"Thunderclap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... low, but in the tomb-like stillness a thunderclap could not have been more distinct. The hail, however, produced no response. The angered Vose drew his Winchester to a level, with his finger on the trigger, but when he ran his eye along the barrel, he failed to perceive any target. He lowered the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... To Grandpa and Grandma Burton it had come like a thunderclap on a clear day. They had known, to be sure, that son John frowned a little at their lonely life; but that there should come this sudden transplanting, this ruthless twisting and tearing up of roots that for sixty years had ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... without a word of explanation, the names of every girl who had attended Cora's spread—save Cora herself—and ordered that they be deprived of recreation, as had Nancy, "for being out of their dormitories after hours." The blow fell like a thunderclap upon the culprits. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... came in later and said the whole thing was to him like a thunderclap—as it was to her poor father. To me it followed closely on the presentiment that in some measure prepared me for it. Here I sit with empty hands. I have had the little coffin in my arms, but my baby's face could not be seen, so rudely had death marred it. Empty hands, empty hands, a worn-out, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... The rocky promontory, the weird, giant chestnut tree, the open plateau, and beyond, the stormy heavens, were all luridly clear in the flash of lightning. She fancied it was possible to see a tall, dark figure emerging from the thicket. As the thunderclap rolled and pealed overhead, she strained her eyes into the blackness waiting ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... me like a thunderclap," he told her. "Richard Fardell found it out somehow, and he took me to see Parkins. But it was too late. Polden had hold of the story and meant to use it. I never imagined but that Parkins had been talking and this journalist ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... signed in the kitchen, and it was there that the revelation took place which came as a thunderclap of surprise to everyone concerned, except Jervis and Mr. Clay, the latter of whom, when the bishop's part of the ceremony was done, took the remainder upon himself, and proceeded to make his explanations in a voice which ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... addressed, he answered, if at all, with a thunderclap. Since then he has ceased to reply. Zeus was more complaisant. One might enter with him into the intimacy of the infinite. The father of the Graces, the Muses, the Hours, it was natural that he should be debonair. But he had other children. Among them were Litai, the Prayers. In the Vedas, ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... and women who come to God will have already a certain righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind that have brought them to God will already have brought their lives into a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there will be someone to ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... under the shade of the trees, when I heard dogs barking, and supposed that my boy Mnason was amusing himself in the chase as usual, and had penetrated into the copse with his friends. However, that was not it: presently there was an earthquake; I heard a voice like a thunderclap, and saw a terrible woman approaching, not much less than three hundred feet high. She carried a torch in her left hand, and a sword in her right; the sword might be thirty feet long. Her lower extremities were those ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the sound meant fire, and fire meant need of being extinguished. I bump into a stone, and kick it to one side purely physically. I put it to one side for fear some one will stumble upon it, intelligently; I respond to a meaning which the thing has. I am startled by a thunderclap whether I recognize it or not—more likely, if I do not recognize it. But if I say, either out loud or to myself, that is thunder, I respond to the disturbance as a meaning. My behavior has a mental quality. When ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... drives down before it a storm which overcasts the blue sky, so that it is pitch dark in the valley. Up above masses of cloud; dark rocks on either hand. Now and then a dazzling flash darts through the heights, followed by a short abrupt thunderclap, as if the narrow gorge could only contain one chord of the awful concert; then again the lightning shoots into the Danube just in front of the ship, and by its fiery rays for an instant the whole rocky cathedral looks like the flaming gulf of hell, and the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... me, and I began to be a little cheerful; but I was knocked down again as with a thunderclap, when turning to the captain's wife, and discoursing of me, she said to her, "Sister, I cannot but think my lady to be very much like such a person." Then she named the person, and the captain's wife said she thought so too. The girl replied again, she was sure ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... something more; it means that God makes His angels spirits, (that is winds) and His ministers a flaming fire.' So shewing us that in those breezes there are living spirits, that God's angels guide those thunder-clouds; that the roaring thunderclap is a shock in the air truly, but that it is something more—that it is the voice of God, which shakes the cedar-trees of Lebanon, and tears down the thick bushes, and makes the wild deer slip their young. So we read in the psalms in church; that is David's account of the thunder. ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... swiftly and struck violently, was compared to the hurtling arrow or the whizzing lance. Especially did this apply to the phenomenon of the lightning. The belief that a stone is shot from the sky with each thunderclap is shown in our word "thunderbolt," and even yet the vulgar in many countries point out certain forms of stones as derived from this source. As the refreshing rain which accompanies the thunder gust ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... shouted Dick, rounding on him with a fierceness which astonished himself. It was a show to see the way in which Gosse collapsed under this thunderclap of righteous indignation. He looked round at Dick out of the corners of his eyes, very much as a small dog contemplates the boot that has just helped him half-way across the road, and positively forgot to keep his ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... great man, what great men would you like? He had everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences he replied to Laplace, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... weapons, covering the wide expanse of the firmament. Then the winds, making a loud roar and agitating all the oceans, brought together masses of clouds in the sky, charged with torrents of rain. Those masses of clouds began to vomit thunder and terrible flashes of lightning charged with the thunderclap. Then Arjuna possessing a knowledge of means, hurled the excellent weapon called Vayavya with proper mantras to dispel those clouds. With that weapon the energy and force of Indra's thunderbolt and of those clouds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... add: "Now, then, Tartarin!" Whereupon Tartarin of Tarascon, with crooked arms, clenched fists, and quivering nostrils, would roar three times in a formidable voice, rolling like a thunderclap in the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... direction. It was supposed that the outlaws had gradually stolen away through the thickets and taken to the open country, intending to scatter to their homes, or other distant hiding-places; and the news that they had by a ruse captured the castle, came as a thunderclap. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman—and the object of his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... into the light. He stood now almost at the forward poop rail, with his arms raised above his head; and he sent his voice forward in a stentorian hail, a cry that was like a thunderclap. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... firecrackers and pinwheels for which Warren Sloane had sent to town by St. Clair Donnell's father the day before, intending to have a birthday celebration that evening. The crackers went off in a thunderclap of noise and the pinwheels bursting out of the door spun madly around the room, hissing and spluttering. Anne dropped into her chair white with dismay and all the girls climbed shrieking upon their desks. Joe Sloane stood as one transfixed in the midst of the commotion and St. Clair, helpless ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him. A hot wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... twenty-two or twenty-three years old his weak will sulkily gave way to their wishes. In obedience to his father he began his studies in medicine at Paris. One evening he heard Les Danaides of Salieri. It came upon him like a thunderclap. He ran to the Conservatoire library ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... inner state, and the magnetic outward splendor disappeared, and his inner wretchedness and distress were manifest, and he could not stand any longer before me, and, with an explosion like a powerful thunderclap, he left me and took the direction to Europe. The title of my third volume, if we translate it from ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... day came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find that it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it wasn't so terrible, ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... had startled England, like a thunderclap in a summer sky. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the United States ship "San Jacinta," took the Southern States envoys—Messrs. Slidel and Mason—and two others, forcibly from the deck of a British mail ship, "The Trent." The country ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... execution of John Brown was another thunderclap. And Abigail showed me what was being said about it. A certain Henry Thoreau, a strange, radical soul living in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts, had compared John Brown to Christ. "Some eighteen hundred years ago," Thoreau ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... until they merged into a prolonged roll which seemed to embrace the entire heavens. At length, Vassili got up and covered over the britchka, the coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak and lifted his cap to make the sign of the cross at each successive thunderclap, and the horses pricked up their ears and snorted as though to drink in the fresh air which the flying clouds were outdistancing. The britchka began to roll more swiftly along the dusty road, and I felt uneasy, and as though the blood were coursing more quickly through ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... impugner of his own profession delivered these two last words in thunder so sudden and effective as to strike Julia's work out of her hands. But here, as in Nature, a moment's pause followed the thunderclap; so Mrs. Dodd, who had long been patiently watching her opportunity, smothered a shriek, and edged in a word: "This is irresistible; you have confuted everybody, to their heart's content; and now the question is, what course shall we substitute?" She meant, "in the great case, which occupies ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... like fair play as well as any man. But it can't be done. There must be a surprise, a coup de main, as the French say" (poor Crossthwaite was always quoting French in those days). "Once show our strength—burst upon the tyrants like a thunderclap; and then!— ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... announcement that their railroads had been swallowed whole by the Pacific Southwestern had fallen as a thunderclap upon the rank and file of the three local companies; and since, in railway practice, a change of owners usually carries with it a sweeping change in department heads, the service was ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the night in our sophomore club when the news came like a thunderclap that one of our members had been killed pole-vaulting at a track meet in New York. It was our habit, in our new-found manliness, to eat with our hats on, shout and sing, and speak of our food as "tapeworm," ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... breath, expecting a thunderclap or some other outward token of the sudden death of Belvane's muse. Instead she was struck by the extraordinary silence of the place. She had a horrid feeling that everybody else was dead, and realising all at once that she was a ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... own hands and dismissed his cabinet presided over by M. Jules Simon. Things had not been going smoothly for some time, could not between two men of such absolute difference of origin, habits, and ideas. Still, the famous letter written by the marshal to Jules Simon was a thunderclap. I was walking about the Champs-Elysees and Faubourg St. Honore on the morning of the 16th of May, and saw all the carriages, our own included, waiting at the Ministry of the Interior, where the conseil was sitting. I went home to breakfast, thought W. was later than usual, but ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and weighted at one end so that they would float upright. He yelled into the intercom, and one was chucked overboard ahead. A moment later, I saw it bobbing away astern of us. I put my face into the sight-mask, caught it, centered the cross hairs, and squeezed. The gun gave a thunderclap and recoiled past me, and when I pulled my face out of the mask, I saw a column of water and spray about fifty feet left and ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... long time fortune favored him. His mother's reputation for wealth, the knowledge that he was her sole heir, the high position of the family, shielded him from suspicion. Then came the thunderclap. He was caught in the act of "dealing a second" in the English Club, and driven from the club as a blackleg. Other reverses followed: a public refusal on the part of an officer to play cards with him, followed by a like refusal to give him satisfaction ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... his wife as Claud had before him; for he well knew how deeply they would disquiet her. But, soon concluding there would be no wisdom in attempting concealment, he told her what he had heard. As he had anticipated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her mute with dismay, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright. Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of the window. And slowly, athwart the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... everything!" But best of all was for the parties to be married outright, by a justice of the peace, without a word of public warning, and then to enjoy the pleasure of outwitting the neighbors, and coming down like a thunderclap on a social sunshine unsuspicious of banns, which had been published on some three literally public days, but when nobody was hearing. That was something worth doing, and very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... listened to their abuse with keen satisfaction. Gleams of ambition must have been shooting in upon him by this time. It was impossible that he had not thoughts of a bigger future for himself, and yet it came as a thunderclap to him when he heard that he, a youthful free-lance, had been adopted by the Liberal associations of the district to be their candidate for Parliament at the next election. It may be imagined with what ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... stars from heaven in showers, Rived adamant to show an azure gap, Captured the very Psyche in my cap, Filched from the sack of Time six diamond hours. Hyperborean in my crown of flowers I ran and leapt the cliff of thunderclap Plunging through green sea-light where bronze fronds wrap Crumbling pearl palaces ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... a thunderclap upon the London Board of Directors, who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson Brothers, and caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of the concern. The board-room was besieged by colonels ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had said the same thing. Two uprights flashed up above their heads—the arm of the priest making the sign of the cross, and the sabre of the commander of the shooters, glistening at the same instant. . . . A dry, dull thunderclap, followed by some ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... avowal. To Wrayson, however, after the first mild shock of surprise, it was of no special import. To Sydney Barnes, although he made a speedy effort to grapple with the situation, it came very much as a thunderclap. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The doctor angrily told her not to stand blubbering there, but to go into her kitchen and shut the door if she couldn't control herself. All his accumulated nervous agitation was discharged on Maud like a thunderclap. Constance continued to behave wonderfully. She was the admiration of the doctor and Lily Holl. Then Dick Povey came back. It was settled that Lily should pass the night with Constance. At last the doctor and Dick departed together, the doctor ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Kaiser with the Austrian war lords worked out a plan by which the act of this Servian youth could be laid upon the nation and be made an excuse for war. So on the twenty-fourth day after the assassination came the ultimatum from Austria. It came as a thunderclap out ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... frigid amazement "By Jove! Where do you come from? You are as unexpected as a thunderclap from a ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... room a thunderclap of memory. There had been words drawled there the night before that now detonated in Ellen's mind.... "What am I to do, Ellen, to keep my sons from ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... gruff, sarcastic tones of Wilhelm Mencke, burst upon the lovers like an unexpected thunderclap, and, starting to her feet, Violet turned to find her sister's husband standing ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... succeeded in pacifying her. The letters were evidence that Edith and himself believed that Althea was in Galloway at the time. Maria's denial had come upon them like a thunderclap, bewildering, stunning. If Althea was not in Galloway, where ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... a thunderclap, and they were like to swoon with the terror of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused their energies, and they stopped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They discussed this, that, and the other way, and talked till ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... melancholy story, and I can scarcely persuade myself to tell it. (It is really delicious wine this-six-and-twenty years old last birthday—to say nothing of its age before I bought it.) Ah! well, sir, the blow came at last like a thunderclap: my lady, finding disguise was in vain, went off with Sir Clinton. Letters were discovered which showed that they had corresponded for years; that he was her lover before marriage; that she, in a momentary passion with him, had ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up. I will speak as soon as I have seen Zinca Klork. The poor girl must be told with consideration. The death of her betrothed must not come upon her like a thunderclap. Yes! To-morrow, as soon as ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... A loud thunderclap crashed across the train of his thought. Another and a worse one crowded close upon it. He glanced up through the trees into the inky cavern of the skies, and a single large drop of water spattered ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he will be, by what this man will let him see. You know what a little man like Callan will feel ... he will be made ill. He would faint at the sight of a drop of blood, you know, and he will see—oh, the very worst, worse than what Radet saw. And he will write a frightful article, and it will be a thunderclap for de Mersch.... And de Mersch will be getting very shaky by then. And your friend Churchill will try to carry de Mersch's railway bill through in the face of the scandal. Churchill's motives will be excellent, but everyone will ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... he put this query to himself, Juve shook from head to foot. Like a thunderclap he thought he grasped the truth he had followed so eagerly. What had become of Lady Beltham? Must he not come to the conclusion that this woman whose face had been crushed out of all recognition by the murderer was none other than the lady? How else explain the discovery ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... left Calcutta late in March, 1862; at Malta they parted never to meet again in this world. Lord Canning proceeded to England, and Yule joined his wife and child in Rome. Only a few weeks later, at Florence, came as a thunderclap the announcement of Lord Canning's unexpected death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present writer remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule's deep anguish, not assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the loss ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... shown me, there and then,— Me, out of a world of men, Singled forth, as the chance might hap To another if, in a thunderclap Where I heard noise and you saw flame, Some one man knew God called his name. For me, I think I said, "Appear! "Good were it to be ever here. "If thou wilt, let me build to thee "Service-tabernacles three, "Where, forever in thy presence, ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... would not have come all of a sudden, like a thunderclap; there would have been some rumors of it beforehand. The deuce! an old reputation does not fall to pieces in that way, in ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... thunderclap announced ever-fresh legions pressing into the sky and obscuring the sun. It seemed as if the earth were cowering in their presence, as a partridge cowers before the hovering hawk. The blackthorn and juniper bushes called to caution with a low, swishing noise; the troubled ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... there came a rap at the door; it was a soft, low tap, yet it startled the viscount like a thunderclap. He dropped the hand ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... had been pouring into her consciousness during the past few moments. Greatest of all was one overshadowing fact: she loved Red Jim Perris! What did it matter that she had seen him so few times, and spoke to him so few words? A word might be a thunderclap; a glance might carry into the very soul of a man. And indeed she felt that she had seen that proud, gay, impatient soul in Jim. What he thought of her was another matter. That he found a bar between them was plain. But on the night of his first arrival ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... Belgrade. Russia, which had been already humiliated in 1908 by the forcible annexation of Bosnia, could not possibly submit a second time to the Caudine Forks. She laid her hand upon her sword hilt. Germany sprang to the side of her ally. France ranged herself with Russia. Like a thunderclap the war of the nations ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... All day the sloop alternately ducked her nose under and sat down on her stern; and it was not till late afternoon that the storm broke in one last and worst mad gust. For a full five minutes an absolute dead calm prevailed, and then, with the suddenness of a thunderclap, the wind snorted out of the southwest—a shift of eight points and a boisterous gale. Another night of it was too much for us, and we hove up by hand in a cross head-sea. It was not stiff work. It was heart-breaking. And I know we were both near to crying ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... of light shone plainly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. Ricky's breath was warm on Val's cheek and she moved with a faint crackling of her cape which sounded as loud as a thunderclap in his ears. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... first; and so on, until the one holding the spirit can lift him into Bullimah. As the spirit is hoisted in, one of the Mooroobeaigunnil, knocks the lowest one in the ladder of spirits down; thud to the earth come the rest, making a sound like a thunderclap, which the far away ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... still, 'Phira! You must keep still, else you may be hurt. Wait. I'll take you on my lap, as Molly has 'Nias. Now—see the pretty horses?" answered Dorothy, and involuntarily shivered as a fresh thunderclap fell ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... many years, Some haven in a far-off land, a rest Vouchsafed at last by dread divinities. "There," said he, "shalt thou round thy weary life, A blessing to the land wherein thou dwell'st, But to the land that cast thee forth, a curse." And of my weird he promised signs should come, Earthquake, or thunderclap, or lightning flash. And now I recognize as yours the sign That led my wanderings to this your grove; Else had I never lighted on you first, A wineless man on your seat of native rock. O goddesses, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... up the cry, 'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,' there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, 'Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!' Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI. (Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved among the ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single voice—that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite sweetness the words ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... had scarce issued from Caspar's lip, when a crash was heard like the first bursting of a thunderclap, and then a deafening roar echoed up the ravine, mingled with louder peals, as though the eternal mountains were ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... The thunderclap of the European war shattered the uneasy calm in China, not because the Chinese knew anything of the mighty issues which were to be fought out with such desperation and valour, but because the presence ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... 10,000!"—"Sold!" This time the deep-lunged monosyllable burst volcanically from the lips of Len Haswell, and it rang across the floor and echoed between the walls like a thunderclap between the cliffs of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... of twilight flashed through the air with its fluttering of red wings. Closely following came a thunderclap that made the houses and ground tremble.... The sunset gun! Aguirre, in his agony, could see in his mind's eye a high wall of crags, flying gulls, the foamy, roaring sea, a misty evening light, the same as that ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Alec's friend, and it was he who had sent him the exploded cartridge. The news came to Alec like a thunderclap, for the Turkana were the best part of his fighting force, and he had always placed the utmost reliance on their fidelity. The chief said that he could not hold in his young men, and not only must Alec cease to count upon ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... intimacy, as it were, was doubtless premeditated, and had its special object, yet Evgenie Pavlovitch at first seemed to intend to make no show of observing either his tormentor or her words. But Nastasia's communication struck him with the force of a thunderclap. On hearing of his uncle's death he suddenly grew as white as a sheet, and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... upon death, he recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,—one who had said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her cheeks,—this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the meaning of what he had just ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... shortly. "I couldn't myself. I'd have given the lie to anybody who had dared so much as to hint at it. It was like a thunderclap to me." ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... you with him; she seems to thinks lots of him, and be powerful particular. I didn't get your letter about its coming, Hettie. I'd have written at once—you know I would. It was lost, I reckon. The mails don't run right always. The old man wrote me, and it certainly was like a thunderclap. I'm mighty proud, Hettie. You see, I'd given up hoping that a baby'd ever ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... small-pox was declared, the princes had not been admitted to Meudon. The Duchess of Burgundy alone had occasionally seen the king. All were living in confident expectation of a speedy convalescence; the news of the death came upon them like a thunderclap. All the courtiers thronged together at once, the women half dressed, the men anxious and concerned, some to conceal their extreme sorrow, others their joy, according as they were mixed up in the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... night we came across That dreadful common, called the Moss, 'Midst wind and rain, and tempest tossed— And thunderclap I did begin to fear thy ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... enormous usury which prevailed at Madras, thought it necessary to interfere, and to order all interests to be lowered to ten per cent. This order, which contained no exception, though it by no means pointed particularly to this class of debts, came like a thunderclap on the Nabob. He considered his political credit as ruined; but to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he again added to the old principal twenty per cent interest accruing for the last year. Thus a new fund was formed; and it was on that accumulation of various principals, and interests heaped ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... move. Like a belated thunderclap after the storm is over, John broke out again, his haggard eyes aflame. "Curse the children!" he cried thickly. "Curse them, I say! If I had once caught sight of them since she ... she went, I should have wrung ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... thought an answer came. For at that moment, accompanied by a fearful thunderclap, there shot from the storm overhead, which had now nearly passed away, one of those awful flashes that sometimes end an African tempest. It lit up the scene with a light vivid as that of day, and in the white heart of it Muller saw his two companions in crime and ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... falling before she reached home, and she was somewhat alarmed when, on going upstairs, she failed to find the servant and little Fritz. As she went up to the window, however, in order to shut it, she saw the two come running along. The first thunderclap crashed out, and she started back in terror. Then immediately came a brilliant ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... a parable. Those zigzag ribbons of purple fire, the fierce shouting of the thunderclap that followed! In all the wide forest-tracts over which the tempest hung, all that grim artillery did but rend and split some one tough tree. Rather it turned again to gladden the earth, and the tears of heaven, that fell so steeply, only laid the dust of the hot road, and filled ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was the tale That turned cheeks pale With the thought that the enemy might prevail, And the church doors snap With a thunderclap On a Christian soul in that devil's trap. But a wiser few, Who thought that they knew Cologne's Archbishop, replied, "Pooh, pooh! Just watch him and wait, And as sure as fate, You'll find that the Bishop will ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... this was unimaginable disaster. She had never dreamt that Marian, the still, gentle Marian, could be driven to revolt. And it had come with the suddenness of a thunderclap. She wished to ask what had taken place between father and daughter in the brief interview before dinner; but Marian gave her no chance, quitting the room upon those ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... thunder growled in a way to lend An awful look to the lowerin' frown The dull sky wore; and the lightnin' glanced Tel my old mare jest MORE'N pranced, And tossed her head, and bugged her eyes To about four times their natchurl size, As the big black lips of the clouds 'ud drap Out some oath of a thunderclap, And threaten on in an undertone That chilled a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... dearie, it was a delightful visit, leaving delightful memories of all kinds; chats gay and grave trots long and short, drives, duets—will they ever come again? I am very glad this heart-breaking Irish thunderclap did not fall while you were here. It makes us so unhappy. Poor Ireland! her hopes are always dashed when about to be fulfilled. Nothing can palliate the fearful sin and almost more fearful course of miserable deception; ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... be well seen by the choral singers on either side of the vale, and there for about a minute he stood, waving his baton-like stick, conducting his strange double choir, who sang more loudly their cheery mill-song, and at their best, till in an instant, like a thunderclap, there was a sharp report, the song became a wail of agony, and the voice of the master was heard ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... the King below, mistaking the giant's moan for a thunderclap, but before his question was answered Ned and his friend appeared at the ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... as well state here the explanation, as we afterwards learned it, of this most unexpected reappearance of the enemy,—which came upon General Walker like a thunderclap, whilst he dreamed they had left him for good and all. It seems that the Vanderbilt Company, whom Walker had made enemies by ousting them from the Transit route, sent an agent (one Spencer) to the disheartened Costa Ricans, who showed them that they might easily strangle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... a web through which he could not force his way. Cautiously he exerted his strength. The keen blade hewed through the first of the stellanium strands, but Damis held his breath as the wire parted. It seemed impossible that the ting of parting metal which sounded like a thunderclap in his ears would not be heard by the Viceroy. He knew that there must be an entrance into the room through the hangings and he made his way cautiously forward, testing the draperies from time to time with ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... unwilling to exert itself, it seemed to awake to the reality of its position. Making a lively rush, that seemed tremendously inconsistent with its weight, it shot over the edge of a yawning crevasse, burst with a thunderclap on the opposite ice-cliff, and went roaring into the dark bowels of the glacier, whence the echoes of its tumbling masses, subdued by distance, came up like the mutterings ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... looked there was the very faintest noise heard—a whisper, a mutter, a noise so slight that it might have passed a hundred times unnoticed. But to the architect's ear it spoke as loudly as a thunderclap. He knew exactly what it was and whence it came; and looking at the crack, saw that the broad paper strip was torn half-way across. It was a small affair; the paper strip was not quite parted, it was only torn half-way ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... poetry. We can, indeed, no longer call the sun a god and construct myths of Phoebus, nor can we seriously picture the moon descending to dally with Endymion. We can no longer see Hamadryads in the oaks or Naiads in the streams. We do not hear Zeus or Thor in the thunderclap, nor recognize in volcanic eruptions the struggles of imprisoned Titans breathing flame. But what of that? Does the essence of poetry lie at all in myths and superstitions? Because we know of what the sun is made, and how many miles distant he is, do we find his risings and settings less moving ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... that, at one moment he hated Jesus Christ as a bad man, and believed that the story of the Resurrection was a gross falsehood; and that at the next moment he knew Him to be living and reigning, and the Lord of his life and of the world. Hallucinations do not come thus, like a thunderclap on unprepared minds. Nor is there anything in the subsequent history of the man that seems to confirm, but everything that contradicts, the idea that such a revolutionary change as upset all his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... stitched, and ready for distribution in June; but it was thought better to wait a little, for fear of accidents, and especially for the purpose of using it instantly after the first reverse should occur, and thus to give it the force of prophecy. The Battle of Waterloo came like a thunderclap. The article was suppressed, and one on "Gall and his Craniology" substituted. "I think," says Ticknor, "Southey said he had seen the repudiated article." [Footnote: "Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor "(2nd ed.), ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... party, with whom, half reconciled, he played fast and loose before our eyes, and was eternally negotiating with them, deceiving and being deceived in his turn. The consequence of all this was a great, thick cloud, wherein the Frondeurs themselves were at last involved; but which they burst with a thunderclap. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... But—what did they expect to get from him? He had been a little perplexed by their attitude when he asked them if they expected him to carry a lot of money on him—a fugitive. Was it possible—the thought came to him like a thunderclap in the darkness—that they knew, or had some idea, of what he really had on him? That Miss Pett had drugged him every night he now felt sure—well, then, in that case how did he know that she hadn't entered his room and searched his belongings, ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... brief space he stood there in the doorway, glowering; then, doubtless in obedience to some signal that I failed to note, the spear which every warrior held in his right hand was raised aloft, and the royal salute of "Bayete! Bayete! Bayete!" pealed out like a thunderclap on the startled air, and ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... I knew it wasn't coming. I had quite made up my mind about that. I was as sure of it;—oh, as sure of it as I am that I've got you now. And then it came;—like a great thunderclap." ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... the consternation, which reigned that day at Raynham Castle. Already Sir Oswald's guests had been making hasty arrangements for their departure; and many visitors had departed even before the discovery of that awful event, which came like a thunderclap upon all ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
