"Omen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do—Woman of evil omen, you who stir up man's courage with your scent of blood, whence do you come and where do you lead me? I loved you before I saw you, for I trembled when I heard them speak of you. And when I saw you in the doorway, your soul poured itself into mine. And when you left, I could still feel your presence ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... after Velasquez had left our camp to visit Narvaez, the drum beat to arms, and our little army set forwards on our march for Chempoalla. We killed two wild hogs on our way, which our soldiers considered as a good omen of our ultimate success. We halted for the night on the side of a rivulet, having the ground for a bed, stones for our pillows, and heaven for our canopy, and arrived next day at the place where the city of Vera Cruz is now built, which was then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... When they came to tell of the beauty of the Princess of Root-Valley, the wooden heart of Prince Nutcracker, as he listened to their description, warmed so, that a sound shot through it as if a deal board were cracking and splitting in a room suddenly heated. This sound he regarded as an omen; this and no other Princess was to be his Queen. He therefore resolved instantly to go with all his People to where the Princess lived, and sue ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... now ceased raining and the clouds were breaking. Mary Isabel thought that a good omen. She and the doctor watched Tommy from the window. They saw Louisa come to the door, take the note, and shut the door in Tommy's face. Ten minutes later she reappeared, habited in her mackintosh, with her second-best ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and gems, and with a brilliant golden fringe. Pao-yue promptly received it from her, and upon minute examination, found that there were in fact four characters on each side; the eight characters on both sides forming two sentences of good omen. The similitude of the locket is likewise then given below. On the face ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... matter of the men whom I had seen condemned yesterday; and even of that I did not know much more than of the packet. His Majesty had not spoken of them, except to ask questions at the beginning; and this seemed as a bad omen to me. Yet I had the King's word on it that they should not suffer; and, when I considered, there was no obligation or even any reason at all that he should talk out the matter with myself. Yet, though I presently ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... furniture arrived, together with the other things we had bought, and the men who brought them over from the steamboat landing had the brightest, merriest faces I ever noticed among that class of people. Euphemia said it was an excellent omen to have such cheerful fellows come to us on the very ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... acute Frenchman remarked during the Franco-German War, that Prince Bismarck had taken Cavour's conception without what made it really great—liberty. Possibly that word may still prove of better omen to the rebirth of a nation than "Blood ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... reflections by the discovery, in a neighbouring pew, of the serious profile and neatly-trimmed beard of Mr. Percy Gryce. There was something almost bridal in his own aspect: his large white gardenia had a symbolic air that struck Lily as a good omen. After all, seen in an assemblage of his kind he was not ridiculous-looking: a friendly critic might have called his heaviness weighty, and he was at his best in the attitude of vacant passivity which brings out the oddities ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... in a day, my ground was barren and my bed-rock swept clean by that unseen hand which I always felt but could never avoid. I leased proven properties, only to find that the pay ceased without reason. I did this so frequently that owners began to refuse me and came to consider me a thing of evil omen. Once a broken snow-shoe in a race to the recorder's office lost me a fortune; at another time a corrupt judge plunged me from certainty to despair, and all the while my time was growing shorter and I was ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... hands of the children of Montreal, and the Province of Quebec generally, will be for the good of the Dominion. Certainly the attitude of the people as shown in the packed and ecstatic streets of Montreal was a very good omen. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the faint distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the Angelus. Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation. The Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some miraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange significance. With the last faint peal his glowing fancy seemed to cool; the fog closed in below him, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... of payment, passed away without hearing from my brother. I had never laid any stress upon the promise, but drew a bad omen from this failure. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... was brought out, and no more auspicious omen could have been furnished Mrs. Halliday than the fact that, except in several unimportant details, Sally could have put it on and worn it, just as it was. Not only did it fit, but the intervening years had brought back into style ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... it with superstitious feelings, but whether as an omen of good or evil she would not tell. On all matters connected with her religious notions she was shy and reserved, though occasionally she unconsciously revealed them. Thus the warnings of death or misfortunes were revealed to her by certain ominous sounds in the woods, the appearance ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... frequently, because the coach made me travel-sick, it so happened that during the night, when my companions were asleep, the cap fell into the road. The coach, drawn by six vigourous horses, was going at top speed. I did not dare have it stopped and so I lost my cap. A bad omen! But I was to suffer far worse things in the terrible campaign which we were about to undertake. This incident upset me a good deal, but I said nothing about it for fear of being chaffed about the way the new soldier was ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... rustle in the breeze. Only once or twice in a lifetime does the forest dweller see poplar leaves curl up and die like that, baked to death in the summer sun. It is Kiskewahoon (the Danger Signal). Not only the warning of possible death in a holocaust of fire, but the omen of poor hunting and trapping in ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... or heard of in Wrangell. Some wakeful Indians, happening to see it about midnight, in great alarm aroused the Collector of Customs and begged him to go to the missionaries and get them to pray away the frightful omen, and inquired anxiously whether white men had ever seen anything like that sky-fire, which instead of being quenched by the rain was burning brighter and brighter. The Collector said he had heard of such strange fires, and this one he thought might perhaps be ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... poorly dressed and pushed about as I was. When the surge again gave him footing, he spoke beside me. "'Now that this is over, they might do some great, worthy thing!' Very true, friend, they might! I take your words for good omen." The throng shot out an arm and we were parted. The same action brought back to me Diego Lopez. Speaking to him later of the tall man, he said that he had noticed him, and that it was the Italian who would go to India ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... fortune of the Roman people seem over great to any god or man, I pray that such jealousy may be appeased by my own loss rather than by the damage of the State." But as he turned him after making this prayer he stumbled and fell. And this omen was judged by them that interpreted it by the things that followed, to look first to the condemnation of Camillus by the people, and second to the great overthrow of the city at the hands of the Gauls; both of which ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... from my chains with evil omen did I come; now I perceive that with like ill omen to my bonds I must ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... forth From south to north, No longer let your iron tongues be dumb: Up to the rafters swing, Make all the country ring An omen of a Happy ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... watched alone. Willet, although weary, was in high spirits. They had come marvelously through many perils, and Tayoga's achievement in rescuing Grosvenor, he repeated to himself, was well nigh miraculous. After such startling luck they could not fail, and an omen of continued good fortune was the fact they had encountered the trail of Black Rifle. He would be a powerful addition to their little force, when found, and Willet did not doubt that they would overtake him. The only problem that really worried him now was that ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rapidly round, fearful sounds filled the building, thousands of ravens and birds of ill omen croaked loudly and flapped their wings, and all the doors opened with ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... A third strangely significant omen was the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, by five different French Departments, as a deputy to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... onward—seems, Like precipices in our dreams,[267] To stretch beyond the sight; And here and there a speck of white, 610 Or scattered spot of dusky green, In masses broke into the light, As rose the moon upon my right: But nought distinctly seen In the dim waste would indicate The omen of a cottage gate; No twinkling taper from afar Stood like a hospitable star; Not even an ignis-fatuus rose[268] To make him merry with my woes: 620 That very cheat had cheered me then! Although detected, welcome still, Reminding me, through every ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... thought, for as I drew nearer, still concealing myself behind the ridge, I saw that thick bars of iron covered the windows, while the old door was slashed and plated with the same metal. These strange precautions, together with the wild surroundings and unbroken solitude, gave an indescribably ill omen and fearsome character to the solitary building. Thrusting my pipe into my pocket, I crawled upon my hands and knees through the gorse and ferns until I was within a hundred yards of my neighbour's door. There, finding that I could not approach nearer without fear of detection, I crouched down, and ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... does not care much for our democratic levelling tendencies; she loves only old families, and despises the parvenu or the nouveau riche. When more than one banshee is present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some holy or great one. An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is '. . . an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a Dullahan.' A Dullahan is the most terrible thing in the world. In ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... 'A bad omen,' said Wilhelmine; 'I strike a chord and I achieve dissonance and wailing.' She threw back her head and pressed her fingers on the keyboard: this time a thin flute-like chord came forth, and Wilhelmine lifted ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... evil omen, traitor to Uglik, attempted slayer of Invar and me, I offer you!" cried ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... Charenton; for it is mightily to be feared that whoever thinks to get to heaven under the auspices of so foul a guide will be a whole world awry in his calculations. Woe to that church (only God avert the omen!) where such ministers please, mainly by tickling the ears,—ministers whom the Church, if she would truly be called Reformed, would more fitly cast out ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... introduction you have so happily obtained from her weighs more with me than any other that you could have had. Let me welcome you to your own home, as it were. But see, your hand is bleeding, where the burr pricked you. Is this an omen, also? If our first meeting brings bloody wounds, I fear you ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... was looking at, the ill-favoured thing that was hanging from my old love's hand, was none other than a flag of evil omen—a pirate's flag, the barbarous piece of bunting that they call the Jolly Roger. There could be no doubt of that—no doubt whatever. I had heard of that flag and read of it, and now I was looking at it with my own eyes; and a light seemed to be let in upon my mind, and ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... care. For many a day Thurston had not come thus far out of himself, and his doing so now was hailed as a happy omen by ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... about the house all winter. Whenever the door was opened, they would fly to the little girl. The parents feared that this might be a bad omen, and that the little ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... woods one day found a great nest of Indian pipe. She bent listlessly to pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to herself that they were like some beautiful dead thing; and then she came upon a delicate flush on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and wondered if it were an omen. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... birthday. I am superstitious by nature, and I would have given anything to celebrate it with some lucky event, although I was at a loss to think of anything lucky that could have happened to me there. Indeed, I began my new year badly—much worse even than I expected. That was an ill-omen to me. First of all there was a terrible row among my men in camp. They had taken to their rifles. They wanted to shoot the cook. The man deserved punishment, perhaps, but not quite so severe a one. After a great deal of arguing I quieted them and got them to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sudden flash of light through the cells of my brain reminded me of that scene of love and death in the vision of the artist's studio when the name 'Cosmo de Medicis' had been whispered like an evil omen. The murderer in that dream- picture had worn a collar of jewels precisely similar to the one I now saw; but I could only keep silence and listen with every nerve strained to utmost attention while Santoris took the ornament in his hand and looked at it with an intent earnestness in which ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... was forced to renounce the prize. On his way back he doubled the Cape, which, from his former experience, he called the Cape Tempestuous, until the king, showing that he understood, gave it a name of better omen. Nevertheless, Portugal did no more for ten years, the years that were made memorable by Spain. Then, under a new king, Emmanuel the Fortunate, Vasco da Gama went out to complete the unfinished work of Diaz, lest Columbus, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of unity in England which made the Norman Conquest possible. If Harold's own brother, Tostig, had not turned traitorously against him, or if the north country had stood squarely by the south, Duke William might have found his fall on the beach an omen full of disaster. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the exchange, and regard the transaction in the light of an omen, an epoch. I have been craving for something different from the facts of Bordereau, who has been my companion all these days. A solid little piece of work, by the way, which often set me wondering whether our British public would ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Spaniards suffered a heavy loss in men and munitions of war. Belgrano, then in turn advanced and made once again for Salta. In the neighbourhood of this town the Argentine flags were carried into battle for the first time, and their presence was welcomed as a favourable omen, for the victory remained with the patriot forces. Belgrano showed himself generous as a victor by liberating the great majority of his prisoners on parole, which, it is regrettable to state, large ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... open door. The tents lay silent in the moonshine, but wayward lights flickered in the sumptuous dusk, and the quiet of the hills hung like a canopy over the bivouac of the little army. No token of misfortune came out of this peaceful encampment, no omen of disaster crossed the long lane of drowsy fires and huge amorous shadows. The sense of doom was in the girl's own heart, not in this deep cradle of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was one of evil omen to the hapless garrison. It came from General Webb, and repeated that, until reinforced from the provinces, he could do nothing for the garrison of Fort William Henry; and advised Colonel Monro to make the best terms that he could with the enemy, ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 'Very good.' How can we legislate about these consecrated strains without incurring ridicule? Moulds or types must be first framed, and one of the types shall be—Abstinence from evil words at sacrifices. When a son or brother blasphemes at a sacrifice there is a sound of ill-omen heard in the family; and many a chorus stands by the altar uttering inauspicious words, and he is crowned victor who excites the hearers most with lamentations. Such lamentations should be reserved for evil days, and should be uttered only by hired mourners; and let the singers not ...
— Laws • Plato
... that "the raven or crow transfixed by an arrow is the crest of the coat-of-arms of the name of Leland, or of my own. I sincerely trust that Bussli, the first who bore it, did not acquire the right to do so by shooting a clergyman." As a single crow is an omen of ill-luck, so the same transfixed signifies misfortune overcome, or the forcible ending of evil influences by a strong will. It is a common belief or saying among all the Lelands, however widely related, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... quitted her sister, went past many doors—which had been thrown open after sunrise—hastily returning the greetings of many strange as well as familiar faces, for all glanced after her kindly as though to see her thus early were an omen of happy augury, and she soon reached an outbuilding adjoining the northern end of the Pastophorium; here there was no door, but at the level of about a man's height from the ground there were six unclosed windows opening on the road. From the first of these the pale and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... those highspirited youths who a few months before had eagerly volunteered to march against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, self-willed tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of all sorts, with long thorns and hooks, hanging from all the branches. Mysterious flames seemed to be bursting forth, wavering and flickering in the dark recesses of the forest, while amid the boughs flew birds of evil omen, night-owls, and ravens, and bats, and other winged things of hideous form, with harsh and croaking voices. Within this forest, so Saint David had learned, stood the ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... of good omen," he returned. "From this moment I shall forget Christie Maclaire, and remember only Miss Hope. All right, Neb; now turn over a chair, and sit your man up against it. He will rest all the easier in that position ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... processes with a power of a thousand millions; C will discover the commencement of the Millennium, and D the {193} termination of Ersch and Gruber's Lexicon,[336] as mere physical phenomena. Against this glorious future there is a sad omen: the initials of the forerunner of this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... when General Walker was attacking the Costa-Ricans in Rivas, the dog entered the plaza ahead of the rest, and, finding there one of his own species, he forthwith seized him, and shook him, and put him to flight howling,—giving an omen so favorable, that the greasers were driven out of the town with ease by the others. Even his every-day life was sublime, and elevated above the habit of vulgar dogs. He allowed no man to think himself his master, or attach him individually by liberal feeding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... law.[529] Barlow had been openly preaching that purgatory was a delusion; that a layman might be a bishop; that where two or three, it might be, "cobblers or weavers," "were in company in the name of God, there was the church of God."[530] Such ill-judged precipitancy was of darker omen to the Reformation than papal excommunications or imperial menaces, and would soon be dearly paid for in fresh martyr-fires. Latimer, too, notwithstanding his clear perception and gallant heart, looked with bitterness on the confiscation of establishments which his mind ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... is natural at the beginning of most enterprises, and there were some who dreaded a "hitch" with superstitious fear, as if it would be a bad omen. But ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... apparatus of the compass dashed to pieces upon the deck; on which one of the young mates, emphatically regarding it for a moment, cried out with the emotion so natural to a sailor under such circumstances, "What! is the Kent's compass really gone?" leaving the bystanders to form, from that omen, their own conclusions. One promising young officer of the troops was seen thoughtfully removing from his writing-case a lock of hair, which he composedly deposited in his bosom; and another officer procuring paper and pens, addressed a short communication to his ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... remember Egypt," he said in the very eye of that French battery playing through us. And the next omen was that he was struck off his horse, and fell on his back to the ground. I remembered Egypt, and what had just happened too, so thorough well that I remembered the way over this wall!—Captain Hardinge, who was close to him, jumped off his horse, and he and one in the ranks lifted him, and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... first night that will be when the Right Reverend Dr. WILLARD and the Reverend HENRY AUTHOR JONES find that some play has been produced in the presence of an audience composed entirely of Dissenters! Absit omen! This may never happen if only serious persons in orders, or rather with orders, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... impulse seized the drummer boy. He glanced at his torn sleeve, from which the badge had been shot away, and thought there was something besides accident in what appeared so much like an omen. If it meant any thing, was it not that his place was elsewhere than in ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... along with his books, have made his name known in all the civilised countries of the world. Some of Eucken's most important works have already appeared in half a dozen languages. The demand for them increases everywhere. This receptivity is a good omen of better days. The world is beginning to get tired of the mechanism and shallowness of our age, and is once more on the point of turning to the spiritual fountains of life. Where can it find a better guide to lead it to the waters of life than ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... ostentation, parade, pomp, splurge. Show, exhibit, display, expose, manifest, evince. Shrink, flinch, wince, blench, quail. Shun, avoid, eschew. Shy, bashful, diffident, modest, coy, timid, shrinking. Sign, omen, auspice, portent, prognostic, augury, foretoken, adumbration, presage, indication. Simple, innocent, artless, unsophisticated, naive. Skilful, skilled, expert, adept, apt, proficient, adroit, dexterous, deft, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... that in the midst of dinner in the hall, on the Sunday, the 5th of February, the meine of the Castle were startled by the arrival of Mr. Beale, the Clerk of the Council, always a bird of sinister omen, and accompanied by a still more alarming figure a strong burly man clad in black velvet from head to foot. Every one knew who he was, and a thrill of dismay, that what had been so long expected had come at last, went through all who saw him pass through the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... piazza-steps, and began to peer into the long windows, at the blackness within. He did not at once notice that the shutters were open, with an effect of reckless security or indifference, which struck a pang to his heart when he realized it. He felt the evil omen of this faltering in the vigilance which had once guarded his home, and which he had been the first to break down, and lay it open to spoil and waste. He tried the windows; he must get in, somehow, and he did not dare to ring at the door, or to call out. He must steal into his house, as he had stolen ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... sickening the terror of it which their own wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that during Ascott's childhood and youth his very fractiousness and roughness, his little selfishness, and his persistence in his own will against theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as a good omen that he would grow up "so unlike ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Rodolphe. "Our meeting with the poet who has sung of love so well is a good omen, and will bring luck to ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... out their usual contribution of steers and cows, consigned to the care of the firm, which was now giving more attention to quality than quantity. The absence of the men from the Northwest at the cattle convention that spring was taken as an omen that the upper country would soon be satiated, a hint that retrenchment was in order, and a better class of stock was to receive the firm's attention in its future operations. My personal contingent of steers would have ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... ELLEN,—I return the note, which is highly characteristic, and not, I fear, of good omen for the comfort of your visit. There must be something wrong in herself as well as in her servants. I inclose another note which, taken in conjunction with the incident immediately preceding it, and with a long series of indications whose ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... to indicate that the corpse they bore—owed, his death to a deed of murder. The circumstance of the sun glancing his rays upon the coffin was not unobserved by the peasantry, who considered it as a good omen to the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... draw not Your hand away, Count Piccolimini! Not on my own account alone I seized it, And nothing common will I say therewith. [Taking the hands of both. Octavio—Max. Piccolomini! O savior names, and full of happy omen! Ne'er will her prosperous genius turn from Austria, While two such stars, with blessed influences Beaming protection, shine above ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... his scouting boats were constantly on the look-out. They could always communicate with Togo's flagship by wireless telegraphy. And now currents passing through the air announced that the Russian fleet was in sight, and was in the square numbered 203. This number was considered a good omen by the Japanese, for the fate of the fortress of Port Arthur was sealed when the Japanese took a fort called "203-metre Hill" (Port Arthur, which lies on the coast of the Chinese mainland, had fallen into the hands of the Japanese on ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... will you? There's a light in the shanty! What do you think of the meanness of that? After we've come all the way up here just to keep to ourselves, then to find somebody camping on the ground! Shucks! It makes me feel as if it was a bad omen, and right in the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... that glowed with richest tints of purple and amethyst and rose, in the level light of afternoon. And Quita, being in a fanciful mood, saw in this "good gigantic smile" of the rain-soaked earth a happy omen; an assurance that so would the mists rise from her own life, and the sunlight prevail. A sudden recollection of the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... joyously. "Such weather as this is a good omen. How do you do, Miss Glazzard? Here is Lilian all excitement to see you; she would give her little finger to go to ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... cry, the omen is not thine, Thou aged priestess of fell doom, and fate. It is not blood: thy gods are making wine, They spilt the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... bud and leaf Dorothy Thornton looked out of her window with a psychological anxiety. If the first hint of life that came to the great tree were diseased or marked with blight, it would be an omen of ill under which she did not see how she could face her hour, and with fevered eyes she searched the gray branches where the sap was rising and studied the earliest tinge ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... had remembered her shrewd mother's hints, and her own later fears, concerning the insecurity of his position: and had studied his tired and worn face for an equivocal sign. But this smile, self-confident and firm, was not the smile of a ruined man; and his flashing glance seemed to be an omen of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... bursting into leaf, contributed much to establish me in this frame of mind. The hateful mist, which had so greatly depressed us, had disappeared; leaving the face of the country visible in all the brilliance of early spring. The men who rode before us, cheered by the happy omen, laughed and talked as they rode, or tried the paces of their horses, where the trees grew sparsely; and their jests and laughter coming pleasantly to our ears as we followed, warmed even madame's sad face to a ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... as an omen. He was delighted with the sun—it rose out of a sack and grew brighter and brighter in the course of the day. It was never lucky for the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... return home." I was weeping like a child. "Jatinda's callous departure is an ill omen. This trip is doomed ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... profound admiration; but they do not know his nephew, nor have they ever been brought into any relations whether of trade or diplomacy with France. Moreover, the words, "ally," and "protector," have become almost words of ill-omen in the Caucasus, from the fact that the Russians, like the Persians and the Turks before them, have always used these terms to mask their designs of interference and ultimate conquest. The wily Imam therefore distrusts the Franks though dona ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... omen, but it was not favorable, and they were starting home when the brother-in-law asked Lumawig to create some water, as the people ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... of death to see a flower blossoming out of season, as, for example, a rose in the fall. This has proved a true omen in several cases, according to the experience of a lady who believes in these signs. In consequence of this belief, when she has such a a flower, she will pick it off the stem and throw it away, without mentioning the incident to any one. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign (B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony, and took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which a peculiar sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had proceeded ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... general change of weather with a tendency towards rain. If Dr. Forster's theory be true, it is decidedly one of the minor instances, as far as London weather is concerned.—It will take a good deal of evidence to make us believe in the omen of a Saturday Moon. But, as we have said of the Poughkeepsie Seer, the thing is very curious whether true or false. Whence comes this universal proverb—and a hundred others—while the meteorological observer {323} cannot, when he puts down a long series of results, detect ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... her brothers-in-law of that crime, she knew that in them she had two implacable enemies. This journey to a little town, this abode in a lonely castle, amid new, unknown neighbours, seemed to her of no good omen; but open opposition would have been ridiculous. On what grounds, indeed, could she base resistance? The marquise could only own her terrors by accusing her husband and her brothers-in-law. And of what could she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the spot and watched the R.F.C. extract the pilot and parts of the machine, which was deeply embedded in the hole. For hours the wreckage remained the centre of attraction to many visitors. The General hailed the burnt relics, not inappropriately, as a lucky omen. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... till they sold like damaged goods at a sheriff's auction. But Tonsor, the lucky agent, kept his counsel. Daily he attended the sales at the Board, with apparently exhaustless resources, bearing pitilessly, triumphantly, until the unlucky bulls came to think the sight of his face was an ill omen. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... solemn music a funereal dirge, Wild and most sorrowful. His cheek is pale, The worm that prey'd upon thy youthful bloom It canker'd green on his. Now lost he stands, The ghost of what he was, and the cold dew, Which bathes his aching temples, gives sure omen Of speedy dissolution. Mary, soon Thy love will lay his pallid cheek to thine, And sweetly will he sleep ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... incoming lower class of superstitious Germans, Irish, Sicilians, and others—he became an omen and embodiment of public and private ill-fortune. Upon him all the vagaries of their superstitions gathered and grew. If a house caught fire, it was imputed to his machinations. Did a woman go off in a fit, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... hill at the entrance of my native village, whence I had looked back to bid farewell, and forward to the pale mist-bow that overarched my path, and was the omen of my fortunes. How I had misinterpreted that augury, the ghost of hope, with none of hope's bright hues! Nor could I deem that all its portents were yet accomplished, though from the same western sky the declining sun shone brightly in my face. But I was calm and not depressed. Turning to the ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... explained the whole difficulty years before, by reporting a conversation of his with Lord Grenville, in which they had hoped that when the Whigs came into power they would be more grateful to Sydney than the Tories had been to Swift. Sydney's acuteness must have made him wince at the omen. For my part I do not see why either Harley or Grey should have hesitated, as far as any scruples of their own went. But I think any fair-minded person must admit the possibility of a scruple, though he may not ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... cleft, through which she seemed to have flitted, looked as though it had not been disturbed for centuries, and as he tried to force his way to the gloomy cavern below, a crowd of bats and owls and other foul birds of evil omen, aroused from their repose, rose upwards, and, amidst dismal hootings and fearful cries, almost flung him backward with the violence of their flight. He spent the remainder of the afternoon in search of the lost one, but ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... a turn in the creek left him out of sight. That danger was safely passed, and Fred Ashman drew a sigh of relief, accepting it as a good omen of their future. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, when God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid. She will shed over your enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was open war with the Jesuits for which those stouthearted sailors longed. All were afraid of secret mischief. The diplomatists—who were known to be flitting about France, Flanders, Scotland, and England—were birds of ill omen. King James was beset by a thousand bribes and expostulations to avenge his mother's death; and although that mother had murdered his father, and done her best to disinherit himself, yet it was feared that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... certain sorcerers were wont to ensnare the mother bird with her young during incubation, and to employ them for the purpose of securing fruitfulness and good luck in bringing up children: also because it was held to be a good omen to find the mother ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro—those birds of infinite ill omen—she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... fruitful year. At present I should scarcely think there is an individual who believes in such superstitious stuff. But they still, as in days of yore, kindle fires upon the mountains on this night, and still look upon it as a bad omen, if any common or ugly-formed creature, whether beast or man, makes its appearance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... words when the neighing of Rocinante fell upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time. Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor replied that in his ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... as Clara continued to indulge in his hilarity, it was evident he had obtained the permission asked for. At all events, Don Cornelio and Costal regarded his behaviour as a good omen. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... March arrived, and with it the end of Lincoln's blundering. One good omen for the success of the new Administration was the presence of Douglas on the inaugural platform. He had accepted fate, deeply as it wounded him, and had come out of the shattered party of evasion on the side of his section. For the purpose of showing his support of the administration ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the first book of his History, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when after the taking of auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas [Youth] and Terminus would not allow themselves to be moved.'[110] This omen was welcomed with universal rejoicing, for they believed that it portended an eternal empire. The youth is useful for ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... been too much engrossed with her own affairs during her only visit to Miss Thomson to observe Peggy's birds, but she drew a good omen form the coincidence of Miss Thomson's assistance being given so frankly to two women both in distress ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... discharged and conveyed up the country. Admiral Puke had also ordered three of the largest merchant ships to be fitted as block ships for the additional defence of Carlshamn, which was considered as a bad omen. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... correct, it is almost as much a matter of good luck as of method.... That potatoes should be planted only during the crescent moon, that near the sea people are born at high tide and die at low tide, that a comet is an omen of danger, that bad luck follows the cracking of a mirror," all these are the results of common-sense observation. Matters of common knowledge are thus not infrequently matters ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... for the sugar to melt. The tones of the organ seemed to haunt me, and the wedding of Emma and Louis recurred to my mind. I dressed; the hairdresser called me "Madame" too, and arranged my hair so nicely that I said, I remember, "Things are beginning well; this coiffure is a good omen." I stopped Marie, who wished to lace me tighter than usual. I know that white makes one look stouter and that Marie was right; but I was afraid lest it should send the blood to my head. I have always had a horror of brides who looked as if they had just got up from ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... while you are kissing your child to say with a lisping voice: To-morrow you will die; and to a friend also: To-morrow you will go away or I shall, and never shall we see one another again? But these are words of bad omen—and some incantations also are of bad omen; but because they are useful, I don't care for this; only let them be useful. But do you call things to be of bad omen except those which are significant of some evil? Cowardice is a word of bad omen, and ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... intervening opens his eyes to see the gods aiding the Greeks (712-756). AEneas regains his home. Anchises obstinately refuses to flee, until a halo is seen about the head of Ascanius (757-828), whereupon he accepts the omen and yields. The escape.—In a sudden panic Creusa is lost (829-900). AEneas, at peril of his life, is seeking her throughout the city, when her wraith appears and bids him away. "She is dead in Troytown: in Italy empire awaits him." ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... through suddenly receiving orders to take a circuitous route through the city. On former occasions they had marched out by the Via di Borgo Santi Apostoli, and the campaign had been unsuccessful. It was clear that there was some bad omen connected with the exit through this street against Pisa, and consequently the army was now led out by the Porta Rossa. But as the tents stretched out there to dry had not been taken away, the flags—another bad ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... lets down her veil, The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165 Yet, happy omen, hail! Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale deg. deg.167 (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep The morningless and unawakening sleep Under the flowery oleanders ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... call that an omen!" said Carlo, with forced cheerfulness. "This time, princess, I am the fatum which has alarmed you! It is my own fault that this string broke. It was already injured and half broken this evening when I tuned the guitar, but ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."—But those are words of bad omen.—"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped" ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... clap of thunder shook the solid walls of the cavern. This was immediately followed by a torrent of rain, the plashing of which outside suggested that all the windows of heaven had been suddenly opened. The incident was natural enough in itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he had never before trembled at the disturbances of nature. One glance, however, sufficed to relieve his mind. The dying woman was young. Delicate of constitution by nature, long exposure to ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... spirit which now seized this poor, fugitive remnant of the Tribe of the Little Hills. The speedy and spectacular triumph over a foe so formidable as the giant bull urus was unanimously accepted as an omen of good fortune. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... universally reverenced, as the warnings of the guardian spirits of the tribe. There is in that country a sparrow, of an uncommon species, and not often seen. This bird is called in the Shawnese dialect by a name importing "kind messenger," which they deem always a true omen, whenever it appears, of bad news. They are exceedingly intimidated whenever this bird sings near them; and were it to perch and sing over their war-camp, the whole party would instantly ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Monsieur, no; that is not to be thought of! If you have no better proposals to make, it is not worth while talking.' These words were accompanied with threatening gestures and marks of great anger;" considerably staggering to the Two Diplomatic British gentlemen, and of evil omen to Robinson's phantasm of a compliance. Robinson apologetically hums and hahs, flounders through the bad bit of road as he can; flounderingly indicates that he has more ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... spread to right and left of the South Carolinians. Behind and everywhere except in the cleared space before them gathered the people, a vast mass through which ran the hum and murmur of expectancy. Overhead, the sun leaped out and shone for a while with great brilliancy. "A good omen," many said. And to Harry it all seemed good, too. The excitement, the enthusiasm were contagious. If any prophet of evil was present ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... worst of weather; but there was the usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at the sides, and cords of running toward the middle. Quite enough, at any rate, to make the trout jump, without any omen of impending drought, and to keep all the play and the sway of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... otherwise be continual jars, and broils, and mad doings, if want of wit only did not at the same time make a contented cuckold and a still house; if the cuckoo sing at the back door, the unthinking cornute takes no notice of the unlucky omen of others' eggs being laid in his own nest, but laughs it over, kisses his dear spouse, and all is well. And indeed it is much better patiently to be such a hen-pecked frigot, than always to be wracked ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... eventual and complete settlement. In any case it is clear that the mere fact of a proposal to extend the franchise having been made by the Government, thus frankly recognizing the need to deal with the subject, will be hailed as a good omen and a good beginning ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... spoilers. Cast out sin, and you cast out sorrow. So he first earns his new name of Jerubbaal ('Let Baal plead'), and is known as Baal's antagonist, before he blows the trumpet of revolt. The name is an omen of victory. The hand that had smitten the idol, and had not been withered, would smite Midian. Therefore that new name is used in this chapter, which tells of the preparations for the fight and its triumphant issue. From his home among ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... This was an omen the most favourable he could hope. He now seated himself by the bedside, and determined not to quit her till the expected crisis was past. He gave the strictest orders for the whole house to be kept quiet, and suffered ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay) |
