"Thunderbolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and nail. The queen, too, who was a spectator of this savage fight, kicked down chunks of the wall, and armed with these helped her dear husband in the fray. Victory at length rested with them, and as they flew to one another's arms, the enchantment was brought to an end by a thunderbolt which plunged into the lake and ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... not," returned the cow-boy, "it's an ugly place to go past, for there's a gang o' cut-throats there that's kep' the country fizzin' like ginger-beer for some time past. A man that's got to go past Traitor's Trap should go by like a greased thunderbolt, an' he should ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... He was to have spoken for them tonight. They've taken the large hall in Mare Street and spent a lot of money on posters. Morell's telegram was to say he couldn't come. It came on them like a thunderbolt. ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... sheer terror she opened her beak and dropped her fish. It fell like a column of silver, and in a flash her pursuer was gone—nay, was not gone; had turned, rather, into a second column, a sooty one, falling like a thunderbolt, till he overtook even the falling fish, and wonderfully snatched it up in his hooked bill ere ever it could touch the waves, without a word or explanation ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the baptismal font had been so "diligently desecrated as to render the apartment in which it was contained too noisome to abide in." There in the steeple close by the "scar of divine wrath" left by a recent thunderbolt, were broken covers of ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... was surprised to find how little his wife was affected by the terrible thunderbolt which had fallen among them. On him the blow had been almost as terrible as on his mother. He had taken a house in town, at the instance of the Dean, and in consequence of a promise made before his marriage, which was sacred to him but which he regretted. He would have preferred ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... A thunderbolt fell upon the Capitol, causing the destruction of the Sibylline books and of many other things. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... them alone The wisdom of the gods is known; Lest freedom's price decline, from far Zeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war. ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... and this is the bigness I find in Schubert at his best and strongest. When he depicts the workings of nature—the wind roaring through the woods, the storm above the convent roof, the flash of the lightning, the thunderbolt—he does not accomplish it with the wonderful point and accuracy of Weber, nor with the ethereal delicacy of Purcell, but with a breadth, a sympathy with the passion of nature, that no other composer save Wagner has ever attained to. He views natural phenomena through a human temperament, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... killed men himself. I'm afraid he's been rather wicked, you know. He's lived alone in the woods like a hermit without seeing a soul, and then, again, he's been a chief among the Indians, with Heaven knows how many Indian wives! They called him 'The Pale-faced Thunderbolt,' my dear, and 'The Young Man who Swallows the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The thunderbolt fell at last, however. Mr. Wentworth, in form, asked Mr. Grey's consent to address Pauline, which Mr. Grey very decidedly refused, looking upon the young man as very presumptuous even to ask it; whereupon Mr. Wentworth informed ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... swords, and were having a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard. Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and shouting out, 'Room, room ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... to drive out Catiline, as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often useth the figure of repetition, as "vivit et vincit, imo in senatum venit, imo in senatum venit," &c. {93} Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words, as it ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... The avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow!— All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, Gather around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. Childe Harold, Canto III. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... motor burst into full-throated roar. A dark form hurtled down the runway and lifted like a flash. Another ship darted away, and then another. Stan slammed his hatch cover shut and opened up his throttle. He jammed down hard on one brake and the Thunderbolt swept around. She poised an instant, then knifed down the slippery runway. Stan hoiked her tail with a blast of prop pressure and hopped her off. He went roaring out over a mobile floodlight and up into the dark sky for the rendezvous ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... 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
... overwhelming host of the enemy. King Richard himself headed a strong force and advanced to their assistance. Their approach was not seen until within a short distance of the enemy, upon whom the crusaders fell with the force of a thunderbolt, and cleft their way through their lines. After a short pause in the little town, they prepared to again cut their way through, joined by the party who had there been besieged. The task was now however, far more difficult; for ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... this awful thunderbolt for the first time against a crowned head. A dissolute and ambitious monarch had called upon the successor of St. Peter to yield up the keys, and lay the tiara at the feet of the lion of Austria, because that successor had declared an invincible determination to ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... gathering his division on the left to hurl it like a thunderbolt upon Grant's shattered brigades. Hardee and the bishop-general were in the center, and Breckinridge led the right. But as they moved forward to attack the Union troops came out to meet them. Nelson had occupied the high ground between Lick and Owl Creeks, and his and the Southern troops ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... air, and heavy cannonading, and occasionally an explosion, like the blowing up of a powder-wagon. Mingled with this was the sound of thunder-bells from a village not far off. They were all ringing dolefully to ward off the thunderbolt. At the entrance of the village stood a large wooden crucifix; around which was a crowd of priests and peasants, kneeling in the wet grass, by the roadside, with their hands and eyes lifted toheaven, and praying for rain. Their ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that gained currency in different quarters they now resolved that a house be presented to him from the public treasury. He had made the place on the Palatine which he had bought to erect a structure public property, and had consecrated it to Apollo, because a thunderbolt descended upon it. Hence they voted him the house and protection from any insult by deed or word. Any one who committed such an offence was to be bound by the same penalties as prevailed in the case of a tribune. For he received ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... the Germans with crushing force. The surprise was complete. Every detail of the great drive had been mapped out with the precision of clockwork, and so nicely had it been timed that on every part of the long line the shock came like a thunderbolt. ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... failure of Francis Skiddy & Co, and another old-established mercantile house similarly situated, had not died out when the suspension of Kenyon Cox & Co., involving that, also, of the Chicago and Canada Southern Railway Company, fell like a thunderbolt on Wall street. This failure derived its importance from the fact of Daniel Drew being a general partner in the house, although originally he had gone into it as a special partner with $300,000 capital, and from its being the financial agent of this new but important enterprise—a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... of Joseph Lockier of Bath, who, while going through a woods between 6 and 7 P.M., on the 18th of August, was struck insensible by a violent thunderbolt. His senses gradually returned and he felt excessively cold. His clothes were wet, and his feet so swollen that the power of the lower extremities was totally gone and that of the arms was much impaired. For a long time he was unable to articulate or to summon assistance. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... I took my Jupiter; and when I saw that grand parade, so artfully planned, I said to myself: "This is like running the gauntlet; [1] now may God assist me." I placed the statue, and having arranged it as well as I was able, waited for the coming of the King. The Jupiter was raising his thunderbolt with the right hand in the act to hurl it; his left hand held the globe of the world. Among the flames of the thunderbolt I had very cleverly introduced a torch of white wax. Now Madame d'Etampes detained the King till nightfall, wishing to do one of two mischiefs, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Agathe read the list. The Descoings read nothing; she was struck down as by a thunderbolt. At the change in her face, at the cry she gave, old Desroches and Joseph carried her to her bed. Agathe went for a doctor. The poor woman was seized with apoplexy, and she only recovered consciousness at four in the afternoon; old Haudry, her doctor, then said that, in spite of this improvement, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the rearguard of the fleeing rebels. His sword flashed up and down; again and again they may have caught the gleam of it from Viana's walls, as he smote the foe. Irresistible as a thunderbolt, he clove himself a way through those Beaumontese. He was alone once more, a flying, dazzling figure of light, away beyond that rearguard which he left scathed and disordered by his furious passage. Still ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... away in silence. On the wall hung a large wooden crucifix; and his eyes wandered slowly to its face; but with no appeal in them, only a dim wonder at this supine and patient God that had no thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... the spire reeled heavily down, lengthwise, through the shattered roof of the meeting-house! Except for Mary Ogden's cleverness, the ruins might have fallen upon the crowded Sunday-school. Jack turned and ran for home. He was a good runner, but he only just escaped the deluge following that thunderbolt. ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... while; but now art thou made short-lived alike and lamentable beyond all men; in an evil hour I bare thee in our halls. But I will go myself to snow-clad Olympus to tell this thy saying to Zeus, whose joy is in the thunder, [perhaps rather, "hurler of the thunderbolt."] if perchance he may hearken to me. But tarry thou now amid thy fleet-faring ships, and continue wroth with the Achaians, and refrain utterly from battle: for Zeus went yesterday to Okeanos, unto the noble Ethiopians for ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... however, did not attempt to interrupt her or defend themselves until she had finished her scolding. Then her nephew let his thunderbolt fall. ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... out like an insane thunderbolt, and Corrie like a streak of lightning. Instantaneously the flash of the pistol, accompanied by its report and a deep growl from Bumpus, increased the resemblance to these meteorological phenomena, and three savages lay stunned ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... Jupiter himself cowering on his throne in the sky and twiddling his thunderbolt with trembling hand as he wondered what the fates held in store for him, and saw on earth the increasing ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... thunderbolt had fallen; and I must say, that even up to this day I think that the Consul might have been a little less abrupt. "We can get in here," said he, evidently in a hurry, and pointing to a small door which opened out from one corner of the house to the quay. What could I do but follow him? I did follow ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... expediency, and the death of thousands seems preferable to the life and happiness of all under terms of peace not dictated by his own will. Justice is dethroned, and revenge takes up the iron scepter and lets fly the thunderbolt. The war spirit perverts the mind of the publicist, till the achievements of honorable peace sink into insignificance, and the press clamors for the war that means money to the publisher but death to innocent ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... a thunderbolt to the Council, when those who were friendly to Garnett were pondering how they should act in view of Denis Quirk's charges; and those who stood opposed to Garnett were rejoicing in his discomfort. To the former his counter charges came as a relief; to the latter they brought doubt and consternation. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... will be commenced as soon as the citizens get tired of killing the Chinamen brought up to do the work, which will probably be within three or four weeks. The carcases are accumulating about town and begin to become unpleasant.—Gravel Hill "Thunderbolt." ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... chap, you're the very man I want!" Such was Lucas Errol's greeting to the man who had shot like a thunderbolt into the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded him, to the general disturbance of ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... in winter and parched in summer. Nature was to them no kind foster-mother, but a cruel stepmother, training them by stern discipline to battle with her and the world. They peopled the earth with gnomes and cobolds and giants, and their nymphs were the Valkyre. Their God was Thor, of the thunderbolt and hammer, and who yet lived in continual dread of the hostile powers of Nature. A Norse prophet or prophetess standing beside Elijah at Horeb would have bowed down before the earthquake or the fire; the oriental waited for the "still small voice." And we are heirs to a ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... fell like a thunderbolt, confirming his worst fears. He sat aghast, unable to decide whether Persis had lost her mind, or this was the delirium incident to some acute seizure. In tones of such unnatural gentleness that his sister started as they fell ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Alcibiades smiled, While in battle he shone forth so terribly grand, That the emblem they graved on his seal, was a child With a thunderbolt ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... schoolboy of the present day has long since learned that the electric fluid is an exploded fallacy, and that the lightning which pulled the ten slates off the steeple in question was nothing more in its real nature than a very big immaterial spark. However, the word thunderbolt has survived to us from the days when people still believed that the thing which did the damage during a thunderstorm was really and truly a gigantic white-hot bolt or arrow; and, as there is a natural ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... commissioner fell upon our ears like a thunderbolt. A dozen different ideas coursed through my brain, yet I was too much bowed down with grief to attempt to form them into tangible shapes. And even while I was thinking what would become of the store and contents during our imprisonment, Mr. Brown broke ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... thunderbolt. They were all silent. Surely He could see that they had followed Him, and knew why. Could He not see into their thoughts? Had He suddenly begun to doubt their faith in Him? Or had He lost faith in Himself? It is all so mysterious and terrifying. As they were silent ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;" and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying, "Come back, Senor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight, nor ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... preparation, suddenly, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, came orders to leave. The whole garrison, officers and men, were ordered ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... an army; and there and thus was his dark and fierce purpose dashed from his soul, shivered into atoms at his feet. He felt the nothingness of man and man's wrath—in the presence of the madman on whose head the thunderbolt of a greater curse than human anger ever breathes had fallen. In his horrible affliction the Criminal triumphed ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a thunderbolt upon the tender mother. What was she to do? Was she to abjure her religion? She prayed for help from God. Part of the night was thus spent before she could make up her mind to part from her innocent children, who were to be brought up in a religion at variance with her own. In any case, a separation ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... causes of the calamity were little understood, portents were plentifully noted. The previous winter had been mild. A thunderbolt fell in the autumn. There was a blight on the gooseberries, and Master Salter had a calf with two heads. As to the painter, a screech-owl had been heard to cry from his chimney- top, not three weeks before ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nor Chet should be, was Diane. He saw her running in the bright glare of his landing light that he now switched on; saw a black shape hurl itself upon her; she was struggling. He threw himself back at the controls to send the ship like a thunderbolt upon the earth. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the expression of the Prince. It was delicious, on account of his profound astonishment, and that remnant of grand airs which the pose of his head and arms still betrayed. The Prince had remained as if struck by a thunderbolt; from time to time, he exclaimed, in his high-pitched voice, shrill and perturbed, as though articulating with difficulty: "How is this? how is this?" After concluding her compliment, the Duchess, as though from ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... good friend the prior, when he came to me to borrow the thousand crowns. It was Heaven's will. Unexpected like the thunderbolt, and to be borne as such. Every man must bear his own burden. How ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the fatal car was hurled through the air like a thunderbolt. His body passed over the railing of the subway entrance before the Flatiron Building and Bentley knew he had crashed to ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... Dominey felt from his soul that he would have welcomed an earthquake, a thunderbolt, the crumbling of the floor beneath his feet to have been spared the torture of her sweet importunities. Yet nothing so horrible as this interruption which really came could ever have presented itself before his mind. Half in his arms, with her head thrown back, listening—he, too, horrified, ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to go better; and it was about this time that Jehu was styled the Barrier Wonder, and Chinaman the Thunderbolt. "Our four ponies have suffered most," writes Bowers. "I don't agree with Titus that it is best to march them right through without a lunch camp. They were undoubtedly pretty tired, and worst of all did not go their feeds properly. It was ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... that Galilean?" Like a thunderbolt the question struck Peter. He stiffened with terror and cursed himself for having dared to come near the fire. "Of course not!" he answered gruffly, and backed away. The man who had seen him strike Malchus with his sword ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... his horse deeply; it sprang to the struggle madly; crash! like a thunderbolt, steed and rider leaped upon the trooper. Then it was Jacqueline had murmured: "They have killed him!" not doubting for a moment but that he had ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... with the end of his fork into strips as thin as cigarette papers. The 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 ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the interest felt by the western nations in the kingdom of Jerusalem, established by the first crusaders in 1099, had greatly diminished, still the news of the loss of the Holy City—which was taken by Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, in 1187—fell like a thunderbolt on men's minds. Once more the flame which had kindled the mystic war of God blazed high. "What a disgrace, what an affliction," cried Pope Urban III, "that the jewel which the second Urban won for Christendom ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... his servant, and reappeared with a flashing naked cavalry sabre, streaked with blood about the point and edge. Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; but the experienced Ivan went on ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... whose significance might have escaped us but for the light thrown upon it by classic sculpture. The latter no doubt borrowed a well-known form from the east, and the object in question is nothing less than the thunderbolt given by ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... supervened, he tells us in graphic words how he came to be a leader of men. He, too, with the rest, was in sore distress, and could not sleep; but anon getting a snatch of rest he had a dream. It seemed to him that there was a storm, and a thunderbolt fell on his father's house and set it all in a blaze. He sprang up in terror, and, pondering the matter, decided that in part the dream was good, in that when in great danger he had seen a light from Zeus; but partly, too, he feared it, for it came from ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, King of Macedonia, received with haughtiness their first message requiring of him a ransom for his dominions if he wished to preserve peace. "Tell those who sent you," he replied to the Gallic deputation, "to lay down their arms and give up to me their chieftains. I will then see what ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of boots, a collection of rags, or the like. Besides these and other shows, there were the wandering minstrels, most of whom were "Waterloo veterans" wanting arms or a leg. I remember one whose arms had been "smashed by a thunderbolt at Jamaica." Queer bent old dames, who superintended "lucky bags" or told fortunes, supplied the uncanny element, but hesitated to call themselves witches, for there can still be seen near Thrums the pool where these unfortunates used to be drowned, and in the session book ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable pass; and having full faith in the long-tried pilotage of our guide, Tom Shaw, down we went, rushing at times like a thunderbolt, then turned by a dab of the pole of our guide, on a rock, shooting off in eschelon, and then careering down another schute, or water bolt, till we thus dodged every rock, and came out below with ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... this like a man whose brain is benumbed by the crashing echoes of a thunderbolt, hardly aware of the fury of the speaker, but this final threat cleared his mind ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... was the end 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 through the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shoulder-guard the arrows made their way; the soldiers held their shields above their heads, but the thanes had no such protection. Harold glanced up for a moment, and as if directed by the hand of fate an arrow struck him full in the eye, and he fell prostrate as if struck by a thunderbolt. A cry of horror and dismay burst from the thanes around him, but there was no time for the indulgence of grief. The Normans too had seen the king fall, and with shouts of triumph a body of knights tried to force their way in to take possession of his body. But so long as an Englishman ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... to be sure—no more numerous than two or three to one; so back fall the videttes and forward charges that advance guard like a thunderbolt, not troubling the column behind. Wild yells, a clattering of hoofs, the crack of pistol-shots, a wild flight, a merry chase, a few riderless horses gathered in from the fleeing Yankees, and ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of your blessed saints I'd hit you over the head with a thunderbolt, Croisset. Good Lord, what sort of a heart have you got inside of your jacket, man? Up there where we're going is the sweetest little girl in the whole world. I love her. She loves me. Why shouldn't I be happy, now that ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... this sum in less than four or five months. So Ona began thinking of seeking employment herself, saying that if she had even ordinarily good luck, she might be able to take two months off the time. They were just beginning to adjust themselves to this necessity, when out of the clear sky there fell a thunderbolt upon them—a calamity that scattered all their hopes ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... if still at a great distance, but his words sounded with peculiar distinctness through the metallic ringing. "Shootin'! It was a thunderbolt struck the mill." ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... present, and of ultimate deliverance; there she had a respite from terror, as long as she kept the world outside. To her, therefore, the notion of sending for Tavannes, or communicating with him, came as a thunderbolt. Was her mistress mad? Did she wish to court her fate? To reach Tavannes they must apply to his riders, for Carlat and the men-servants were confined above. Those riders were grim, brutal men, who might resort to rudeness on their own account. And Madame, clinging in a paroxysm of terror to her ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... was a thunderbolt to Tom, In his worst dreams he had never imagined anything so dark as this. He hurried back to the station at such a pace that the poor major was reduced to a most asthmatical and wheezy condition. He trotted along pluckily, however, and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Jews of the world the news that the Messiah had passed from a far-off aspiration into a reality fell like a thunderbolt; they were dazed with joy; then they began to prepare for the great journey. Everywhere self-flagellation, almsgiving, prophetic ecstasies and trances, the scholars and the mob at one in joyous belief. And everywhere also profligacy, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... even at the end of a long illness and after a ripe old age. To those who are near it seems abrupt; so to his grandchildren, some of whom survived him, his children having died of old age, the death of Methuselah came like a thunderbolt from a ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... parsimonious praise due to humble industry. It is no less true, however, that measures which go straight and direct to a great general object, without noticing intervening impediments, must often resemble the fierce progress of the thunderbolt or the cannon-ball, those dreadful agents, which, in rushing right to their point, care not what ruin they make by the way. The sounder and more moderate policy, accommodating its measures to exterior circumstances, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... were at once drawn together by secret fibres. Besides, how can we explain sympathies? Why does a certain peculiarity, a certain imperfection, indifferent or hateful in one person, prove a fascination in another? That which we call the thunderbolt is true as regards ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the period arrived in which Madame de Verneuil was about to enforce her claim upon the tenderness of her royal lover, and already he spoke of returning for a while to Monceaux; when a violent storm, and the falling of a thunderbolt in the very chamber of the invalid, so affected her nervous system, that she lost the infant upon which she had based all her anticipations of greatness; and although the King hastened to condole with her ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Paule. And (as writers record) there chanced great thunder and lightening at the verie time when the two kings came to enteruiew and talke togither, [Sidenote: Strange thunder & lightning.] so that the thunderbolt did light betwixt them two: & yet (notwithstanding such thunder & lightening) the aire was cleare and nothing troubled. The two kings parted a sunder through feare thereof for that day, and on the next day the like chance happened, greatlie to the terrour of them ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... laughing and talking all sorts of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers, with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a thunderbolt.... ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on very badly at the house in Bakuracho[u]. The disaster of the arrest fell like a thunderbolt on the wretched little household. Day after day, hoping for the acquittal and release, one article after another went to the pawn shop. Reduced to absolute misery the house owner and the neighbours came to the rescue with a small sum raised among them. The long continued official ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... at all," she said. "It has come like a thunderbolt and I still find my mind refusing to accept the story that they have brought to me. I cannot think about it—I cannot bear to think about it; and if I believed it, I should go mad. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... with the gods and decided to destroy the reckless race of men. At first he wanted to turn his lightnings over all the earth, but the fear that the ether would take fire and destroy the axle of the universe restrained him. He laid aside the thunderbolt which the Cyclops had fashioned for him, and decided to send rain from heaven over all the earth and so ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... way. And I'll get a good deal of what I want. But not everything. You say you can't understand yourself. No more can I understand myself. I thought my purpose fixed. I knew that I had nothing to do with marrying and giving in marriage, so I kept away from danger. And here, as miraculously as if a thunderbolt had dropped from this open winter ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... for the Journal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "TO MARY IN H—L," meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly riven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt of humor, and I compressed it into a ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... 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 sending ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... "don't add the last drop to your already overfull measure! Don't double the force of the thunderbolt that will strike you some day! Is it not enough that you have hated me all my life through; that you have loaded down my childhood with unkind words, curses, and wishes for my death? Not enough that you follow me with your hatred because my mother's ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... most wives would have been delighted to do for their husbands' comfort. Ethelyn was very unhappy, very angry, and very bitterly disappointed. The fact that she was not going to Washington had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt, paralyzing her, as it were, so that after the first great shock was over she seemed like some benumbed creature bereft of care, or feeling, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... 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 ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... and "Samson Agonistes." Milton's indebtedness, so long ago as 1829, attracted the attention of an English poet of genius, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who pointed out that his lightning-speech, "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven," was a thunderbolt condensed from a brace of Vondel's clumsy Alexandrines, which Beddoes ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... uproarious. The women turned pale, and the men looked at each other anxiously, listening to hear if any damage had been done. But, as nothing transpired, their spirits revived. A few minutes afterwards word was brought that the Conventual Church had been struck by a thunderbolt, but this was not regarded as a very serious disaster. The bearer of the intelligence was little Jennet, who said she had been caught in the ruins by the storm, and after being dreadfully frightened by the lightning, had seen a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... have his own, if my money—which you will, I'm sure, forgive my mentioning—and my unflinching support can give it to him. That is my position, and I state it regardless of consequences." He paused, and with raised right hand, like the picture of Jove in the old academy mythology, launched his final thunderbolt. "Whom God hath joined," he proclaimed, "let no one ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... heart to be jilted herself. She had, therefore, though unwillingly, still entirely agreed with her, guardian as to the expediency of breaking off, the match; and, had Lord Cashel been judicious, he might have confirmed her in this resolution; but his last thunderbolt, which had been intended to crush Lord Ballindine, had completely recoiled upon himself. Fanny now instantly understood the allusion, and, raising her face, which was again resting on her hands, looked at him with an indignant ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... time, 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 ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... vow'd their word was good. The bargain struck upon the skin, Two days at most must bring it in. Forth went the two. More easy found than got, The bear came growling at them on the trot. Behold our dealers both confounded, As if by thunderbolt astounded! Their bargain vanish'd suddenly in air; For who could plead his interest with a bear? One of the friends sprung up a tree; The other, cold as ice could be, Fell on his face, feign'd death, And closely held his breath,— He having ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... was so,' answered Elvira. 'The discovery of his deception came upon me suddenly, like a thunderbolt from the clouds of heaven, and I upbraided him for it in the bitterness of my heart, and he answered my reproaches at first with scornful laughter, and afterwards with a relation of the history of his past life, ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened what all these millenniums had never witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... longer presents us with any trace of that famous Tribune, from which the Roman people were governed by eloquence. Three pillars remain of a temple, raised by Augustus in honour of Jupiter Tonans, when the thunderbolt fell at his feet without striking him, and an arch which the senate raised to Septimus Severus in reward of his exploits. The names of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were inscribed on the fronton ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... for years, and there was quite a pleasant little place in town, 3 Southwick Crescent—yes, she would probably prefer to go, even had he not meant to marry Mary. The announcement of that little affair would be something in the nature of a thunderbolt. ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... spoke, slowly shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... 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 amount to no more than simply the administration of a medicine to ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... It was just a call, as if the horse were human, and knew what that pace meant to his master. The stern business of the race had ceased to rest on Hare. Silvermane was out to the front! He was like a level-rushing thunderbolt. Hare felt the instantaneous pause between his long low leaps, the gather of mighty muscles, the strain, the tension, then the quivering expulsion of force. It was a perilous ride down that red slope, not so much from the hissing bullets as from ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... see this foot?" he exclaimed. "If I hit you with it, you will think a thunderbolt has ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... around the waist of the tower. Throughout the tumult, flocks of sea-birds, driven from the surface, and bewildered in the dense darkness of the storm, would fly for the light and smite the lantern; and then they would fall backward into the surf, as if struck with a thunderbolt. Other creatures flew with more care; and Nancy shuddered as she saw the gleaming eyes of huge fish hawks outside, and beheld their dusky ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... down on the world, staying awhile in that far height[36] the ceaseless oarage of his wings and, poised almost motionless with hovering flight, looks all around him and seeks what prey he shall choose whereon to swoop[37] sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven on high. In one glance he sees all cattle in the field, all beasts upon the mountains, all men in their cities, all threatened at once by his intended swoop, and thence he falls to pierce ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... away into the deserted yard and up to a tangle of neglected shrubbery. He had some difficulty in getting Thunderbolt—who was as restless a beast as his name implied—to stand still long enough to allow him to pick a bunch of the buds; he would have nothing but buds just breaking into bloom. These he presently brought back to Roberta. She fancied that he had planned to stop here for ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... same time two other things happened. Grim Morgan hit the guard like a crashing thunderbolt and Hilary's gun barked once. The monster tottered under the impact. A puzzled expression flitted over his pinkish eyes, a filmy sheath spread over them like a veil, and he fell heavily, a neat bullet hole square between ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... were the Cyclops seated at their imperishable work, forging a thunderbolt for King Zeus; by now it was almost finished in its brightness and still it wanted but one ray, which they were beating out with their iron hammers as it spurted forth a breath ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... membership of the Societies) of this politico-religious agitation was more or less the same in other parts of the Connexion. The publication of the "impressions" was (to those who had for years been in a state of chronic war with the powers that be) like the falling of the thunderbolt of Jove out of a cloudless sky. It unexpectedly precipitated a crisis in provincial affairs. It brought men face to face with a new issue. An issue too which they had not thought of; or, if it had presented itself to their minds, was regarded as a remote, if possible, contingency. Their ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... lashed out another thunderbolt and once again the engines screamed in terrible unison as they poured power into the ship's triple screen. The first screen stopped all material things. The second stopped radiations by refracting them into the fourth dimension. The third shield was akin to the anti-entropy field, which stopped ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... this daring speech was much the same as if a thunderbolt had fallen out of the heavens among the party. As Roland concluded he rose from the table and placed his back against the bluff face of the boulder. The chief did not reply or make any demonstration of violence ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... 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
... England he had seen soldiers and wherever he went in France he was to see still more soldiers. England had become an armed camp; and England plodded on, "muddled" on, preparing, ever preparing, to forge in time of war the thunderbolt for war which was undreamed of in time of peace when other nations ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... whole animate universe; we might even be chiefly occupied with liberal pursuits, such as science or music; the more we laboured at these things and delighted in them, the less ready should we be for renunciation and detachment. Must conversion then descend upon us from heaven like a thunderbolt? Far from it. We need not look for the principle of spiritual life in the distance: we have it at home from the beginning. Even the idea of infinite Being, though unnamed, is probably familiar. Perhaps in the biography of the ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... a newspaper correspondent, "that as regards the situation in Ireland we are on the edge of a crater or with a thunderbolt over our heads?" We rather imagine that the Government, like the writer, isn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... seize him, but Ruby jumped down on the shoulders of the one nearest, and crushed him to the ground with his weight. His clenched fist caught the lieutenant between the eyes and stretched him on his back—the third man wisely drew aside to let this human thunderbolt pass by! ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... fulfilled shall be, For, in daylight or in dark, My thunderbolt has eyes to see His way ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Shiuana, he had been taught, dwelt in the clouds, and they were good; why, then, was it that from one and the same cloud the beneficial rain descended, which caused the food of mankind to grow, and also the destructive hail and the deadly thunderbolt?[9] ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... a thunderbolt when Khreggor Chmidd screened the ship the next afternoon to report that a Proconsular Palace had been found, and would be ready for occupancy in a day or so. The chief-freedmen of the Management of Business of the Mastership and of the Lord Chief Justiciar had found one, the Elegry Palace, ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... body bent in anticipation of the shock. The wolf saw him, but did not check its pace—with a furious Norseman bounding behind there was no room for hesitation. It lowered its head, increased its speed, and ran at the opening like a thunderbolt. When within three yards of the boy it swerved, and, leaping up, pawed the cliff on the left while in the air. Alric had foreseen this—his only doubt had been as to which side the brute would incline to. He sprang ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... The city was known to be well nigh stripped of troops, and a determined assault might result in its fall. Sheridan accordingly cut loose a heavy column, took command of it in person, and descended like a thunderbolt toward the devoted city. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... found a despatch requesting his immediate presence at the Elysee. At the Palace he received information that surprised him like a thunderbolt. Monsieur Collard—of Nantes—had just been struck down by apoplexy in the corridors of the ministry. The President of the Council was dead and the Chief of the State had turned to Vaudrey to fill the high position which, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... eager crowds as they passed 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, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the leaders and kings who engaged in that contest. When once, therefore, that sad and dismal force and storm of the Punic War had arisen in Spain, and had forged, in the fire of Saguntum, the thunderbolt long before intended for the Romans, it immediately burst, as if hurried along by resistless violence, through the middle of the Alps, and descended, from those snows of incredible altitude, on the plains of Italy, as if it had been hurled from the skies. The violence of its first assault burst, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the sea; the archon upbraids Hero for neglect of duty and discovers its cause. Her punishment, death, will be his vengeance, but the lifeless body of Leander is hurled upon the rocks, and comes into view when a thunderbolt tears away a portion of the tower wall. Hero sinks dead to the ground; the archon rages at the escape of his victim, and an invisible choir sings of a reunion of the lovers ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as if the Falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where we sat was blown ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... 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, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... herself, contemplating the beautiful slumbering queen, "oh, that grief might pass away from her like a dark cloud—that no thunderbolt burst forth from it and strike that beloved head! But I am afraid the lightning will at last blight all the blossoms of her heart. O God, give her strength, nerve her in her sufferings, as Thou hast blessed her in her happiness! She is sleeping; let her ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... my stern look which I call up but once a year. "Well, eat and grow fat, become ugly, asthmatic and die of melted fat. I will make a note of your case and you shall figure in my second edition. Ah! I see, one phrase has overcome you, and you beg me to suspend the thunderbolt. Be easy, I will prescribe your diet and prove how much pleasure is in the grasp of one who lives ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... still be able to forge a new thunderbolt, to pass to the offensive again, and win the war; conceivably she can hold her present lines until the fury of the Allies abates and losses and economic strain impose a drawn battle and a peace without victory for any contestant. But all these considerations ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Tom Paine's Age of Reason—a preacher's son down the pike stole it from a locked closet in his father's library and loaned it to me. But I'll admit the thunderbolt staggered me. I said to them—pretty shakily, I guess: 'Come on, let's begin again.' But the farm-hand said: 'I reckon I'll get on the safe side,' and began to pray—how he roared! And I laughed—how wicked and reckless and brave that laugh did sound to me. 'Bella ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... that I heard him above the thunder of our hoofs. "What has come to Giovanni Sforza. Has he, perchance, become a man since Madonna Lucrezia divorced him? I will bear her the news of it, my good Giovanni—my living thunderbolt ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... descent at that place would have been impossible for horses 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 of Flagg down ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... stillness pealed like a thunderbolt the joyous bark of Saba; it filled the whole ravine and awoke the echoes reposing in it. The Arabs as one man were startled from their sleep, and the first object which struck their eyes was the sight of Stas with the case in ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... remained in the room to listen to the lessons following their own huddled together with scared faces. The maestro in a royal rage was ever, in their opinion, to be regarded from much the same viewpoint as a thunderbolt, and that any one of his pupils should dare to defy him was unheard-of. In the same situation as that in which Diana found herself, either of the two girls in question would have meekly picked up the music and, dissolving into tears, made the continuance of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... that grow; Of the Devarshis, Narada; and Chitrarath of them That sing in Heaven, and Kapila of Munis, and the gem Of flying steeds, Uchchaisravas, from Amrit-wave which burst; Of elephants Airavata; of males the Best and First; Of weapons Heav'n's hot thunderbolt; of cows white Kamadhuk, From whose great milky udder-teats all hearts' desires are strook; Vasuki of the serpent-tribes, round Mandara entwined; And thousand-fanged Ananta, on whose broad coils reclined Leans ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... behind!'—and he spurs to the centre once more, Lion-like leaps on the standard and Harold: but Gyrth is before! 'Down! He is down!' is the shout: 'On with the axes! Out, Out!' —He rises again; the mace circles its stroke; Then falls as the thunderbolt ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... the peril never so great. I will see that the men-at-arms have drink enough to turn their heads. I have a concoction of herbs which if mingled with strong drink will cause such sleep to fall upon men that a thunderbolt falling at their feet would scarce awaken them. I will see that thou hast the chance thou needest. The rest wilt thou do without ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... diamond, is a constituent in scores of names of sutras, especially those whose contents are metaphysical in their nature. The Vajrasan, Diamond Throne or Thunderbolt seat, was the name applied to the most sacred part of the great temple reared by Asoka on the site of the bodhi tree, under which Gautama received enlightenment. "The adamantine truths of Buddha struck like a thunderbolt upon the superstitious of his age." "The word ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... rpido, -a rapid, quick, swift, nimble, fleeting. raro, -a strange, unusual. rasgar tear, rend. raudal m. torrent, stream. raudo, -a rapid, swift, precipitate.. raya f. stripe, streak. rayar border upon. rayo m. ray, thunderbolt, beam, light. razn f. reason, reasoning. realidad f. reality. realizar realize, make real, bring about. rebelde adj. rebellious. rebramar bellow. recatado, -a cautious, careful, prudent. recato m. modesty, prudence, coyness. recelo m. misgiving, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... my hopes were dashed, by his wife's coolly saying, 'I stated your case to the queen; but her majesty replied,—'The teachers will not die: let them remain as they are.' My expectations had been so much excited, that this sentence was like a thunderbolt to my feelings. For the truth at one glance assured me, that if the queen refused assistance, who would dare to intercede for me? With a heavy heart I departed, and on my way home, attempted to enter the prison gate, to communicate ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... 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 ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... of open iron-work. Up and down the gallery there are models of classic temples; and about midway in its extent stands a brass statue of Earl Pembroke, who was Chancellor of the University in James I's time; not in scholarly garb, however, but in plate and mail, looking indeed like a thunderbolt of war. I rapped him with my knuckles, and he seemed to be solid metal, though, I should imagine, hollow at heart. A thing which interested me very much was the lantern of Guy Fawkes. It was once tinned, no doubt, but is now nothing ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by what a thunderbolt were we awakened from our security! On the night of the twenty-seventh of December, half an hour, it might be, after twelve o'clock, an alarm was given that all was not right in the house of Mr. Liebenheim. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... regret. You see, if he does undertake to govern, I expect him to do it successfully, and this in spite of many a wise friend. He went off looking so miserable himself that I long to hear from somebody else how he looks now. You cannot think what a thunderbolt it was to us both. We were reading aloud, about an hour before bedtime, when the messenger was announced—and he brought the Queen's fatal letter. Oh! how difficult I found it not to call the man every sort of name! The next morning ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... contention, and Anne and Justin had departed. But both the old doctor and the lawyer agreed with Martin that it looked as if Anne was right, and when the family was alone again, and had had the time to digest the matter, they felt as if a thunderbolt ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... bearing, and the divine tenderness, mingled with strength, by which she commands admiration and awakens love. I must fly. I must never see her again. Thomas's purpose is steady. He must never see that mine rocks like an idol smitten by a thunderbolt. ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... finished we return to our chief topic, i.e. the enquiry into the purport of the Vedanta-texts.—We read (Ka. Up. II, 6, 2), 'Whatever there is, the whole world when gone forth trembles in the pra/n/a. It (the pra/n/a) is a great terror, a raised thunderbolt. Those who know it become immortal[226].'—This passage declares that this whole world trembles, abiding in pra/n/a, and that there is raised something very terrible, called a thunderbolt, and that through its knowledge immortality is obtained. But as it is not immediately ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... by a thunderbolt from heaven, his saving sense of humour and the agitated springs of his sympathy forbade a purely personal application. But twenty years later he might have reflected upon the opportune cause of his departure from St. Croix as one of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... lordship such gallants would mind these impediments? such are the very essence of the adventures which they come to seek.—The Knight of the Swan would swim through the moat—he of the Eagle would fly over the wails—he of the Thunderbolt ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Douglas," she replied. "Oh, if only Joan would come to her senses. It seems like a thunderbolt always hanging over us. I believe that if she were to see us together she ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... from 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
... the valet like a thunderbolt, for little John, who regarded him and his wife as his parents, had become as dear to the childless couple as if he was their own. To part from the beautiful, frank, merry boy would darken Frau Traut's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... face was unutterably grave, as a new brilliant band of forked lightning glittered outside the windows, and the burst of the thunderbolt sounded as if at their very feet, making a renewal of ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... the two formidable and matched antagonists scrutinized each other, the lynx close crouched, ready to launch himself like a thunderbolt, the catamount half risen, his back bowed, one paw of obstinate possession clutching the head of his prey. In the eyes of each, as they measured each other's powers and sought for an advantage, flamed hate, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Professor Moorsom were a European event and that brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know. All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. The menace of separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for hadn't he lived all these days under the very cloud? The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden and went on unburdening his mind. Yes. The ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... as you say, I cannot complain of this," Kit said in a dull, spiritless tone, "but it comes upon me like a thunderbolt." ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... named Æs-cu-laʹpi-us, who was so skilled a physician that he could, and did, raise people from death to life. Jupiter was very angry at this. He feared that men might forget him and worship Æsculapius. He therefore hurled a thunderbolt at the great physician and killed him. Enraged at the death of his son, Apollo threatened to destroy the Cyclops, the giant workmen of Vulcan, who had forged the terrible thunderbolt. Before he could carry out his threat, however, Jupiter expelled him from heaven. He remained ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... with burning torches and was hurled into Tartarus by a thunderbolt from Jupiter.—Hyginus, "Fab." "Vidi et crudelis dantem Salmonea poenas Dum flammas louis et sonitus imitatur Olympi." VIRG., Aen., vi, 585. And see the Excursus of Heyne on ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... which break out for a moment in St. John's writing, piercing, like the Word of God himself, the very joints and marrow of the heart, and showing, in one terrible word, what is the real matter with the bad man's soul; as the thunderbolt lights up for an instant the whole heavens far and wide. 'If we say that we have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness, we lie.' In that one plain, ugly word, he tells us the whole truth, frightful as it is, and then he goes on calmly ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... ain't going to miss that, either," Chuck interrupted, "that Y-Bar outfit over on the Vermejo took everything in the two-mile sweepstakes last year and they've been bragging about it ever since. They think that Thunderbolt horse of theirs can't be beat. I was going to put Silver Tip in this year. He can put that ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... straighten, Your brain to bubble cool, — Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... figure of a man appeared, inside the circle of the dome. He had an angry, brutal face, and he wore a black tunic piped with silver, and black breeches, and polished black boots, and there was an insignia, composed of a cross and thunderbolt, on his cap. He held an automatic ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper |
