Lightning

“ But there was the lurid lightning’s gleam:—
And they came in fury,—the lightning’s flash,
And the wild wind’s sweep, and the thunder’s crash;
The fire stream poured on the fear-struck sight
A moment of day,—then a deeper night
Sank black on all, while the forest reeled
’Neath the rushing blast, and the thunder pealed
Through the echoing heaven;—in that dread hour
How puny the arm of a mortal’s power!
—But they passed away; the thunder’s crash,
And the wild wind’s sweep, and the lightning’s flash,
And the dark cloud’s gloom;—they rolled afar ”

“ The thunder growled in the hollows of the mountains, and in the fearful gloom came the white fire of the forked lightning, flaring through the clouds.
"We shall perish," cried the animals of the sunny south. "The arrows of the lightning are aimed at us. ”

“ The lightning appeared before, behind, and on every side of us, in every shape which the electric fluid can be exhibited to the eye of man. The lightning flashed, and the thunder in terrific peals rolled over our heads in a manner so grand, yet appalling, that language is insufficient to convey to those who did not witness it, even a faint idea of the awfully sublime spectacle. ”

“ Diffused lightning is the commonest of all. You can count hundreds of flashes on a stormy night. Occasionally they succeed one another with such rapidity that the sky is momentarily entirely illumined with a fantastic brightness. At these times great sombre clouds can be seen surging from the darkness of the night, to shine suddenly with an ephemeral brightness of a diffused red, blue, or violet tinge. Their irregular shapes, with their jagged edges of light, are visible against the dark background of the heavens, and the thunder growls monotonously. ”

“ The thunder is noisy and harmless. The lightning is silent,—and the lightning splits, kills, consumes. Humanity had muttered its thunder for ages. Its lightning, the condensed, fiery, fatal force of things, leaped from the blackness of sin, threaded with terrific glare the vision of man, and, in the person of the woman, fell hot and blasting at the feet of Jesus, who quenched its fire, and of that destructive bolt made a trophy of grace and a fair image of hope. ”

“ We are riding at anchor upon the surging waves, and beneath dark and heavy clouds piled one above another in voluminous masses, from which the lightning is playing incessantly. It is a most grand and yet most fearful scene. I stand, with Mariette, my little French companion, and, as if spellbound, look into the depths of cloudland, watching for every opening of those yawning chasms disclosed by the perpetual play of the lightning, regardless of the warning of the captains, (for we “serve two masters”) who are foreboding a fearful night. ”

“ When the thunder-peal comes, it will be too late to warn. The lightning will have come first, shrivelling the earth like a heap of dry grass, and heaven like a roll of old parchments, leaving you alone with your Judge; all the world there, and each one as much alone with Him as if no one else were there, seen through, searched through, scorched through with one gleam of the eyes that are as a flame of fire. ”

“ THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON MANKIND
The destructive work of lightning in every form is immense. A formidable and invisible world skirts the earth—an enchanted world, more wonderful than any Eastern legend—an unknown ocean, whose immaterial presence is constantly brought before us by the most fearful electric conflagrations.
Even to-day the brilliancy of lightning hides itself from us in the darkness of impenetrable mystery. But we feel that there is an immeasurable power, an unimaginable force which rules us. ”

“ That is the lightning that purifies the dense atmosphere, and, glancing for an instant, reveals the keenest light known to men. So the old year sings to me as it goes crowned with crystals and snow-drops to its end. ”

“ As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning.
And a cry of lamentation,
Repeated and again repeated,
Deep and loud
As the reverberation
Of cloud answering unto cloud,
Swells and rolls away in the distance,
As if the sheeted
Lightning retreated,
Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance. ”

“ Lightning, the red demon that, from the dawn of Creation, has been rushing down its zigzag path through the clouds, as if intent only upon spreading death, metamorphosed into an errand-boy, brings us illumination from the sun and carries our messages around the globe. ”

“ They are the thunder and lightning, perhaps the rain, out of the cloud, sparks from the electric charge : they are not the cloud; they did not make it. Of course, where the cloud is fullest of the fire of heaven, there is the reddest lightning, the heaviest thunder, and the most abounding rain. ”

“ You have all seen the vivid flashes of lightning and have heard the dreadful roar of thunder; in those two effects we have energy. It is in its potential form when it exists in a charged cloud, and in its kinetic form when that charged cloud gives its charge up to the earth, and in flying to the earth produces that dreadful effect that we call lightning, with its accompaniment, the roar of thunder. Thus, you have illustrations of energy in its different forms, electrical, magnetical, chemical, heat, light, and motion. ”

“ The deep lowering gloom of the thunder-cloud, the overwhelming burst of the explosion, the flash from which the steadiest eye shrinks, and the irresistible arrow of the lightning which no earthly substance can withstand, speak of something fearful, even independently of the personal danger which they may whisper. ”

“ The lightning now becoming more vivid and frequent, contrasted with the intense darkness of the night,—the roaring of the wind,—the foamy rushing of the sea,—the noise of the ropes, and the indistinct cries of the despairing mariners, together with reiterated peals of thunder rolling over our heads for an amazing length of time and ending in a tremendous crash, gave existence to the most frightful picture that human imagination is capable of painting, or perhaps that human nature could sustain. ”

“ The lightning would flash with intolerable brilliancy, and immediately would follow the thunder with a rattling leap as if springing from its lair, and then with a deafening, awful weight, as if it had fallen and been splintered into pieces in the sky. ”

“ The clouds within a little time have gathered over all the sky, hanging heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. At intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers, disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling slowly after its twin-born flame. ”

“ From time to time a broad sheet of lightning opened the horizon in its whole width, darted like a serpent over the black mass of trees, and like a terrible scimitar divided the heavens and the waters into two parts. ”

“ But lo! the dark cloud rises by degrees; it grows black as night, and big with tempests; it spreads as it rises to the mid-heaven, and now hangs directly over us; the flashes of lightning grow broad and strong, and, like sheets of ruddy fire, they blaze terribly all round the hemisphere. ”

“ When we hear the thunder rumbling in some distant quarter of the heavens, we sit calm and serene amidst our business or diversions; we feel no terrors about us, and apprehend no danger. When we see the slender streaks of lightning play afar off in the horizon of an evening sky, we look on and amuse ourselves as with an agreeable spectacle, without the least fear or concern. ”

“ Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our corral of train-wagons. Crashing peals of thunder were in the air, and the bolts seemed to descend to the earth around us. ”

“ Whenever the clouds, menacing destruction, discharged their lightnings, sea and land, human beings and animals, far and near, were illumined by the brilliant glare, while the waters and the sky above were tinged with a sulphurous yellow hue through which the vivid lightning shone and flamed as through a wall of yellow glass. ”

“ Suddenly a flash of lightning, so lurid that the whole heavens were illumined, followed by a crash of thunder, rolling as it seemed in the nethermost parts of the earth and in the heavens above, struck English and Indians alike with terror. ”

“ As a flash of lightning in the duration of the night, so is the life of man in the duration of nature. When one looks out on a storm at night, he sees for an instant the landscape illumined by the lightning-flash. ”

“ From all quarters were gathering storms of the blackest description, each cloud emitting lightning without intermission, and as the sun touched the horizon upon the only clear point, it illumined like a fire the pitch-black clouds, producing the most extraordinary effect of vivid colouring, combined with lightning, and a rainbow. ”

“ Loud burst the thunder's clap and yawning rents
Gash'd the frail garments of the elements;
Then sudden whirlwinds, wing'd with purple flame
And lightning's flash, in stronger terrors came,
Burning all life and Nature where they fell,
And leaving earth as desolate as hell. ”

“ Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster-shapes, striding across the gloom, hustling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade ”

“ It would seem as if lightning were a subtle being—a medium between the unconscious force which lives in [91] plants and the conscious force in animals. It is like an elemental spirit, keen, capricious, malicious or stupid, far-seeing or blind, wilful or indifferent, passing from one extreme to another, and of a unique and terrifying character. We see it twisting into space, moving with astonishing dexterity among men, appearing and disappearing with the rapidity ... of lightning ... it is impossible to define its nature. ”

“ It was one of those hot, silent, nights, when people sit at windows, listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea struck by lightning. Lightning flashed and quivered on the black horizon even now; and hollow murmurings were in the wind, as though it had been blowing where the thunder rolled, and still was charged with its exhausted echoes. ”

“ Suddenly the deafening noise sank into a solemn murmur, and the lightning, which had hitherto played in flashes and forked darts, hovered for a few seconds between the clouds and the earth, circling round and round, causing the whole heavens to appear on fire, when a similar luminous appearance seemed to burst from the ground, and, rising, the mass rushed upwards to the sky. ”

“ The lightning, that fierce spirit of the storm, that darted down on its mission of destruction from the black cloud floating in the sky, became a thing of interest to the mechanical world, and the question was asked, 'Why cannot the lightning be harnessed into the service of man, and be made utilitarian?' Philosophy sneered at the wild delusion, but see how that same subtle and mysterious agency has been conquered? ”

“ No earthly scene perhaps could surpass the appalling sublimity of that which they beheld;—every instant the lightning, which became more and more frequent, converting the black waters into billows of living fire, or wreathing itself in lurid spires around the huge crag that now rose in sight ”

“ Cross of Fire
By LESTER DEL REY
A strange tale of the Undead
THAT rain! Will it never stop? My clothes are soaked, my body frozen. But at least the lightning is gone. Strange; I haven’t seen it since I awoke. There was lightning, I think. I can’t seem to remember anything clearly, yet I am sure there was a fork of light in the sky; no, not a fork; it was like a cross.
That’s silly, of course. Lightning can’t form a cross. ”

“ Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate lightning, and flattering lightning: lightning, sure, is a threatening thing. And this lightning must gild a storm. Now, if I must conform my smiles to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm too: to gild with smiles, is a new invention of gilding. And gild a storm by being backed with thunder. Thunder is part of the storm; so one part of the storm must help to gild another part, and help by backing; as if a man would gild a thing the better for being backed, or having a load upon his back. ”

“ For some hours lightning is seen without intermission: sometimes it only illuminates the sky, and shows the clouds near the horizon; at others, it discovers the distant hills, and again leaves all in darkness; when, in an instant, it reappears in vivid and successive flashes, and exhibits the nearest objects in all the brightness of day. ”

“ If the red lightning and the crimson cloud could change relations to men’s ideas of good and evil, the one as the harbinger of summer rain and the other as a visit of death, the lightning would be a thing of beauty and the cloud a terror. ”

“ The reader has undoubtedly felt the chill of sudden obscurity when the mellow light of a declining summer sun had been intercepted by a thunder gust, and the startling effect produced by the lightning’s dazzling gleam that makes murky darkness palpable after its transient blaze. ”

“ To the former class the lightning belongs, beautifully playing among the distant clouds, or flashing with blinding glare and tremendous effect near the surface of the earth, warning man and beast of the presence of an agency able to extinguish animal and vegetable life in a moment, and utterly inappreciable in its swiftness, subtility and power. ”

“ Whether the lightning bewildered me and made me take a false turn, I cannot tell; for the hardest thing to understand, in intellectual as well as moral mistakes, is—how we came to go wrong. But after wandering for some time, plunged in meditation, and with no warning whatever of the presence of inimical powers, a brilliant lightning-flash showed me that at least I was not near home. The light was prolonged for a second or two by a slight electric pulsation; and by that I distinguished a wide space of blackness on the ground in front of me. ”