding at last in ground slowly and cleverly mined. It is quite evident that conversions may happen in one or other of these two ways, for God acts as may seem good to Him, but there must be also a third means, and this no doubt the most usual, which ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... silence. The thunderbolt had fallen. The festival felicity of two households trembled in the balance. Michael muttered impatiently and went ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... scape not the thunderbolt: Melt Egypt into Nyle: and kindly creatures Turne all to Serpents. Call the slaue againe, Though I am mad, I will not byte him: Call? Char. He ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... passed, when, like a domestic thunderbolt, came Juliana's notification of her intention to return home at the end of a week. Mrs. Fulmort, clinging to her single thread of comfort, hoped that Phoebe might still be allowed to come to her boudoir, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their movements. Of course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when his measures were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing the suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. "On the same day, 2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in America, and in all the islands belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the alcaldes of the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... no one on the way, he finally bursts upon the village of Birkadeen much after the manner of a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and dashes up to the office of the stage line, which, as may be supposed, ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the rushing sound of the coming tempest? Do you not behold the clouds open, and destruction lurid and dire pour down on the blasted earth? See you not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by the shout of heaven that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,— all announcing ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... thus: "The waves of two seas, in motion, though no wind blows, roar in terror, and Neptune, alarmed, feels with surprise his trident tremble in his hand. If such is the sport of the monarch of thunder when he yields to the sweets of Hymen, what will it be when he again grasps the thunderbolt? Divine nurses of Jove, bees of Mount Panacra, ah! distil upon my verses, from the summit of Dicte, one drop of the sweet-savored honey, food of the King of Heaven, that my August sovereign, whose soul is like Jupiter's, may find some ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the street and, from the front of Sawyer's barber shop, looked into Wildman's. He felt like a spy looking into the camp of an enemy. There before him sat the men into whose midst he had it in his power to cast a thunderbolt. He might walk to the door and say, truthfully enough, "Here before you is a boy that by the flutter of a white hand has been made into a man; here is one who has wrung the heart of womankind and eaten his fill at the tree of the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... besides, that has had the temerity to attack you, and so has made a lawful target of itself. But against your friend your hands are tied. He has injured you. He has disgusted you. He has infuriated you. But it was most Christianly done. You cannot hurl a thunderbolt, or pull a trigger, or lisp a syllable, against those amiable monsters who with tenderest fingers are sticking pins all over you. So you shut fast the doors of your lips, and inwardly sigh for a good, stout, brawny, malignant foe, who, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... he ought to have known—for it would have been madness to meet his charge—he too should have changed his course to his left, when a couple of lengths away; for he might be sure that the lad would turn that way, so as to get on his left hand, and in that case he would have ridden over him like a thunderbolt." ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... ultimately into an ant. He is at length successful in seizing the youngest maiden, who consents to be his wife in spite of the difference of race; for, while her captor is a man living on the earth, her father dwells in heaven, whence the thunderbolt darts forth if he speak, and she herself drinks no spirits, "for if spirits even touch my mouth I die." After some time, during his absence, his father and mother force toaka, or rum, into the lady's mouth, and she dies; but on his return he insists on opening ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... when the air which is rare and swift mingles with that which is rare and in [slow] motion, is like the flame of fire issuing from a great gun and striking against the air; likewise the flame when it issues from a cloud strikes the air as it begets the thunderbolt. Therefore we will say that the spirit cannot produce a voice unless the air be set in motion, but since there is no air within, it cannot discharge what it does not possess; and if it wishes to move that air in which it is incorporated, it is necessary that the spirit should ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... of hell. There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell, The Furies brought it up, Megara's teat, Alecto gave it bitter milk to eat. And all conspir'd a bane to mortal men, To bring this devil out of that black den. Jupiter's thunderbolt, not storm at sea, Nor whirlwind doth our hearts so much dismay. What? am I bit by that fierce Cerberus? Or stung by [2751]serpent so pestiferous? Or put on shirt that's dipt in Nessus' blood? My pain's past cure; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a thunderbolt, and Mark felt a curious chilling sensation come over him, as he tried to keep it from his mother and Mrs O'Halloran. But the latter was quick at seeing there was something wrong, and she stopped and asked what it was, and wrung it unwillingly from ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... 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 their ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... for him. And truly Selim was not much his debtor; for, at the first flash and glimpse of a red coat, he would paw and champ his iron bit with rage; and the moment he heard the word "go", off he was among them like a thunderbolt. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... 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, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the forceful charm of which few Russian composers have been able to resist. He introduced also strains of Easter music from the Greek church, the popular song known among the Germans as "Schone Minka" and the "Glory" song (Slava) which Moussorgsky had forged into a choral thunderbolt in his "Boris Godounoff." It is a stranger coincidence that the "Slava" melody should have cropped up in the operas of Giordano and Moussorgsky than that the same revolutionary airs should pepper the pages of "Madame ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... within these pleasant shady woods, Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold, Under the climate of the milder heaven; Where seldom lights Jove's angry thunderbolt, For favour of that sovereign earthly peer; Where whistling winds make music 'mong the trees;— Far from disturbance of our country gods, Amidst the cypress-springs, a gracious nymph, That honours Dian for her ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Governor, on the contrary, went through a pantomime expressive of perfunctory admiration, with exclamations of horror and compassion; while, in striking contrast to him, and not far away, Brahim Bey, the thunderbolt of war, in whom the reading of the article, followed by discussion after a substantial repast, had induced a refreshing nap, was sleeping soundly, with his mouth like a round O in his white moustache, and with the blood congested in his face as a result of the creeping ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the canal to the extreme right, along down the Little 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and nearly always stopped him at the time. But if it happened that I upset his thought the thunderbolt was apt to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine |
