It would seem as if lightning pitied the feeble—the women and children.
We hear of cases where people were struck several times during the same storm without succumbing to its manifold attacks.
"In two similar situations," says Arago, "one man, according to the nature of his constitution, runs more risk than another. There are some exceptional people who are not conductors to the fulminating matter, and who neither receive nor pass on a shock. As a rule, they must be ranked among the non-conductor bodies that the lightning respects, or, at least, that it strikes rarely. Such decided differences could not exist without there being finer shades. Thus each degree of conductibility corresponds during the time of a storm to a certain degree of danger. The man who conducts like a metal will be struck as often as a metal, while the man who cuts off the communication in the chain, will have almost as little to fear as if he were made of glass or resin. Between these limits there will be found individuals whom lightning might strike as it would strike wood, stones, etc. Thus, in the phenomena of lightning, everything does not depend on the place that a man may occupy; his physical constitution will have something to do with it."
The phantasmagoria of lightning leaves us perplexed. All these observations are extraordinary and very disconcerting. The facts contradict each other, and lead us to no actual conclusion.
The Gazette de Cologne gave the following case in June, 1867:—
At Czempin, a young girl of eighteen was struck by lightning while she was working near a hearth. She remained unconscious, in spite of all the efforts made to revive her. At last, acting on the advice of an old man, they placed her in a freshly dug ditch, and covered her body with earth, but in such a way as to avoid stifling her. After some hours she recovered consciousness, and was restored to health.
Sometimes lightning amuses itself nicely and innocently. It mixes in the society of men without doing them harm, or leaving any remembrance but a great fear.
One day lightning entered by the chimney into the middle of a lively dance at M. Van Gestien's, the innkeeper at Flone (Belgium). At the sight of it the dancers were petrified with terror, and not one could try and escape. But they misunderstood the intentions of the lightning, which were of the most straightforward; it only wanted to be a spoil-sport. It also had the good taste to depart quietly.
After the first excitement a profound stupefaction seized hold of the persons present; they were all transformed into niggers. The lightning had swept the chimney, and cast the soot into the ball-room, powdering all the faces and toilettes.
Lightning might be the daughter of goblins rather than a messenger from Olympus. The following facts might confirm this impression:—