138 TlIUNDKUnOLTS 



gentlciiiaii in ill-fittin;^' Hiiiall clotlics, bring it down from 

 tho clouda "witli a siuiplc! door-koy, sonicwlioro near Tiiila- 

 dc'lphia? and docs not Mr. Ilobcrt Scott (of tlio Meteoro- 

 logical Ofliee) calndy predict its probable occurrence witbiii 

 tlio next twenty-four bours in bis daily re|)ort, as publisbed 

 regularly in tbc morning jjapers? Tbis is ligbtning, nu'ro 

 vulgar ligbtning, a sinkplo result of electrical conditions 

 in tbo upper atniospbere, inconveniently connected witb 

 algebraical formulas in x, ij, z, witb borrid syndjols inter- 

 spersed in Greek betters. But tbo real tbunderbolts of 

 Jove, the weapons tbat tlie angry Zeus, or Tbor, or Indra 

 liurls down upon tbo bead of tbo trembling malefactor — 

 bow inlinitely grander, more fearsome, and more myste- 

 rious ! 



And yet even nowadays, I believe, there are a large 

 number of well-informed people, who have passed the sixth 

 standard, taken prizes at the Oxford Local, and attended 

 the dullest lectures of the Society for University Extension, 

 but who nevertheless in some vague and dim corner of their 

 consciousness retain somehow a lingering faith in tbo 

 existence of thunderbolts. They have not yet grasped in 

 its entirety the simple truth tbat ligbtning is the reality of 

 which tbunderbolts are the mythical, or fanciful, or verbal 

 representation. We all of us know now that lightning is 

 a mere Hash of electric light a) id beat ; tbat it has no solid 

 existence or core of any sort ; in short, tbat it is dynamical 

 rather than material, a state or movement rather than a 

 body or thing. To be sure, local newspa])crs still talk 

 ■with much show of learning about * the electric fluid ' 

 which did such remarkable damage last week upon the 

 slated steeple of Peddlington Torpida Church ; but tho 

 well-crammed schoolboy of the present day has long since 

 learned that the electric fluid is an exploded fallacy, and 

 that the lightning which pulled the ten slates oif the 



