"Lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the very first toast of the assembly was, "Destruction to the present government, and the king's head upon a charger." This was too much for the feelings of the loyal people of Birmingham to endure. No sooner had this toast been made known, than loyalty "swift as lightning shot through their minds, and a kind of electrical patriotism animated them to instant vengeance." Before the second course was well on the table, they rushed into the tavern, broke windows and glasses, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... generous cup of coffee and a good supper," her father replied. "Men are animals, even when heroes, and Merwyn will be in a condition to bless the hand that feeds him to-night. Now I must carry out my plans with despatch. Oh, there is the rain. Good. Torrents, thunder, and lightning will keep away more dangerous elements. Although I have but a slight acquaintance with the Erkmanns, whose yard abuts upon ours, I hope, before the evening is over, to have a door cut in the fence between us, and a wire stretched from our rear ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the four lamps lighted, and that wrinkled, brown hands with talon-like fingers were performing a miracle of wilderness surgery upon him. He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas—"The Wandering Bolt of Lightning"—as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did not see Bateese, stolid-faced, silent, nor the dead-white face and wide-open, staring eyes of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as her slim, white fingers ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... a little rougher with the animals than usual, and their ears, tilted back at a sharp angle, indicated their resentment, but the guide was too angry to notice this danger signal. A sharp slap on June's thigh to make the animal step over was followed by a lightning-like flash of two tough little mule heels, and Joe Shafto was lifted from her feet and hurled against July, and then July began ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... antecedent, or one [Greek: heterou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an, antecedent,—or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which should strike and precipitate the ball on St. Paul's cathedral. This would be a miracle as long as no causative 'nexus' was conceivable between the antecedent, the noise of the shout, and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... dead, I break the lightning, I announce the Sabbath, I excite the slothful, I disperse the winds, I appease ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... her peril the captain had, with an almost lightning like movement, stooped over his child and dragged her backward. Barely in time; Chester's skate just grazed her fingers, cutting off the tip of her mitten. There were drops of blood on the ice, and for a moment her father thought her fingers ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... INDRA: A Hindu play, in which a priest of Indra, after making a supreme sacrifice of himself and others in order to root out human affection from his heart, thinks that his god speaks in the lightning ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... is properly a disturbance of the atmosphere, with or without rain, snow, hail, or thunder and lightning. Thus we have rain-storm, snow-storm, etc., and by extension, magnetic storm. A tempest is a storm of extreme violence, always attended with some precipitation, as of rain, from the atmosphere. In the moral and figurative use, storm ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... preached on the text, "Go; see now this cursed woman and bury her; for she is a King's daughter." It is certain that some of the ejected priests pursued her to the grave with invectives. Her death, they said, was evidently a judgment for her crime. God had, from the top of Sinai, in thunder and lightning, promised length of days to children who should honour their parents; and in this promise was plainly implied a menace. What father had ever been worse treated by his daughters than James by Mary and Anne? Mary was gone, cut off in the prime of life, in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which fell like a sentence of death on the ear of Hadassah! Salathiel could not wait to tell more; he must overtake his family and with them flee for his life; and he passed away again into darkness, almost as swiftly as the lightning passes, but, like the lightning, leaving behind a token of where it has been in the tree which it ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... included the natural and the supernatural. He talked with spirits. He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. He stood amongst Peter, John and James on one side, and Moses and Elias on the other. All the people saw lilies in the field and sparrows upon the roof, but He saw more, He saw how, His Father clothed the lilies and how He fed the sparrows. He united ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... drawing a big automatic revolver from his pocket, would have fired at the man who had spoken his mind so freely had not Deacon, quick as lightning, sprung forward and wrenched the weapon so that ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... with a swift movement uncovered me, but at the same time she uncovered her sister, and Clementine with a little scream veiled the charms which my eyes had devoured for a moment. I had seen all, but as one sees lightning. I had seen the cornice and the frieze of the altar ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... formed. The sky was full of aircraft which rained down fire like flashes of lightning upon cities beneath. From these cities leapt up other fires that destroyed the swift-travelling things above, so that they fell in numbers like gnats burned by a lamp. Still more and more of them ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... greyhound had been tethered and untied the rope. But just as he was about to spring on his back and give him a deadly bite, the jackal heard a low growl, which never proceeded from the throat of any sheep. Like a flash of lightning the jackal threw down the cord and was flying across the plain; but though his legs were long, the greyhound's legs were longer still, and he soon came up with his prey. The jackal turned to fight, but he was no match for the greyhound, and in a few ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... Billy caught him before he could reach the ground, administered a smart cuff on the ear, and would have delivered another, but, quick as thought, Jack sprang from his grasp, spun round, leaped upon his back like lightning, bit him in the thick of the neck, and then bounded away towards the ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... figures that attracted my attention was that of Aunt Fountain. The old China tree in the shade of which she used to sit had been blasted by lightning or fire; but she still had her stand there, and she was keeping the flies and dust away with the same old turkey-tail fan. I could see no change. If her hair was grayer, it was covered and concealed from view by the snow-white handkerchief tied around her head. From my place I could hear her humming ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... right, Captain. You need not worry about him. He is as quick as lightning, and he will get first shot, never fear, and more than that, I wouldn't mind betting that he carries off ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... went down behind the lofty trees; the brief dusk passed, and the little beach showed faintly beneath the stars, great and small, of a moonless night. Above the western horizon clouds arose and the lightning constantly flashed, but there was no thunder, and only the sound of the low surf upon the shore. Robin, creeping from the wood, saw the Sea Wraith at anchor, and by the distant lightning the bark from Pampatar drifting far away without sail or rudder. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Meanwhile the car that bears the lightning brand Upon the eastern hill was mounted high, And smote the glistering armies as they stand, With quivering beams which dazed the wondering eye, That Phaeton-like it fired sea and land, The sparkles seemed up to the skies to fly, The horses' neigh and clattering armors' sound Pursue the echo ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Queen at Presburg; duly conjuring incessantly, "Make your peace with Friedrich!" And her Majesty will not, on the terms. Poor Robinson, urged two ways at once, is flurried doubly and trebly; tossed about as Diplomatist never was. King of Prussia flashes lightning-looks upon him, clapping finger to nose; Maria Theresa, knowing he will demand cession of Silesia, shudders at sight of him; and the Aulic Council fall into his arms like dead men, murmuring, "Money; where is ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... descriptions, which gradually diffuse their influence over the soul, and leave it in undisturbed tranquillity. It is a picture in strong light, like the subject itself, full of fire, of sentiment, of lightning-flashes, that go at once to the heart. We imagine ourselves in Germany; we become familiar with these so-called barbarians; we pardon their faults, and almost their vices, out of regard to their virtues; and in our moments of enthusiasm, we even ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... the warnings she has received from his Excellency the Governor, comes every night, under cover of the darkness, within a mile and a-half, or less, of the anchorage. Last night, at nine o'clock, she was seen from my deck with the naked eye, assisted by an occasional flash of lightning; and as the night was comparatively obscure, no vessel, not being under sail, could have been seen at a greater distance than from a mile to a mile and ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... six p.m. shipped a very heavy sea that carried away the bulwarks on the larboard quarter and stove those on the starboard quarter and amidships ... upper cabin filled with water. Through the night strong gales.... Lightning at all points ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... loathsome, but if we want to get about at all we must do it, as we don't like the riding horses. At the present moment we have got one of the plough animals, which is rideable. The poor beast was frightened one night three weeks ago, during a fearful storm of thunder and lightning, and ran into the barb wire, wounding itself horridly on the shoulders and neck. The skin had to be sewn up, and it cannot wear a collar for the present so we have it to ride if we like. It is not a ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... what way, then, did he expect to come? In the way he himself indicates the coming of his kingdom—like leaven, working secretly in the dough; like seed, sprouting mysteriously in the ground; like lightning, seen everywhere at once. By these images alone could he convey to his disciples his ideas. He longed to tell them many things more, but they were not able; to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... I write, my thoughts ascend More fleetly than the lightning's flame To that blest place where lowly bend God's saints, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... santo, a ball of electric light observed flickering about the masts, yard-arms, and rigging, during heavy rain, thunder, and lightning. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... hill, each man leading his mount carefully. Before they had covered the lower slopes or the breastplates had begun to tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind, rolling across the low hills and drowning any noise less than that of cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of the ascent, the hill-crest standing steely blue against the black sky, the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards to their left flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and entered by a ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... winks; and thereupon the shade Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best Our looks interpret. "So to good event Mayst thou conduct such great emprize," he cried, "Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now, The lightning of a smile!" On either part Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak, Th' other to silence binds me: whence a sigh I utter, and the sigh is heard. "Speak on;" The teacher cried; "and do not fear to speak, But tell him what so earnestly he asks." Whereon I thus: "Perchance, O ancient spirit! ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... is struggling to escape from its prison. It seems to me that, by gathering my forces, I shall be able to effect this. Sometimes—even for an interval brief as a lightning-flash—I feel myself, as it were, suspended in mid-air; then ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... classical and domestic drama. Addison's Cato is a specimen of the one; and would it were not superfluous to cite examples of the other! To such purposes poetry cannot be made subservient. Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it. And thus we observe that all dramatic writings of this nature are unimaginative in a singular degree; they affect sentiment and passion, which, divested of imagination, are other names for ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... growth. No one at all ailing or deformed is allowed to approach a building where they are kept. The worms are supposed to be very nervous, and are guarded from everything that can possibly frighten them, as well as from all changes of temperature or disturbances of the atmosphere. Thunder and lightning they are supposed specially to dread, and great pains are taken to shelter them by artificial means, and keep them from all knowledge of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... Moreover, every name must mean something. Now, whatever the meaning of a name (supposing it to be really ascertained), very little ingenuity is needed to make it indicate one or other aspect of Dawn or Night, of Lightning or Storm, just as the philologist pleases. Then he explains the divine or heroic being denoted by the name—as Dawn or Storm, or Fire or Night, or Twilight or Wind—in accordance with his private taste, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... the martyrdom of these holy men, the moon shone out with unusual splendour, and the night became so exceedingly light, that all admired greatly: After which, it suddenly became excessively dark, with great thunder and lightning, and violent coruscations, so that all expected to be destroyed; and the ship, which ought to have carried away the friars, was sunk, with all on board, so that no tidings of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... her for an instant, and then turned on his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning, and with her ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... lids seemed immovable, as if suddenly converted into an ancient statue of the times of chivalry, so instantly had his hard features and strong limbs been arrested into rigidity by the blow he had received— And in a second afterwards, like the same statue when the lightning breaks upon it, he sunk at once to the ground with a heavy groan. The king was in the utmost alarm, called upon Heriot and Maxwell for help, and, presence of mind not being his forte, ran to and fro in his cabinet, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Athens. His heart was given to politics: and, in an age when heavy clouds were gathering over the independence and the civil grandeur of his country, he had a disinterested anxiety for drawing off the lightning of the approaching storms by pacific counsels. Compared, therefore, with the common mercenary orators of the Athenian forum—who made a regular trade of promoting mischief, by inflaming the pride, jealousy, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... from earth to heaven." Its movement is rapid and devious. It unites the most opposite extremes; or, as Puck says, in boasting of his own feats, "puts a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." He seems always hurrying from his subject, even while describing it; but the stroke, like the lightning's, is sure as it is sudden. He takes the widest possible range, but from that very range he has his choice of the greatest variety and aptitude of materials. He brings together images the most alike, but placed at the greatest ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and the Pope is His Prophet," said Bruno, when Elena and Joseph had gone indoors. "It was like day! You could see the lightning conductor over the Pope's apartment! Pshew!" blowing puffs of smoke from his twisted cigar. "Won't ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... was only the shadow of a crop of course it could hurt nothing. Still it went through the shadow of the Hare and caused it to twist round like lightning. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... without a break of appreciable extent, as we subsequently found. Breaking the quartz at intervals, hoping at each blow of the pick to see the longed-for colours, we followed this curious natural wall, and finally camped, sheltered by it from the wind. A violent storm of dust, wind, thunder, and lightning swept over us that night, tearing the "fly" we had pitched, in the vain expectation of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... of late how to school his face. Long practise under the witchery of Irene's eyes and Mrs. Haxton's ceaseless scrutiny enabled him now to conceal the lightning flash of inspiration that fired his intelligence. An old caravan road from the sea, a road that led to the Nile, with its fourth stopping-place made notable by seven tiny cones of an extinct volcano—surely ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the law against every heaven-daring, God-provoking sinner. I have frequently noticed the effect of this black man's oratory upon some of his audience. I have known him to solemnize his whole audience, a few numskulled negroes alone excepted. While he has been thus thundering and lightning, sullen moans and hollow groans issue from different parts of the room; a proof that his zealous harrangue solemnizes some of his hearers; while a part of them are making grimaces, or betraying marks of impatience; ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... make an immediate onfall. But when morning broke the whole force was revealed spread about the hills overlooking the drift and no sound of artillery proclaimed the beginning of an action. Of course, since a lightning blow had been expected, we all wondered what was the cause of the delay. Some said folly, others incapacity, others even actual laziness. But so far as the operations have proceeded I am not inclined to ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... on in the house much as usual, with a little more silence where had been much. The wind lay moveless on the frozen earth; the sun shone cold as a diamond; and the fresh snow glittered and gleamed and sparkled like a dead sea of lightning. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... sweet as the dew-awakened blossoms, and light as the breeze that plays among them. She is as witty, as voluble, as sprightly as Beatrice; but in a style altogether distinct. In both, the wit is equally unconscious; but in Beatrice it plays about us like the lightning, dazzling but also alarming; while the wit of Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles like the living fountain, refreshing all around. Her volubility is like the bird's song; it is the outpouring of a heart filled to overflowing with life, love, and joy, and all sweet and affectionate ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the character of this white devil, that we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in some portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... by clamps of steel; so was the wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no one was looking—although every eye believed itself fixed upon him—his left foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like lightning he had sprung up and round, without touching the horse until fairly down in the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best chance of getting the rider off, which is at the moment before he is quite on. No other chance was offered to the baffled one, although he kicked like ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... never would have happened but for Palus' instantaneous grasp of the situation and lightning decision. Any other charioteer would have reined in or tried to swing round to the right; he lashed his team and guided them so perfectly that, with not a hand's- breadth to spare anywhere, the two wheels passed precisely where there was the only chance of their passing, and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the pastor's head with lightning speed; he stood for a moment like one paralyzed. But the colonel did not give much time to the surprised man to recover himself. He quickly took the offered easy chair, drew the pastor down on another, looked straight into his eyes and said: "Dear Sir, you sent through the French pastor in Copenhagen ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... bereft of his reason. But his looks, the looks of those pale, cold, clear, blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of lightning, which one could ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the tree still gorging himself with fruit, said he was not afraid and he would fight it out that evening. Amenaran stood below and lightning poured forth from his mouth and thunder was heard. Iyu said: "I have no spear, nor parang, but I will kill that antoh." And the big pig he had eaten and all the roots and all the fruits that he had been feeding on, an immense quantity of faeces, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... subject, Correll fixed a pointed collector—a miniature lightning-conductor—above the flagpole on the summit of the roof. A wire was led through an insulator, so that the stream of electricity could be subjected to experiment in the Hut. Here a "brush" of blue light radiated outwards to ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Summer in Arcady there were readers who were troubled by the heat lightning of passion that incessantly fluttered in its bosom and threatened to bolt from the blue, their fears will be laid to rest in the contemplation of Mr. Allen's new work which is pervaded by an intense ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... sunset hour the unbroken dome of the sky often undergoes a brief transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky vapours—you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... foot," answered Piney. He made his lightning-like pony go more slowly so that Bruce's horse might come alongside, and he shook his head, his ready sympathy again on his face. "Say, it's goin' to be kinder tough on you to stay here to-night, aint it? This is ev' ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... (now the Metropolitan of Roumania) told me, there came into a church at Tergul, near Moros-Varshahel, a woman with a basket of eggs. When she perceived that she could not understand the language that was being used she put down her basket and uttered a loud curse, "May thunder and lightning strike this church!" she cried. And after the service had begun in a church near Grosswardein the wife of a clergyman pulled the priest's beard, while other ladies tore off his robes. Nevertheless this Uniate Church continued to exist and it was natural that ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Anubis and the sacred birds, Isis ascertained these facts, and then went to the royal city. There she offered herself at the palace as a servant, and being admitted, threw off her disguise and appeared as the goddess, surrounded with thunder and lightning. Striking the column with her wand, she caused it to split open and give up the sacred coffin. This she seized and returned with it, and concealed it in the depth of a forest, but Typhon discovered it, and cutting the body into fourteen pieces, scattered them hither and thither. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... genius to judge its own efforts. The story has now become history —printed history—it having been sympathetically told by Howells in My Mark Twain, and more exhaustively, with a report of the speech that invited the lightning, in a former ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Helots among them," said Tellus. "My boy married a Spartan wife, and I can assure you she is a woman that looks lightning, and speaks mustard. When my son first told her to take the fish from his basket, she answered angrily, ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... seek goodness, being sinners, so we shall be brought to seek the last perception, being dolts. The masters have not been quite masters, and their theory has never respected the natural as opening to a supernatural mind. We eat and drink and wait to be arrested, not by sunshine, but lightning. It comes at last, revealing from heaven the height and depth of our human prospect. The vision is appalling; the seer is stricken to the ground; he has no organ able to bear this light; he is blinded; he runs trembling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... discussed at a meeting which was held in a little ruined stone hut, situated behind some trees on a dreary hill just outside Bosekop. It was a miserable place, barren of foliage,—the ground was dry and yellow, and the hut itself looked as if it had been struck by lightning. The friends, whose taste had led them to select this dilapidated dwelling as a place of conference, were two in number, both women,—one of them no other than the minister's servant, the drear-faced Ulrika. She was crouched on the earth-floor ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... love had sprung up at once, like Aphrodite from the waves, where no one could have suspected such a marvel. He himself had been without realization of how his passing interest had deepened its roots until now they fed on every part of him. Love had startled him like a stroke of lightning out of a clear sky, but it was evident that it was no light that flashed out and then disappeared. It had ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... displayed wonderful sagacity, and which arrested the attention of nearly all the philosophers in Europe and America. The all-important topics of this exceedingly important document, were the power of points to draw off electricity, and also the similarity of electricity and lightning. He therefore urged that metallic rods might be attached to buildings and ships, which, pushing their needle points above roofs and masts, might draw the electric fire harmlessly from the clouds. He confesses ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... impetuous forth, we straight prepare A furious onset with the sound of war, And shouting seize the god; our force to evade, His various arts he soon resumes in aid; A lion now, he curls a surgy mane; Sudden our hands a spotted paid restrain; Then, arm'd with tusks, and lightning in his eyes, A boar's obscener shape the god belies; On spiry volumes, there a dragon rides; Here, from our strict embrace a stream he glides. At last, sublime, his stately growth he rears A tree, and well-dissembled foliage wears. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... little thing scarcely two years old, hurled it with his utmost strength high into the air. On gaining its greatest altitude, it turned completely, and was descending, head downwards. When within six feet of the ground, the brutal villain, with one lightning stroke of his tulwa, severed the head from its shoulders, amid the shouts and gesticulations of the assembled miscreants. By some, the wretch was pronounced a winner, but on examining the body, the skin of one shoulder was found to be grazed or cut. Many maintained ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... Evringham, after a lightning glance of suspicion at his daughter-in-law. "I think I remember something about that. But Golden Hair tried ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... noble wishes, I am prompt As lightning to your service. O my lord! The fair Vittoria, my happy sister, Shall give you present audience—Gentlemen, [Whisper. Let the caroch go on—and 'tis his pleasure You put out all ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... cheerfully from the rear seat—but the voice was not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out here, Dick?" ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... turned and laid his back against the panels, trembling in every muscle, terrified by the result of his impulsive audacity, thunder-struck by a lightning-like foreglimpse of its possible consequences. Of what colossal imprudence had ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at this time to a warm West-Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightning, earthquakes, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... was Peeling from his Roll in front of the Kentucky Club, in order to grab Gertie Glue at 8 to 5, Lightning struck the Paddock and laid out the ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... conflagration. The ships were enwrapped in a torrent of fire, which, spreading with vivid brightness among the combustible rigging and running with amazing rapidity to the tops of the several masts, while all around was thunder and lightning from our numerous cannon and mortars, and in the darkness of night presented one of the most sublime and magnificent spectacles that can be imagined. Some of our shells, overreaching the town, are seen to fall into the river, and bursting, throw up ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... not lose their head in looking down from its sharply cloven summit.—-Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, held as enemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may be drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thunder is unloosed? "I sit amongst the crags, and feel the Earth Tremble beneath me, whilst my heart is firm. I gaze upon the lightning, and my lid Quivers not. Is their aught 'neath which my gaze Quaileth, or waxeth faint—I read the sun Undazzled where the stars ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... you strong enough to walk?" And as I leaned forward toward her, a quick flash of vivid lightning, directly overhead, lit both our faces. I marked she did not shrink, and no look of fear came into ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... to say that "a jealous man on horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning and ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... the Colonel, but Maurice was, and the Colonel's total lack of surprise astonished him. The gaze of the two men plunged into each other's eyes like flashes of lightning, but that ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... barbarians, draped in sayons of woven greenery. But the oaks were the monarchs of all—the mighty oaks, whose sturdy trunks thrust out conquering arms that barred the sun's approach from all around them; Titan-like trees, oft lightning-struck, thrown back in postures like those of unconquered wrestlers, with scattered limbs that alone gave birth to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the mountains. I have always the feeling that they are lying in wait. At night, their very silence is ominous. The crack of ice as a bit of slow-moving glacier is dislodged, lightning, and the roar of thunder somewhere below where I lie—these are the artillery of the range, and from them I am safe. I am too small for their heavy guns. But a shelving trail on the verge of a chasm, a slip on an ice-field, a rolling stone under a horse's foot—these ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tiny whips, and then we were rushing along over the white sea, in the midst of a mass—I can call it nothing else—of spray, deafened, stunned, feeling as if each moment I should be torn out of my seat, and as if the boat itself were being swept along like lightning over the sea, riding, not on heavy water, but ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... his future work, but here was something which persisted in his inner consciousness against his will. It was like curtaining the windows and shutting one's eyes against a storm—in spite of barriers the lightning slashes through to the retina ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... popular voice follows with such "dictes" as, "Women are made of nectar and poison"; "Women have long hair and short wits" and so forth. Nor are the Hindus behindhand. Woman has fickleness implanted in her by Nature like the flashings of lightning (Katha s.s. i. 147); she is valueless as a straw to the heroic mind (169); she is hard as adamant in sin and soft as flour in fear (170) and, like the fly, she quits camphor to settle on compost (ii. I7). "What dependence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... strong language has been used in the locality concerning this gross example of food-hoarding. The weather, too, has been behaving oddly. On one day of Eastertide there was an inch of snow in Liverpool, followed by hailstones, lightning, thunder, and a gale of wind. Summer has certainly arrived very early. But at least we are to be spared a General Election this year—for fear that it might clash with the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... the choir, which had been injured in 1514, by the destruction of the spire. The square short central tower was erected A.D. 1200: it replaced one that had been damaged eighty years before, when the original stone spire of the church was struck by lightning. From that time forward, no attempt had been made to rebuild the spire, except with wood, of which material, that now in existence is the second. The first was destroyed by a fire, occasioned by the negligence of plumbers, in the beginning of the sixteenth ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... with only the sound of the lightning-like dip of the paddles. Another short bend in the channel, and a hundred yards ahead was the confluence of the two currents, which ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... early sunlight, an aerial island jutting up above a smoky sea. From the terrible, veiled maelstrom roaring below, battle thunder reverberated and the lightning of the ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free. Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white. The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made. Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune, Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon. The limitless heaven that ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... slackened touch of the warm grasping hand; she looked up—for till now her eyes had been downcast, as if there were heavy weights to their lids—and the place was empty where he had been; his quick step was heard on the stair, the front door was opened and shut; and then as quick as lightning Molly ran up to the front attic—the lumber-room, whose window commanded the street down which he must pass. The window- clasp was unused and stiff, Molly tugged at it—unless it was open, and her head put out, that ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... promises, false man. And may the curses follow you which the unhappy maiden sends you from the bottom of her heart. But if the gods have not locked up their ears they will witness the wrong you have done her, and when you least expect it the lightning and thunder, fever and illness, will come to you. Enough, eat and drink, take your sports, for unhappy Filadoro, deceived and forsaken, will leave you the field open to make merry with your new wife." So saying, the dove flew away quickly and vanished like the wind. The Prince, hearing the murmuring ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... of lightning the hot blood mounted to the doctor's face, while Fanny cast upon him a searching glance as if she would read him through. Fanny Hetherton would have given much to know the answer which Dr. Simon Bellamy mentally gave to that question, put by one whom he had known but little more ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... it was, spoke volumes. It was a flash of lightning, that gave me a distinct view of the black and dreadful abyss that was immediately before me; and into which I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... wouldn't have eaten their old dinner, except to please you. I've known them only thirteen days, but I could have said the same thing when I'd known them thirteen minutes. Indeed, I'm not sure I didn't say it to Jack. Did I, or did I not. Lightning Conductor?" ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... from the cone. He is alone. Deep shadows gather round the farmstead and the ricks, and there is not a sound, nothing but the rustle of a leaf falling from the hollow oak by the gateway. But at midnight, just as the drier is drawing the hops, a thunderstorm bursts, and the blue lightning lights up the red cone without, blue as the sulphur flames creeping over the charcoal within. It is lonely work for him in the storm. By day he has many little things to do between the greater labours, to make the pockets (or sacks) by sewing the sackcloth, or to mark the name ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... and blessing are being spoken, a bright flash of lightning darts through the church, followed by a heavy peal of thunder; suddenly a great gloom fills the sacred edifice, and a storm of hail and rain ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... try to pull it off, but he tried in vain, so well and closely did the ring fit the finger. From this time forth Cardan laid aside this ring, after having worn it for many years as a safeguard against lightning, plague, wakefulness, and palpitation of ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... lightning illumined the valley, and glancing upward, Alice saw that the mass of black clouds was almost overhead. The horses were forced into a run as the hills reverberated to the mighty roll of the thunder. They were following a well-defined bridle trail ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... relieved. When she saw him first at the window, she had a lightning vision of him tearing open her letter in New York, jumping instantly into a cab, and boarding the English steamer. This had frightened her. It was, if not exactly reassuring, at any rate less terrifying, to learn that he had flown to ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... lightning's quivering glance, That on the thicket streams; Or do they flash on spear and lance, The sun's retiring beams" —Idem, L. of L., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... more overcast; the lightning darted from the clouds; the thunder rattled, mocked by the roaring of ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... she will leave a world that I no longer inhabit. I repeat, that I would not have her live on earth without me. But sorrow does not always kill; youth is strong, and nature works miracles. I have seen trees, struck by lightning, still stand erect and put forth new leaves. I have seen blasted lives drag their weary length to a loveless old age. I have seen noble hearts severed from their mates, slowly consumed by the weariness of widowhood and solitude. If we could die when ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... as a preliminary to a desperate onset. This is the well-known sign of the coming charge. A sharp shrill trumpet! and, with its enormous ears thrown forward, the great bull elephant rushes towards the apparently doomed horse. As quick as lightning the horse is turned, and a race commences along a course terribly in favour of the elephant, where deep ruts, thick tangled bush, and the branches of opposing trees obstruct both horse and rider. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... heavy thunder-peal broke from the darkening skies. Down poured the rain in drenching showers. Lightning filled the air. Crash after crash of thunder rolled through the sky. Checked in their blood-thirst by the fury of the elements, the combatants hastily separated and ran for the shelter of the trees, vanquished by water where fire had failed to ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
