"Thunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... safe to make me a present of a puzzle, because I'm just dead sure to nearly split my poor weak brain trying to figger it out. And Jack, I'll never be happy till I know what was in those boxes; and why did that sly little professor believe someone wanted to steal his thunder and lightning?" ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... coming— Humming of these thoughtless beings, In their restless pranks and pleaings; And the sore-provoked preceptor Roaring, "Silence!"—O'er each quarter Silence comes, as o'er the valley, Where all rioted so gaily, When the sudden bursting thunder Overpowers with awe and wonder— Till again begins the fuss— 'Master, Jock's aye nippin' us!' I could hear the fountains flowing, Where the light hill-breeze was blowing, And the wild-wing'd plover wailing, Round the brow of heaven sailing; Bleating flocks ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and future prospects in this country. They have discovered that the loud-mouthed protestations of the Abolitionists, are the mere effervescence of an intermeddling and dangerous faction, against whose principles the whole Union—whose destruction they have meditated—has pronounced in tones of thunder; a faction whose baleful alliance is shunned most religiously, by both of the great parties of the country. They have discovered that underground railroads are a device to inveigle the slaves from a condition of comparative comfort, into the freedom of starvation, with ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... describe it, but it was awful to listen to, yet most entrancing. From the black, smoke-veiled pit where the fire had burned it welled and echoed—now a single heavenly voice, now a sweet chorus, and now an air-shaking thunder as of a ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... put the black cloud over his face, because the black cloud is worn by Thunder when it comes near to man. The song sung while this is being done tells that the Leader is making ready and impatiently awaits the commands of the ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... familiar air, "Life,"—one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out its thunder ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it only looked so. But this thunder won't amount to anything. Sit down now and let's have a talk, as you are off again tomorrow.—It's queer that, although I became intimate with you so soon, you are one of those people whose likeness I cannot recall when they are out of my sight. When you are out in the fields and ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... 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 ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... hand; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony; And his drooped head sinks gradually low; And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder shower; and now The arena swims around him—he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... this unexpected discovery was uncertain whether to follow its course to the eastward, or persevere in his original intention of pushing to the north. A thunder storm falling at the time made him adhere to his original course, and defer the examination of the new river until his return. In seven days after leaving Cooper's Creek, he had the negative satisfaction, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... head. "No plane would risk flying with this storm coming, Miss Abbott. There's been thunder for the last hour or so, and it's getting nearer, too. It's only the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... senses: Jeff druv us into these hard lines, An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses; Slavery's Secession's heart an' will, South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 110 An' ef it drors into War's mill, D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... women, employed in reaping the extensive corn-fields through which we passed were raising their hoes and voices to heaven, and, yelling furiously, cursed 'Morimo' (God), as the terrific thunder-claps succeeded each vivid flash of lightning. On inquiry I was informed by 'Old Booy' that they were indignant at the interruption of their labors, and that they therefore cursed and menaced the cause. Such blasphemy was awful, even among heathens, and I fully ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of the cloud Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumping loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder drum of heaven, Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free; To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle stroke; And bid its blendings shine afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war— The harbinger ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... shows the arrival of the Editor, a man of desperate mien, dark as a thunder cloud, ready to be affrighted by nothing, with instant disapproval of whatever he disapproves breaking through his alert, intellectual features. To him, stern patriot as he is, it is nothing that men do well. He is there, vigilant and implacable, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... distant thunder—all combined to increase the disorder. If the ear was astonished, the eyes were no less so. A few dismal torches lighted up the corners of the streets; their flickering gleams showed soldiers, armed and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... streets and among the little pools of water on the sidewalks were dry spots from which steam arose. Nature had forgotten herself. A day that should have sent old fellows to their nests behind stoves in stores sent them forth to loaf in the sun. The night fell warm and cloudy. A thunder storm threatened in the month ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... fashion, flickering like the unreal mountains of a dream about the vague horizon. A ball of fire had coursed through the air, striking with dazzling coruscations the top of a towering oak, and he heard, amidst the thunder and its clamorous echo, the sharp crash ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... time he remembered seeing a storm the Ancient One took him to the battlements again, and together they watched the dark clouds pour down their floods while their purple was riven by the dazzling lances of the lightning; and the thunder rolled and crashed and seemed to rend asunder things no human eye could see; and the wind roared round the castle on the mountain crag and beat against its towers, and tossed the branches of the hugest ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... motioned to the others; but before they could decide, as they did not know why the Hottentot proposed it, for he did not speak himself, and put his hand to his mouth as a hint to them to be silent, a roar like thunder came from the bushes, within three yards of them, accompanied with a rushing noise which could not be mistaken. It was the roar and spring of a lion; and they looked round amazed and stunned, to ascertain ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the very ground between the hunter's feet, with a startling rush and thunder of wings, the hen rose. Up went gun to shoulder. But instantly the dog gave chase, and kept so exactly in the line of flight, that Jack durst ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... spears, (their horses ran, As though there had been thunder) And struck them each immidst their shields, Wherewith they ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... their memories the legends of archaic Iberian deities who differed from the Celtic Danann deities. Theodoric the Goth, as Dietrich von Bern, was identified, for instance, with Donar or Thunor (Thor), the thunder god. In Scotland Finn and his followers are all giants. Diarmid is the patriarch of the Campbell clan, the MacDiarmids being ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... gathering rumours of the iniquities of the third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap—Henry had disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... spent the night when coming this way. The chief Mokandira convoyed us hither: I promised him a cloth if I came across from Lomame. He wonders much at the underground houses, and never heard of them till I told him about them. Many of the gullies which were running fast when we came were now dry. Thunder began, and a ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... have come down to the memorable summer and fall of 1857. No gathering clouds, no far-distant, low-voiced thunder gave warning of an approaching storm. The sky was clear, and the sun of prosperity moving onward in his strength, when, suddenly, from the West came a quick flash and an ominous roll of thunder. Men paused, looked at each other, and asked what it meant. Here and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at Highbury Barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I was thunder-struck, not at his proposition to pay for my shot, because I knew that Billy meant it as a token of friendship, and he would have been hurt if I had refused to let him do me this favor; but at the unexpected announcement of my name as a competitor ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... shoulder or coat-collar to this swarthy and indiscreet sweetheart who had stolen out there right before everybody to pillow his head on the Virgin's white breast and whisper soft sentimentalities to her in the sensuous music of the crashing ice-domes and the boom and thunder of the passing avalanche—music very familiar to his ear, for he had heard it every afternoon at this hour since the day he first came courting this child of the earth, who lives in the sky, and that day is far, yes—for he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... drew her from her work; she sat looking and thinking, in a fulness of happiness to which all the roar of the storm only served for a foil. She heard the drip, drip of the rain; the fast-running stream from the overcharged eaves trough; then the thunder of the wind sweeping over the house in a great gust; and the whistle of the elm branches as they swung through the air like tremendous lithe switches, beating and writhing and straining in the fury of the blast. Looking into the clear, glowing flames, Diana heard ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... but unwarlike enthusiasm of the country, which had hoped to crush the rebellion with seventy-five thousand men, was temporarily stifled. But the chilling was only like that of the first stealthy drops of the thunder-gust upon a raging fire, which breaks out anew and with increased vigor when the tempest fans it with its fury, and now burns in spite of a deluge of rain. The chill had passed and the fever was raging. From the great centres of national life went forth warm currents of renovating ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... be chained and scourged, since Pinel's great work has brought insanity within the range of organic disease. When Franklin's kite drew electricity from the cloud to his knuckle, the superstitious theory of thunder died a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is this? Why has our country, with all the ten plagues raging around her, been a land of Goshen? Everywhere else was the thunder and the fire running along the ground,—a very grievous storm,—a storm such as there was none like it since man was on the earth; yet everything tranquil here; and then again thick night, darkness that might be felt; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by hour and minute by minute every detail of that journey appeared before me, but to set it all down is needless. As I, Allan Quatermain, write the record of my vision, still I seem to hear the thunder of our horses' hoofs while we rushed forward at full gallop over the plains, over the mountain passes and by the banks of rivers. The speed at which we travelled was wonderful, for at intervals of about forty miles were post-houses and at these, whatever might be the ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... soon spied in the rocks, a short distance from where they then were, a dark hole partly overgrown by creepers, which was evidently the entrance to a cavern. At the same instant there began a mighty pattering on the leaves of the dense tropic growth all about them, and a louder growl of thunder announced that the storm that had been heralded a few hours before was about ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... not yet out of the woods. On our return, many of the cattle were lying down, while in the west thunder-clouds were appearing. The North Fork of the Canadian lay on our left, which was now our only hope for water, yet beyond our reach for the day. Keeping the slight divide between us and the creek, we started the herd forward. Since it was ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... clear air, of mornings as enchanting as dreams, of dreams as full of magic as May mornings. Then an interminable Sunday hot and sultry, with rolling purple clouds and an evening of thunder and heavy showers. A magenta sunset, a night working, hidden in its own darkness, its own secret purposes, and a Monday morning gray beyond belief, with a soft ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... of thunder and lightning raged for four-and-twenty hours after the battle, during which the fleet rode safely at anchor in the harbor of Petala. It remained there three days longer. Don John profited by the time to visit the different galleys and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... one would be tempted to think that the whole square in front of the church had been changed into a dark, tumultuous sea, which dashed its raging black waves into all the streets debouching on the square, and was filling all Paris with its roar, its swell, its thunder roll. Yes, all Paris was there, in order to look upon Marie Antoinette, who, at this hour, was not the queen, but the fair woman; the happy mother who, with the pride of the mother of the Gracchi, desired ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... words when a sudden noise like a clap of thunder shook the air; a flash of lightning seemed to glance past her and alight on the skin, which in an instant shrivelled up to a cinder like a burnt glove. Too startled at first to know whether she should rejoice or not, the Princess gazed at her work in ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... at her, so that she reeled back hurt. Then when all seemed finished, and beneath the rain of blows my senses were failing, I heard the thunder of horses' hoofs and the shout of "Egypt! Egypt!" from the throats of soldiers. The flash of bronze caught my dazed eyes, and with the roar of battle in my ears I seemed to fall asleep just as the light of ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... the long-drawn sighs Of the mounting wind in the pines; And the sobs of the mounting waves that rise In the dark of the troubled deep To break on the beach in fiery lines. Echo the far-off roll of thunder, Rumbling loud And ever louder, under The blue-black curtain of cloud, Where the lightning serpents gleam, Echo the moaning Of the forest in its sleep Like a giant groaning In ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... It was a startling transition from verse 9, which declares God's pitying knowledge of Israel's oppression, to verse 10, which thrusts Moses forward into the thick of dangers and difficulties, as God's instrument. 'I will send thee' must have come like a thunder-clap. The commander's summons which brings a man from the rear rank and sets him in the van of a storming-party may well make its receiver shrink. It was not cowardice which prompted Moses' answer, but lowliness. His former impetuous confidence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... conscious of a sudden ban Hurl'd from the zenith. I was like the man Who scaled Olympus, with intent to bring New fire therefrom, and dared not face the King Of thought and thunder. I was full prepared For thy displeasure,—for the past was bared To mine on-looking; and, with faltering tongue, I ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... cried Captain Tartar, in a voice of thunder, rising from his chair, "you're a d—-d runaway midshipman, who, if you belonged to my ship, instead of marrying Donna Agnes, I would marry you to the gunner's daughter, by G—d; two midshipmen sporting plain clothes in the best ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... studied that you almost heard the creak of the retreating cart as the phantom culprit was turned off. But his conduct in the pulpit was due to no ferocity of temperament. He merely exercised his legitimate craft. So long as Newgate supplied him with an enforced audience, so long would he thunder and bluster at the wrongdoer according to law and the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... run out yourself,' added his mother, 'you are flooding the whole room.... The Word was made Flesh,' she added under her breath, as a terrific clap of thunder shook the house. Magda crossed herself; Jendrek laughed and cried, 'What a din! there's another.... The Lord Jesus is enjoying ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... that are hanging over this little water-color country. Savage old Russia is doing a lot of bullying, and the Japanese are not going to stand much more. They are drilling and marching and soldiering now for all they are worth. From Kuri, the naval station, we can hear the thunder of the guns which are in constant practice. Out on the parade grounds, in the barracks, on every country road preparation is going on. Officers high in rank and from the Emperor's guard are here reviewing the troops. Those who know say a crash is bound to come. So if you ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... of the Great Spirit were fixed in the boy's mind, for his mother was always repeating them to him. She would say as he left the wigwam: "Honor the gray-headed person," or "Thou shalt not mimic the thunder;" "Thou shalt always feed the hungry and the stranger," or "Thou shalt immerse thyself in the river at least ten times in succession in the early part of the spring, so that thy body may be strong and thy feet swift to chase the game and to ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... the church or from behind the church,' I said, as the shriek was followed by an angry murmur as of muffled thunder. All had occurred within the space of half a second. I quickly but cautiously opened my bedroom door, extinguishing my light before doing so, and began to creep downstairs, fearing to wake my mother. My shoes creaked, so I took them off and carried them. Crossing the hall, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... zeal, and armed with a weighty battle-axe, ascended the ladder; and even the Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the event of the combat. [50] He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of Serapis; the cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquillity. The victorious soldier repeated his blows: the huge idol was overthrown, and broken in pieces; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... threatening growl of thunder far away, and at this she started up on all fours and listened, like a dog who hears a strange footstep. One result of this strange attitude was to separate her thick black hair into two masses, that fell away on ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... a heavy thunder-storm, for which we were very grateful, as it cooled the air considerably. Between 1 and 2 degrees, or 3 degrees North latitude, frequent changes in the weather are very common. For instance, on the morning of the 20th we were overtaken by a strong wind, which lashed up the sea to a great height, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... propose what has been demonstrated to have been the only mode of meeting the exigency, an income-tax? In vain, therefore, may his lordship and his friends declaim in the ensuing session, and with our bombardment of China in his ears, say "that is my thunder." They will be only laughed at and despised. No, no, Lord Palmerston; palmam qui meruit, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... hold in surety thereof the universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... are you going to recognize him?" fussed the Traveling Salesman. "And how in thunder is he going to ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... always agree with Mr. Copeland; we dissent especially from his prejudice against the noble horsechestnut-tree, with its grand thunder-cloud of foliage, its bee-haunted cones of bloom, and its polished fruit so uselessly useful to children,—Bushy Park is answer enough on that score; but we cordially appreciate his taste and ability. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Richard Bronas, tobacconist, was at the "Horse Shoe," Bread Street; and in 1766 Mr. Hoppie, of the "Oil Jar: Old Change, Watling Street End," advertised that he "sold a newly invented phosphorus powder for lighting pipes quickly in about half a minute. Ask for a Bottle of Thunder Powder." ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... by a sight of Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees tossing and swaying before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving shot lightning flashes through the dusk of the shady grove; while the hundreds of jubilant voices blended into rumbling thunder. Through the tumult, the blaring horns thrilled ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... continue to maintain peace and order with iron and blood it may happen that the meaningless national hymn may be drowned by the Carmagnole, pealing forth like thunder from the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the approach of the enemy, kept their ranks firm and immovable; and the Genoese first began the attack. There had happened, a little before the engagement, a thunder shower, which had moistened and relaxed the strings of the Genoese cross-bows; their arrows for this reason fell short of the enemy. The English archers, taking their bows out of their cases, poured in a shower of arrows upon this multitude ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Friedrich had the greatest contempt for Kriegsraths, and indeed for most other RATHS or titular shams, labelled boxes with nothing in the inside: on a horrible winter-morning (sleet, thunder, &c.), marching off hours before sunrise, he has been heard to say, 'Would one ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Polish riot as my throat will stand; and if we put a crimp in the large-footed, humpy-shouldered behemoths we're going up against this afternoon, I'm going out to-night and burn the City Hall. Any Siwash man who is a gentleman would do it. I'll probably have to run like thunder to beat some of ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... from the Himalayas are the source of the country's name which translates as Land of the Thunder Dragon; frequent landslides during ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Mrs. Flaxman laid down her fan; there were no melting passages to bring tears in this symphony, descriptive of primeval darkness, and confusion of the elements, the evil spirits hurrying away from the glad, new light into their native regions of eternal night—the thunder and storm and elemental terrors. Presently I turned to Mr. Winthrop. He was sitting erect in his chair, his eyes no longer closed in languorous enjoyment; when suddenly the measure changed to that delicious passage ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... Pickering, we had a very awful storm, accompanied with thunder and lightning. My soul was kept in peace. Some women, who were detained as well as ourselves, seemed much afraid. I was prompted to speak to them on the necessity of preparing to meet God.—Cousin Samuel took ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... dinner, when Uncle James came down looking black as thunder, and answered his brother in monosyllables, refusing to speak once to Tom, at ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Mathematicis. I suspect when I am struggling with a triangle, I shall often wish myself in your room, and as for those wicked sulky surds, I do not know what I shall do without you to conjure them. My time passes away very pleasantly. I know one or two pleasant people, foremost of whom is Mr. Thunder-and-lightning Harris (William Snow Harris, the Electrician.), whom I dare say you have heard of. My chief employment is to go on board the "Beagle", and try to look as much like a sailor as I can. I have no evidence of having taken in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... barley) in this month, by a caterpillar, like a black worm about an inch and a half long. They eat up first the blades of the stalk, then they eat up the tassels, whereupon the ear withered. It was believed by divers good observers, that they fell in a great thunder shower, for divers yards and other places, where not one of them was to be seen an hour before, were immediately after the shower almost covered with them, besides grass places where they were not so easily discerned. They did the most harm in the southern ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... cloud thy sins.' Then came the triumphant cry of the choir, borne on the rich waves of sound rolling from the organ, 'Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.' The lofty roof reverberated with the melodious thunder, and the silvery altoes pierced through the great volume of sound like arrows of song. 'Return! Return! Return!' called the choristers louder and higher and clearer, and ended, with a magnificent burst of harmony, with the sublime proclamation, 'The Lord hath redeemed ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... art speaking, ripes in me a plan, Most wonderful, note well, and based on this: He now is but the shadow of himself, And though he still stands threatening there, his feet Are clay. His wrath is thunder without lightning. And—mark me well—all this his lustfulness Is naught but ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... moment a huge, rolling wave, bigger than all the rest, swept past and wet him to the knees. His heart failed him. The next wave would cover him. Already it was rushing towards him with foaming crest. He was in its shadow; he heard its thunder. Darkness rushed over him—he saw the vast sides streaked with grey and white—when suddenly, the owner of the wings plucked him in the back, mid-way between the shoulders, and lifted him bodily out of the fog, so that the wave swept by without ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... are much hotter here than in England, but the heat is more supportable from the breezes which always spring up about noon; and the evenings are charming beyond expression. We have much thunder and lightening, but very few instances of their being fatal: the thunder is more magnificent and aweful than in Europe, and the lightening brighter and more beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear pale purple, resembling the gay ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... affairs in Dresden, when from the direction of Luetzen there gathered over poor Kohlhaas another thunder-storm, even more serious, whose lightning-flash the crafty knights were clever enough to draw down upon the horse-dealer's unlucky head. It so happened that one of the band of men that Kohlhaas had collected and turned off again after the appearance of the electoral amnesty, Johannes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the wide-weltering waves. In black array, When sulphurous clouds roll'd on the autumnal day, Even then he hasten'd from the haunt of man, Along the trembling wilderness to stray, What time the lightning's fierce career began, And o'er heaven's rending arch the rattling thunder ran. ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... published, the more we shall have to draw upon our own genius; and the duller the season, the more vivacious must we be to put our readers in spirits. But we have consolation approaching in the shape of amusing work. Immediately that parliament is up, the newspapers will begin to lie, "like thunder," Tom Pipes would say. What mysterious murders, what heart-rending accidents, what showers of bonnets in the Paddington Canal, what legions of unhappy children dropped at honest men's doors! We have got a file of the "Morning Herald" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... paced the room restlessly. Outside a gale was blowing. She could hear the wind roaring through the street. A sudden gust blew down the chimney and the flames flickered and bent beneath it, while in the distance sounded a low rumble of thunder—the odd, unexpected thunder that comes sometimes ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... those moments in a nation's history that will only die with the nation that inspired it. The peasants turned the tide of the hotly fought battle. "Peasants, take those cannon for me. God and our country!" was Kosciuszko's cry of thunder. Urging each other on by the homely names they were wont to call across their native fields, the peasants swept like a hurricane upon the Russian battery, carrying all before them with their deadly scythes, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... which I have chosen, is talking of the circulation of water on the earth; how wisely and well it is ordered; how the vapours rise off the sea, till the waters stand above the mountain- tops, to be brought down in thunder-storms—for in his country, as in many hot ones, thunder was generally needed, at the end of the dry season, to bring down the rain; how it forms springs in the highland, and flows down from thence in brooks and rivers, making the whole lowland green and fertile. Well—all very true, you may ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... exclaim, "Spread out the thunder into its single tones, and it becomes a lullaby for children; pour it forth in one quick peal and the royal sound shall move ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... halloo sounded ahead. The horn wound loudly. "'Ware the road!" There sprang up out of the night a flying thunder of hoof-beats. The gentlemen riding idly in front of the coach scattered to the hedge-sides; and, with drawn swords flashing in the moon, a party of horsemen charged down the highway, their cries ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... dressed, as were all his chiefs, while the rest of his people were naked. He attacked the Spaniards who did not yield; nor was the battle prolonged, for their musket-fire convinced the natives that they commanded the thunder and lightning. Unable to face the arrows of our archers, they turned and fled, and the Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... had disappeared; suddenly the rattle of chains and pulleys was heard and a dull thunder made the tower tremble; all the stones and metal and even the surrounding ether vibrated. The big "Gorda" had just rung, deafening the bystanders. A few moments afterwards, from the front of the Alcazar, came the sound of ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... The footlights lit up with a row of flames, the storm approached. There was a ringing of electric bells—"Ting! Ting! Ting!"—as in the machine-room of a ship before the tempest; the orchestra roared; and, as though at a thunder-clap, the velvet curtain split asunder: Patti-Patty was revealed on the stage, while the band played as if possessed. Lily, in the shadow of the wings, put her hand to her heart; her veins were ablaze. And that audience, at which she peeped through a crack in the scenery; that ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... the diamonded light, The echo, feeble child of sound, The heavy thunder's griding might, The herald lightning's starry bound, The vocal spring of bursting bloom, The naked summer's glowing birth, The troublous autumn's sallow gloom, The hoarhead winter paving earth With sheeny white, are full of strange Astonishment and ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night, From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be, The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light From the depths ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ships, in general. Well, them French twelves are spiteful guns; and a little afore they fired, it seemed to me I heard something give Jack a rap on the check, that sounded as if a fellow's ear was boxed with a clap of thunder. I looked up, and there was Jack streaming out like the fly of the ensign, head foremost, with the body towing after it by strings ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... aspirants to the two highest offices of state, which public documents now make apparent, when, in April, 1831, say the newspapers of the period, "an explosion took place in the cabinet at Washington, the announcement of which came upon the public like a clap of thunder in a cloudless day."[5] On the 7th of April, the Secretary of War, General Eaton, resigned, without giving any other reason than his own inclination, and that he deemed the moment favorable, as General Jackson's ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... the possibility never occurred to me. I met sometimes with new deference, with augmented kindness: old schoolfellows and old teachers, too, greeted me with generous warmth. And again, ecclesiastical brows lowered thunder at me. When I confronted one or two large-made priests, I longed for the battle to come on. I wish they would speak out plainly. You must not understand that my schoolfellows and teachers were of the Clergy Daughters School—in fact, I was never there but for one little year as a very little girl. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... "What in thunder are those children up to now?" Dr. Morton spoke in the tone of one who considered that patience had ceased to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... have——— Called forth the mutinous winds And 'twixt the green sea, and the azured vault Set roaring war; to the dread ratling thunder, Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak, With his own bolt; the strong bas'd promontory, Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluckt up The pine and cedar; graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, op'd and let them forth By my so ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... at Chatteris, when the speech before Ophelia's or Mrs. Haller's entrance on the stage was made by the proper actor. Now, as the actor spoke, he had a sort of feeble thrill: as the house began to thunder with applause, and Ophelia entered with her old bow and sweeping curtsey, Pen felt a slight shock and blushed very much as he looked at her, and could not help thinking that all the house was regarding him. He hardly heard her for the first part of the play: and he thought with such ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... surprise you. Sick, [29] irritated, the prey a thousand times a day of cruel pain, I continue my labour like a true working-man, who, with sleeves turned up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, never troubling himself whether it rains or blows, for hail or thunder. I was not like that formerly. The change has taken place naturally, though my will has counted for something in ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... uncle, and he gave me his best war horse to ride, and gave me also a sacred headdress that he wore, which had in it some of the feathers of the thunder bird. I took with me no arms, except a stone axe that my father had had from his father, and he from his father, and which had come down in our family ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell
... dedicating, not to ravage, not to murder, not to hatred of any portion of the southern section of the confederacy, but to the support of the impartial Constitution, to the common flag, to the majestic and beneficent law which offers to encircle and bless the whole republic; it utters itself in the thunder-voice of twenty millions of white citizens of the land, that in America the majority under the Constitution must rule, and the public law must ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... the sun Streaming through the stained windows, even the tombs, 20 Which looked so calm, and the celestial hymns, Which seemed as if they rather came from Heaven Than mounted there—the bursting organ's peal Rolling on high like an harmonious thunder; The white robes and the lifted eyes; the world At peace! and all at peace with one another! Oh, my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... straight to Brook Street, and see if I can be a comfort to Letty," said Mrs. Watton, with a tone and air, however, that seemed to class her rather with the Sons of Thunder than the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... should be authorized to pay the head men. It will be difficult to explain why the difference is made, and it will secure in every band, men who will feel that they are officers of the Crown and remunerated as such. I returned to Fort Garry on the 23rd inst., encountering on the way a very severe thunder storm, which compelled me to take advantage of the very acceptable shelter of the kindly proffered residence of the Hon. Mr. Breland, at White Horse Plains, instead of a tent on the thoroughly-drenched prairie. I congratulate you that with the ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... function was to set the economy of the universe in order. He is often depicted as wielding a huge adze, and engaged in constructing the world. With his death the details of creation began. His breath became the wind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his blood flowed in rivers; his hair grew into trees and plants; his flesh became the soil; his sweat descended as rain; while the parasites which infested his body were the origin of the ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... the store-keeper, gazed after the livery team with a sour countenance, he resented the fact that five big-boxes of groceries had been forwarded from the city to the Wegg farm. "What'n thunder's the use havin' city folks here, ef they don't buy nothin'?" he asked the boys; and they agreed it was no use ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... we are in the very midst of what the prophets would have had us dread so much. The ice is pressing and packing round us with a noise like thunder. It is piling itself up into long walls, and heaps high enough to reach a good way up the Fram's rigging; in fact, it is trying its very utmost to grind the Fram into powder. But here we sit quite ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... thunder roused Tancred from his trance. Above him the mountains rose sharp and black in the clear purple air, and the Arabian stars shone with undimmed brightness; but the voice of the angel still lingered in his ear. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that the gods discovered what he had done. A volley of terrible thunder-claps at once shook the skies, and Zeus had Prometheus arrested. He was led off to Scythia—the Siberia of those times—without trial, and the police left him chained to a rock there, and hurried back home. And everybody sympathized ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... thunder-storm in the East, he realized how Thor was born. Man fears thunder; it seems the voice of a greater man. Deny eyes, legs, and body of the Deity, and nothing is left. God as an abstract spirit is unthinkable, but Buddhism offers us no God, only law. Necessity, blind force, law, or a free ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... animals, and thus winning a mother's heart. She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she was not alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morning newspaper, was breakfasting when I arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with a rumbling thunder of a laugh like the bass notes of an organ. His assertion of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and bass somewhat overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor person like myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a small, bright bird ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... up to now had been pleasantly and superficially stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham. She saw Quin passing through it all, not to the thunder of stage shrapnel and the glare of a red spot-light, but in the life-and-death struggle of those eighteen months in the trenches. Before she knew it, she too was gazing absently into space, shaken with the profound realization that here beside her, his shoulder ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... About two o'clock p.m. they collected together and gave a very promising appearance of a heavy fall of rain; they seemed to be coming up all round, but the heaviest from the south and south-west. At four o'clock p.m. it began to lighten and thunder, accompanied by a shower which did not last above a few minutes. Sundown: still the same promising dark, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... that I dread to be left alone all day. You may laugh at me, but I feel as if something terrible were hanging over me—or you. The spiritual oppression is like the physical presentiment sensitive temperaments suffer when a thunder-storm is brooding, but not ready to break. Yet I can refer my ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... advantages of female companionship now began to creep into Mrs. Archibald's mind: if her husband should take it into his head to go out and hunt at night by the light of a torch; if there should be thunder-storms, and he away with the guide; if he should want to go off and talk to Indians or trappers, and he always did want to go off and talk to people of every class—it would be very pleasant to have even Margery Dearborn with her. So she consented with great ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... Assad stood as one thunder-struck at these words, so little expected. He was so enraged, that he had like to have given fatal demonstrations of his anger; but he contained himself, and withdrew without making any reply, fearing if he stayed he might ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... on. Breezes sweeping through the pines of Monterey brought no murmur from the south and east of the thunder crash of cannon on the unfought fields ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... have her own way, Mr. Godfrey. Grief like that, like the down-pouring of a thunder-shower, soon storms itself to rest. She will be better soon. Leave her to take care of the dead, while you and I step into the kitchen and consult ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Franklin proved the identity of lightning and electricity by flying a kite in a thunder storm. The kite was of silk so as to endure the wetting. When the string became wet sparks could be taken from a key attached to its end. The main string was of hemp; at the lower end was a length of silk to insulate it. The key ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... Jimmy's swimming brain, as thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York—perhaps she knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... o'clock by the time he reached the Junction, and heavy mutterings of thunder could be heard in ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... "at first I thought the river had overflowed its banks, and was going to carry me all the way down to Stanhope. Then I heard the wind and the thunder, when it struck me there was something of a storm. So I just laid still; for I knew you fellows wouldn't want me bothering around while you worked like fun to hold the rest of the tents from going ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... ever saw burst over the island. Your northern hills, with their solemn pine woods, and fresh streams and lakes, telling of a cold rather than a warm climate, always seem to me as if undergoing some strange and unnatural visitation, when one of your heavy summer thunder-storms bursts over them. Snow and frost, hail and, above all, wind, trailing rain clouds and brilliant northern lights, are your appropriate sky phenomena; here, thunder and lightning seem as if they might have been invented. Even in winter ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... solved. It is strange that no persistent and successful effort has been made to let day- light through it. Some workmen a long time ago undertook to perforate it, but were frightened away by a thunder-storm, which they seemed to take as a reproof and threatened punishment for their profanity. The great business of Hawick is the manufacture of a woollen fabric called Tweeds. It came to this name in a singular way. The clerk ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... was open upon its outlook of brick walls and drab, barren back yards. Except for the mildness of the air that entered it might have been midwinter yet in the city that turns such a frowning face to besieging spring. But spring doesn't come with the thunder of cannon. She is a sapper and a miner, and you ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... plaintive cries, and I heard the rushing of multitudinous wings, sometimes very close to my head, but always invisible owing to the mist. And once, above the swishing of the wet wind through the gorse-bushes, I was sure I caught the faint thunder of the sea and the distant crashing of waves rolling up some steep-throated gully in the cliffs. I went cautiously after this, and altered my course a little away from the direction ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... gallery, so that we had the whole breadth of the church between us, and here as I stood, he, knowing his cue no doubt, flung to the door with all his force, which gave a sound that I could compare to nothing less than a peal of thunder. I was next desired to apply my ear to the wall, which, when I did, I heard the words of my conductor: "Can you hear me?" which he softly whispered quite on the other side, as plain and as loud as one commonly speaks ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... beauteous Evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear'st untouch'd by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worshipp'st at ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... the Thirteenth Indiana is the counterpart of Scott's Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, or the fighting friar of the times of Robin Hood. In answer to some request he has just said that he will "go to thunder before doing it." The first time I saw this fighting parson was at the burnt bridge near Huttonville. He had two revolvers and a hatchet in his belt, and appeared more like a firebrand of war than a minister of peace. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... thunder heard in dreams; Huge insurrections, and dynastic changes Resolved in blood. I marvel they of thought By apprehensions are so often wrought To state as fact what unto all men seems, Who watch cloud-struggles ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... a look at the captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder).—"That, I suppose, is the new-fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, 'First save the game, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which the gods give their children. The universe is his box of toys. He dabbles his fingers in the day-fall. He is gold-dusty with tumbling amidst the stars. He makes bright mischief with the moon. The meteors nuzzle their noses in his hand. He teases into growling the kennelled thunder, and laughs at the shaking of its fiery chain. He dances in and out of the gates of heaven; its floor is littered with his broken fancies. He runs wild over the fields of ether. He chases the rolling world." He who could write thus, and who could melt ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... noise," said Margaret. "What's the use of turnin' the house into a clap of thunder like that? But a man was makin' it o' purpose, for I went out to see; and he telled me it was to call folks to luncheon. Will you ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... day, week by week, the excitements of the times rose. Dr. Sevier was deeply stirred, and ever on the alert, looking out upon every quarter of the political sky, listening to the rising thunder, watching the gathering storm. There could hardly have been any one more completely engrossed by it. If there was, it was his book-keeper. It wasn't so much the Constitution that enlisted Narcisse's concern; nor yet ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... started, and this time his genius took possession of him. The notes fell very softly at first, but with an ominous sound, then rose and wailed like the rising of the wind. Next the music came in gusts, the rain pattered, and the thunder roared, till at length the tempest seemed to spend its force and pass slowly away ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard |
