"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and murderers, because he wanted to abolish the only means of compelling them to a confession, the torture. But Cesare Beccaria had on his side the magic power of truth. He was truly the electric accumulator of his time, who gathered from its atmosphere the presage of the coming revolution, the stirring of the human conscience. You can find a similar illustration in the works of Daquin in Savoy, of Pinel in France, and of Hach Take in England, who strove to bring about a revolution in the treatment of the insane. This episode interests us especially, ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... southwestern Europe. Arles, Lyons, and Treves contend for the honor of being his birthplace, but it is most probable that it was in the latter he first saw the light. Legends, too, are not wanting of extraordinary occurrences which took place during his infancy, that seemed to presage his future greatness. Be these as they may, his life and works, which are before the world, stand in need of no such embellishments, now that they have become matters of history. His father died in his infancy, and his mother returned to Rome, where her wealth and social position enabled her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... detail, implies, indeed, that it was begun, and some progress made in it, while Dante was yet in Florence—begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it—continued afterward in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the Queen of Angels. She already beholds the face of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... mellow light, Like the softened glow of a moonlit night; And the rose on her cheek that came and went, Like the hues of the West when day is spent, Told how the chords of the heart below, Quivered and shrunk at the breath of wo. But why did a presage of coming ill, With a fiercer pang her bosom thrill, And pale her cheek to a deadlier hue, As she sought the spring where the jessamine grew? She had come to meet for a moment there, Ere he sought the field in the strife to share, One who her father had blessed in death, As she pledged her faith ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... and a more prolonged silence. Norgate rose at last to his feet. He walked restlessly to the end of the room and back again. A dark mass of clouds had rolled up; the air seemed almost sulphurous with the presage of a coming storm. They looked ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... again, and ran down its impulsive staccato sentences, affecting to ignore what a gust of fresh air, high spirits, and good fellowship this flimsy bit of paper wafted into the jaded club-room. On reperusal, it was full of evil presage— 'Al scenery'—but what of equinoctial storms and October fogs? Every sane yachtsman was paying off his crew now. 'There ought to be duck'—vague, very vague. 'If it gets cold enough' . . . cold and yachting seemed ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... enough to ruffle the surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war—alike elemental and human—and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and resources ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... King!... Behold, his litter now is coming forth, I see the heralds coming on before.... Hail, royal heralds! Hail and welcome both! How fares my Lord Amfortas' health to-day? I hope his early coming to the bath Doth presage nothing worse. I fain had thought The healing herb that Sir Gawain had found With wisest skill and bravest deed might bring Some quick and ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... kitchen table Is figured with the ancient, circular stains Of the pint-pot's bottom; beer is all the go. And every soul in the servants' hall is able To drink his pint or hers until they grow Glorious with golden beer, and count as gains The glowing draughts that presage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... difficulties of the question—"The fires of civil war," says he, "are raging in Germany. Shall I then cross the sea whither Wotton invites me? I, a German, a lover of firm land, who dread the confinement of an island, who presage its dangers, and must drag along with me my little wife and flock of children?" As Kepler seems to have entertained no doubt of his being well provided for in England, it is the more probable that the British Sovereign had made him a distinct offer through his ambassador. A welcome ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... so still that its atmosphere might have been likened to the night outside, which was heavy with the presage of coming storm. There was a profound feeling of opposing forces at work, yet the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... those who were hurrying to wish the travelers God-speed, nor any of the band who were leaving their homes, but felt the thrilling promise and the presage of that new country toward which the emigrants were ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... am filled with presage That, some fair noon of balmy airs, I shall indite a rude Field Message If Colonels pry in my affairs; Shall tell them simply, "It is early May, And here the daffodils are almost old; About that sentry-group I cannot say—— In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... food, and in that hour Each drew a presage from his dream. When I 'Heard locked beneath me of that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it. His friend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had it from Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was "a sort of emblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to the sight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God and Nature,"[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of the extraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... this man who smoothed out his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew the ravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing the whish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visit did not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for he knew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms; yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which had never disturbed him before. They were birds of death, rapacious and evil-bringing, and they ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... my ponderings and inquiries. There was a conflict of emotion in that mother's face, and shadowed mysteriously in the child's, of which I queried, "Was it fear? was it sorrow? was it adoration and faith? was it a presage of the hour when a sword should pierce through her own soul? Yet, with this, was there not a solemn triumph in the thought that she alone, of all women, had been called to that baptism of anguish? And in that infant face there seemed a foreshadowing ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a valley where travellers seldom escape being plundered, we were obliged to double our pace, and were so happy as to pass it without meeting with any misfortune, except that we heard a bird sing on our left hand—a certain presage among these people of some great calamity at hand. As there is no reasoning them out of superstition, I knew no way of encouraging them to go forward but what I had already made use of on the same occasion, assuring them that I heard one at the same time on the right. They were happily ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... at, take care of; tend'ency; attend' (-ance, -ant); contend'; distend'; extend'; intend' (literally, to stretch to), to purpose, to design; portend' (literally, to stretch forward), to presage, to betoken; pretend' (literally, to stretch forth), to affect, feel; subtend', to extend under; ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... It is a sad presage of an approaching famine (as one well observes), not of bread nor water, but of hearing the word of God, when the thin ears of corn devour the plump full ones; when the lean kine devour the fat ones; when our controversies about ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... the king and queen regent, began to be tumultuous. Reports were whispered about, like certain sounds which announce, as they whistle from wave to wave, the coming storm—and when they pass athwart a multitude, presage an emeute. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a citizen, one so generally beloved, seemed to be universally sunk in despondency; victors and the vanquished were alike in fear. Rinaldo, as if inspired with a presage of his future calamities, in order not to appear deficient to himself or his party, assembled many citizens, his friends, and informed them that he foresaw their approaching ruin for having allowed themselves to be overcome by the prayers, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... after the death of the youngest, not finding her at table, I asked her eldest sister what was become of her? But she, instead of answering, fell a-crying bitterly, from which I formed a fatal presage. I pressed her to inform me of what I asked her. My father, said she, with sobs, I can tell you no more than that my sister put on her best clothes yesterday, and her fine necklace, and went abroad, and has not been heard of since. I made search of my daughter all ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... invaders of this country, by changing the course of the old Nile, so as to water the earth and make it more productive, have brought hither the humidity of their own misty isle. And this strange cold, this mist, light as it still is, seem to presage the end of ages, give an added remoteness and finality to all this dead past, which lies here beneath us in subterranean labyrinths haunted ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... then as I came to Mrs. Cole's, I related to her all that passed, on which she very judiciously concluded, that if he did not come after me there was no harm done, and that, if he did, as her presage suggested to her he would, his character and his views should be well sifted, so as to know whether the game was worth the springes; that in the mean time nothing was easier than my part in it, since no more rested on me than to ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... temples and chapels, which had been vowed first by king Tatius, in the heat of the battle against Romulus, and which he afterwards consecrated and dedicated. In the very beginning of founding this work it is said that the gods exerted their divinity to presage the future greatness of this empire; for though the birds declared for the unhallowing of all the other temples, they did not admit of it with respect to that of Terminus. This omen and augury were taken to import that Terminus's not changing his residence, and being the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... man!"—Words which gave presage of the future character of John Quincy Adams. His education had now commenced: an education in the principles of heroic action, by John Adams, the colossus of the American Revolution. How devoted he was to this important charge, and with what true philosophy he conducted it, may ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself by every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to this task might with such diligence as they used embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my share would herein best appear, and best value itself, by how much more wisely and with more love of virtue ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... and the darkness gathered so that beyond the rim of fire-light there was a black chaos in which the form of all things was lost. It was not a night for talk. It was filled with the whisperings of storm, and to Philip those whisperings were an oppressive presage of the tragedy that lay that night ahead of them. The dogs were harnessed, five that Jean had chosen from the pack; and straight out into the pit of gloom the half-breed led them. In that darkness Philip could see nothing. But not once did Jean falter, and the dogs followed him, occasionally ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... The gods were not long ignorant that these monsters continued to be bred up in Joetunheim, and, having had recourse to divination, became aware of all the evils they would have to suffer from them; their being sprung from such a mother was a bad presage, and from such a sire, one still worse. All-father therefore deemed it advisable to send one of the gods to bring them to him. When they came he threw the serpent into that deep ocean by which the earth is engirdled. But the monster has grown to such an enormous ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... upon whose continual burning depended the prosperity of Rome, according to the belief implicitly held by all Romans from the earliest days until Brinnaria's time, and for centuries after. The extinction of the perpetual fire, whether by accident or by neglect, was looked upon as a presage of frightful disaster to the nation, as an omen of impending horrors, almost as the probable cause of national misfortunes. Without qualification or doubt the people of Brinnaria's world believed that, as long ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... I pray God keep you, for I dimly fear, So dark a presage doth obscure my mind, That we shall ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... sea. This was a hugged delusion until some fool dispelled it by discovering the gun to be a "creuzot" which had been purchased in France by the Transvaal. But it mattered little where it had been purchased; it was a tangible reality, a presage of sanguinary import. It was a time for action; and maybe the picks and shovels did not rise to the occasion! Fort-making was the rage; the men worked with a will—the women acting as hod-carriers—to make the graves in which they hoped to live as deep as possible. All over the city the navvies—amateur ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... coming up over the swamps where the river begins to divide, the hulk of a great seagoing vessel against the morning sky. It seemed then a gloomy apparition; but as I think of it now it was rather the presage of the new commerce than the ghost of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... hands have fastened you? But can Nature be crushed forever? Did I not ruin my nerves, and seriously injure my temper, by the overpowering pressure I laid upon them to keep them quiet when you were by? Could I not, by the sense of coming ill through all my quivering frame, presage your advent as exactly as the barometer heralds the approaching storm? Those three months of agony are little atoned for by this late vengeance: but go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... formation; it is suspected that some have wholly disappeared. Nature is not fixed, but is undergoing modifications—lives, in fact. The actual state of the universe is but a momentary phase in a development which supposes thousands of ages in the past, and seems to presage thousands more in the future. These conceptions are the result of solid and incontestable discoveries. They have disturbed men's minds, but what is their legitimate import? Why, Newton's argument receives new force from them. From a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... a city, as is that of man, is formed by experience, chiefly adverse, and is made evident by the work the city has done for humanity, its creator and its care. From the study of a city's character may you look into its future and presage whether it be likely to achieve success or doomed to failure. For there have been failures among cities as among men, some pathetic owing to inherent weakness, others as a consequence of ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... she chose a piece of pure organ music—the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement—the presage of coming storm. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Strange sights appeared; the angry threatening gods Filled both the earth and seas with prodigies. Great store of strange and unknown stars were seen Wandering about the north, and rings of fire Fly in the air, and dreadful bearded stars, And comets that presage the fall of kingdoms; The flattering[634] sky glittered in often flames, And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven, Now spear-like long, now like a spreading torch; 530 Lightning in silence stole forth without clouds, And, from the northern climate snatching fire, Blasted the Capitol; the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the earth Strange peoples swarmed; new nations sprang to birth. Then first 'mong tented tribes men shuddering spake Dread tales of one that moved, an unseen shape, 'Mong chilling mists and snow. A spirit swift, That dwelt in lands beyond day's purple rift. Phantom of presage ill to babes unborn, Whose fast-sealed eyes ope not to earthly morn. "We heard," they cried, "the Elf-babes shrilly scream, And loud the Siren's song, when lightnings gleam." Then they that by low beds all night did wake, Prayed for the day, and feared ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... dark houses, and lights up the whole of this little fishing hamlet, humble suburb of the fashionable watering-place. I fancy that others too perceive the light, and that certain huge visitors are attracted, even when the storm keeps neighbors and friends at home. For the slightest presage of foul weather is sure to bring to yonder anchorage a dozen silent vessels, that glide up the harbor for refuge, and are heard but once, when the chain-cable rattles as it runs out, and the iron hand of the anchor grasps the rock. It always seems to me that these unwieldy creatures ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... come that the mating of lives is not a light matter. Standing at a window, he had caught from the storm a vague presage of perils and pitfalls approaching, through and around which he must be guide for another. That other was very, very dear to him. The thought set him to quaking. It was the first responsibility he had had in all ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... purposes, however, were bloody and revengeful. With his own hands he painted every prisoner black! As they were conducted towards the town, the captives observed the bodies of four of their friends, tomahawked and scalped. This was regarded as a sad presage. In a short time, they overtook the five prisoners who remained alive. They were seated on the ground, and surrounded by a crowd of Indian squaws and boys, who taunted and menaced them. Crawford and Knight were compelled to sit down apart from the rest, and immediately afterwards ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the Dog Rocks, where she had stood on that misty autumn day, and seen the vision of her coffined mother's face. Surely it was a presage of her fate. There beyond was the Bell Rock, where in that same hour Geoffrey and she had met, and behind it was the Amphitheatre, where they had told their love. Hark! what was that sound pealing faintly ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... "If confidence presage a victory; EUGENIUS, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients. Nothing seems more easy to him, than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well: for we do not only build upon their foundation, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... verisimilitude of his fairy lore, and so apt to embellish his plot with its mythology, should not have thought of causing the king-making Earl of Warwick to lose the horn of that prodigious cow—no doubt one of those guardian pledges bestowed upon his family—by way of presage to his fall. Deer's antlers, there can be little doubt, were placed in the halls of our forefathers, a votive offering to the Diana of the Scandinavian Pantheon; as it was the custom in like manner to ornament ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... seeking compromise. A fool woman with a gun: every one knew it was a dangerous combination, and, except for himself, no South had ever been a coward. He knew a certain glitter in their eyes. He knew it was apt to presage death, and this girl, trembling in her knees but holding that muzzle against his chest so unwaveringly, as steady as granite, had it in her pupils. Her voice held an inexorable monotony suggestive of tolling bells. She was not the Sally he had known before, but a new ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but indeed, Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait On you, their centre: let me say but this, That many a famous man and woman, town And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage: though when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing; but in your I found My boyish dream involved and dazzled down And mastered, while that after-beauty makes Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, Within me, that except you slay ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Biargey all that had happened, and took to his bed again, a poor, old, helpless, miserable man; but his wife, who saw her presage beginning to come true, kept up her courage, rowed out fishing every day, and guided the household for yet ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of their death. It has been conjectured that it is from this connection of the rose with Paradise, ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... spirit of fatalism with which the character of Napoleon I. was infected. "The Man of Destiny" believed in the destiny of man; he had faith in his star alone; and from the height of his greatness the new ruler, consecrated emperor and king by the Pope, beheld a presage of misfortune in a chance circumstance, insignificant to all but himself, in the experiment of which we are about ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... come it will, the day decreed by fates; (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, Must see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore, Not all my brothel's gasping on the shore, As thine, Andromache! thy ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain— Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to a swift and sudden fulfilment. The red glare was scarcely out of the west when the wind began to howl and whistle through our rigging with a presage of the tempest that was to come. What was of worse omen still, the long streamer on the main-mast, which hitherto had spread due eastward, now suddenly flapped to south- east, showing that the gale was coming upon us from the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... conditions which surrounded her, and there was only one way to do that—talk to her. He must persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so, anyhow, for ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... wail Come from these towers, and die away As borne upon the passing gale; Yet none could say from whom it came, Far less divine the reason why; And Superstition, with her dream, Could only whisper mystery— Unholy spirits haunting nigh, And screaming in the midnight hour, Presage of vengeance from on high For deeds done in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... glimpse, high up, straight before my eyes, of a greyish square in the wall, a suggestion of white, a presage—it must be of daylight. I felt it must be daylight, felt it through every pore in my body. Oh, did I not draw a breath of delighted relief! I flung myself flat on the floor and cried for very joy over this blessed glimpse of light, sobbed for very gratitude, blew a kiss to ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... give truth its due, I will not neglect to mention that this last prohibition was softened by assigning as its motion the allusion made in the play to that legend of the Berlin Castle, "The White Lady," who is supposed to bring a presage of death to the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... could not be comfortable in your house at Dedham in the cold Season. When we shall return to our Habitation in Boston, if ever, is uncertain. The Barbarity of our Enemies in the Desolations they have wantonly made at Falmouth and elsewhere, is a Presage of what will probably befall that Town which has so long endur'd the Rage of a merciless Tyrant. It has disgracd the Name of Britain, and added to the Character of the Ministry, another indelible Mark of Infamy. We must be content to suffer ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... which was being reared in Jotunheim, and by divination they discovered that they must receive great injury from them. That they had such a mother spoke bad for them, but their coming of such a sire was a still worse presage. All-father therefore despatched certain of the gods to bring the children to him, and when they were brought before him he cast the serpent down into the ocean which surrounds the world. There the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... scenes in which he figured before Marjory. The simple fact that there was no train away from Agrinion until the next daybreak had wrought a stupendous change in his outlook. He unhesitatingly considered it an omen of a good future. He was up before the darkness even contained presage of coming light, but near the railway station was a little hut where coffee was being served to several prospective travellers who had come even earlier to the rendezvous. There was ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... single flag-officer, who should have no other care. The innate tact, courtesy, and thoughtful consideration which distinguished Nelson, when in normal conditions, removed all other misunderstandings. "The delicacy you have always shown to senior officers," wrote St. Vincent to him, "is a sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give umbrage to Admiral Dickson, who seems disposed to judge favourably of the intentions of us all: it is, in truth, the most difficult card we have to play." "Happy should I be," he said at another time, "to place the whole of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... her eclipse endured And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured And peace proclaims olives ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... things over when the ship lowered its landing gear and rolled to a stop on the big field near Yucca Flats. Malone sighed and climbed slowly out of his seat. There was a car waiting for him at the airfield, though, and that seemed to presage a smooth time; Malone remembered calling Dr. O'Connor the night before, and congratulated ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious—I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, it ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... a missionary. Early instructed by his mother in the importance of seeking divine influence, his mind was prepared to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and he had a deep conflict to pass through, which he confided to his mother, and which he seemed to think was the presage to suffering. In performing some gymnastic exercises he received a fall on the head, which after some time was followed by a paralytic affection of the whole body, so that he became entirely helpless, and his speech was taken away. It ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... a bird of evil presage, To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Falling without presage upon the slumberous hush enveloping the little house marooned in that dead back-water of Paris, the shock of that alarm drove the girl back from the table to the nearest wall, and for a moment held her ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... feet from the unconscious stranger, was regarding him with the gentle speculative look which Bowers knew to presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary. His eyes, however, had the fondness ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... officers and soldiers of your command. You have shown how much may be done in the worst weather and worst roads by a spirited officer at the head of a small force of brave men, unwilling to waste life in camp when the enemies of their country are within reach. Your brilliant success is a happy presage of what may be expected when the Army of the Potomac shall be led to the field ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of thy heart too cruel I thee tell, Which hath tormented my young budding age, And doth, unless your mildness passions quell, My utter ruin near at hand presage. Instead of blood which wont was to display His ruddy red upon my hairless face, By over-grieving that is fled away, Pale dying colour there hath taken place. Those curled locks which thou wast wont to twist Unkempt, unshorn, and out of order been; Since my disgrace I had ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... soldiers could see with their minds and hearts better than their eyes, and they recognized that gray-coated figure on that familiar white horse. They could hear the beating of drums faintly. The bridges had not been broken. The fords were not guarded. The advance parties had failed. Presage of disaster! ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a moment when victory has crowned both our nations. This circumstance is a happy presage of his future glory, and promises, that he will one day be the support of your independence as well as of the alliance, which unites France with the Thirteen ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... tree has been uprooted whose fall is locally believed to presage the destruction of the Turkish Empire. It is only fair to the tree to point out that if it had known of this it would probably, like the Government, have changed its mind at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... set in, with lightning, thunder, and rain, so that the very earth seemed to shake. A great awe fell upon all, within and without the city. To all, it seemed a sign of the wrath of God at the civil discords; but though, doubtless, it was the voice of the Almighty, it was rather a presage ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... transient excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it is for his life." ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... now," he observed, "mostly to see the ruins of the churches and religious houses done by the Huguenots in this last war. They suppress the losses and hurts the Huguenots have suffered."[338] On the other hand, the Roman Catholic party received their success as a presage of speedy restoration to full power, and entertained brilliant hopes for the future.[339] The queen mother was beginning to make fair promises to the papal adherents, and the influence of the admiral and his brothers seemed to be ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... sun glowed with unnatural intensity of hue; and the evening breeze swept over the town in unusually fitful and stormy gusts. The air seemed to be laden with mysterious melancholy, to sigh with a hidden presage of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... who, having long been, away from his home, fears, on returning, that he shall hear some evil tidings of those he hath left. I long, yet dread, to go to my dear Father Girolamo and the beloved brothers in our house. There is a presage that lies heavy on my heart, so that I cannot shake it off. Look at our glorious old Duomo;—doth she not sit there among the houses and palaces as a queen-mother among nations,—worthy, in her greatness and beauty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... crime—what is it that I dread? "The parish aid withdrawn, I look'd around, And in my school a bless'd subsistence found - My winter-calm of life: to be of use Would pleasant thoughts and heavenly hopes produce; I loved them all; it soothed me to presage The various trials of their riper age, Then dwell on mine, and bless the Power who gave Pains to correct us, and remorse to save. "Yes! these were days of peace, but they are past, - A trial came, I will believe, a last; I lost my sight, and my ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... direction towards which its rays pointed. They could, moreover, explain the effects produced by the fixed stars whose rays were conjoined with the comet's. If a comet resembles a flute, then musicians are aimed at; when comets are in the less dignified parts of the constellations, they presage evil to immodest persons; if the head of a comet forms an equilateral triangle or a square with fixed stars, then it is time for mathematicians and men of science to tremble. When they are in the sign of the Ram, they portend great wars and widespread mortality, the abasement of the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... according to some authorities, and eight according to others. It seized her one night at Odos whilst she was watching a comet, which it was averred had appeared to notify the death of Pope Paul III. "It was perhaps to presage her own," naively remarks Brantome, who adds that while she was looking at the comet her mouth suddenly became partially paralysed, whereupon her doctor, M. d'Escuranis, led her away and made her ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... vain, for every morning the surgeons, making their rounds, found seven or eight dead. Some died in fevers, some in deadly chill; so that heat or cold might be the presage of death. ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... under the command of General Wayne is a happy presage to our military operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio. From the advices which have been forwarded, the advance which he has made must have damped the ardor of the savages and weakened their ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... Dissension threatened. The East favored a man of moderate views on the subject of currency reform; the West and the greater portion of the South stood unanimous for a politician whose success in the coming battle would presage the most radical of measures. Final disagreement between the Democrats of East and West meant certain victory for the Republican Party. And to-day all the country was asking: Have the leaders agreed on a nominee; if so, which one? Senator Groodman, as uncommunicative as a statue, ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... your immortal weal! In vain for Constance is your zeal; She—died at Holy Isle."— Lord Marmion started from the ground, As light as if he felt no wound; Though in the action burst the tide In torrents from his wounded side. "Then it was truth!" he said,—"I knew That the dark presage must be true.— I would the Fiend, to whom belongs The vengeance due to all her wrongs, Would spare me but a day! For wasting fire, and dying groan, And priests slain on the altar stone, Might bribe him ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... from which the event has resulted cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude along with a humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections arising out of the present crisis have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... led to share vicariously in past human experience, thus widening and enriching the experience of the present. We are enabled, symbolically and imaginatively, to anticipate situations. In countless ways, language condenses meanings that record social outcomes and presage social outlooks. So significant is it of a liberal share in what is worth while in life that unlettered and ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... adequately fulfilled. I have derived monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, 'proceeded from the presage of fore-feeling of immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... sun descended on a blue stratus cloud which appeared along the edge of all other parts of the horizon, and eagerly watching any indication of a change, I drew even from this a presage of rain. Thermometer at sunrise, 88 deg.; at noon, 104 deg.; at 4 P.M., 106; at 9, 88 deg.;—with wet bulb, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... thronged the streets and the public places to learn the cause. Intoxicated with delight, their eyes were fixed on the cross of the principal church. A vulture had entangled himself in the chains which supported it, and was held suspended by them. This was a certain presage to minds whose natural superstition was heightened by extraordinary anxiety: it was thus that their God would seize and ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... worship him.' I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the way—of the guard at the Gate, even—they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart. You have ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the early part of August 1796, Mornington sends a quatrain of Latin Elegiacs which he had composed at Dundas's house, on the exploits of Wurmser in relieving Mantua, of Davidovitch at Roveredo, and Quosdanovitch at Brescia (not Verona), which seemed to presage the ruin ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... venture not to soar to yonder regions Whence the glad tidings hither float; And yet, from childhood up familiar with the note, To Life it now renews the old allegiance. Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss Upon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy; And, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell slowly, And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss. A sweet, uncomprehended yearning Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free, And while a thousand tears were burning, I felt a world arise ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... old leaves of books—how thus he wore himself out, manful and godly, "bating not a jot of heart or hope," till the weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble spirit, unrecognized by the lord of the soil, returned to God who gave it. I seemed to see in his history a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more self-restrained, more righteous far than ever I could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted, in the stern battle with social disadvantages, what must be ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... year 1696, he returned home, and settled at Stepney, in the neighbourhood where he was born: the success, he met with in his practice here, established his reputation, and was a happy presage of his future fortunes. If it be remembered, that our author was, when he began to practise, no more than twenty-three years old, that only three years, including the time taken up in his travels, were appropriated to his medical attainments, it may be, not unreasonably, admitted, ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... have little in common, and if almost all speak German—the language of the Congress—it is only because they are all masters of three or four tongues. Yet some subtle instinct links them each to each; presage, perhaps, of some brotherhood of mankind, of which ingathered Israel—or even ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... untimely waning of a youthful life. As with all superstition, the sign is not merely the prediction of an event; it is felt that as the avoidance of the omen would be to escape its consequence, so the careless action, in becoming the presage of calamity, is likewise its cause. Here appear natural antinomies of human thought: on the one hand, the sense of the inevitableness of the designated fate; on the other hand, the consciousness of ability by altering conditions to change conclusions. Thus the thoughts and actions of ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... 1786.[31] His inauguration occurred a year later and was a grand affair. Asbury presided on each of the three days of the ceremony, and his text on the second day, "O man of God, there is death in the pot,"[32] was looked on by the superstitious, in time to come, as a presage of disaster. The faculty was filled up and all seemed to bid fair for prosperity; but Mr. Heath remained in charge of the College less than a year, resigning because of certain charges of insufficiency, which seem rather trival. ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... of the visionary as he paused in his meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion—solemn as the presage of a disaster—terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence—the presence of an unseen visitant in the dead of the midnight! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... he stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him. Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to be invulnerable to ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... off, and rolled on the floor. It was an accident which might have happened at any time; but in this superstitions age it could not fail to be taken for an omen. Both his friends and enemies interpreted it as a presage of his approaching decapitation.[2] ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... plain, heroic completeness is touched with a stately life that is a presage of immortality. It is evident, indeed, that Arnold wrote Balder Dead in his most fortunate hour, and that Merope is his one serious mistake in literature. For a genius thus peculiar and introspective drama—the presentation of character ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... his free and gentle vow T' appear in greater light and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my dear mistress fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit (When he had utter'd his perplex'd presage) Threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds, His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers. Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames! That with thy music-footed horse dost strike ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... no presage that this was the last time he would look upon the scenes he loved that Jackson moved southward by the Valley turnpike. Past Kernstown his columns swept, past Middletown and Strasburg, and all the well-remembered fields of former triumphs; until the peaks of the Massanuttons ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... days be o'er:' Well have you spoken, Jane: My own forebodings tell me more— For me, I know by presage sure, They'll ne'er return again. Ere long, nor sun nor storm to me Will bring or joy or gloom; They reach not that Eternity Which soon will be ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and {thou}, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for thy father. Three times was she recalled by the presage of her foot stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omen by its dismal cry. Yet {onward} she goes, and the gloom and the dark night lessen her shame. In her left hand she holds that of her nurse, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... hall, the beams having been sawn asunder, the ceiling gave way and fell, burying every one beneath the ruins. Jacques de Bourbon, Seigneur de Preaux, died in consequence, several others were grievously wounded, but the king, by a good fortune, almost miraculous, escaped. This was a certain presage, that, after great danger, Divine Providence, in the end, would save him, and draw him forth from the ruins of his empire ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... in which you can judge of his character, he is respectable only from his rank, and valuable only from his wealth; if neither his head nor his heart will make him useful to our cause, suffer him to remain undisturbed in his prosperity here: but if, as I presage, he becomes worthy of the blood which he bears in his veins, then I conjure you, my brother, to remind him that he has been sworn by me on my death-bed to the most sacred ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and moral daring to the field of theological and political speculation, it is easy today to select, among the writings of the earliest colonists, certain radical utterances which seem to presage the very temper of the late eighteenth century. Pastor John Robinson's farewell address to the Pilgrims at Leyden in 1620 contained the famous words: "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... continually recurring to him a haunting presage of the unprofitableness of the life, after which men have not "any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." Where he speaks of resignation, after showing how the less impetuous and self-concentred natures can acquiesce ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... appear only every other year, and the natives superstitiously look upon their appearance as a presage of a good crop. It is a pity that the cattle are so greatly molested by them, that they cannot remain in the fields; for they are extremely beautiful and twice as large ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... immortal weal! In vain for Constance is your zeal; She—died at Holy Isle." Lord Marmion started from the ground, As light as if he felt no wound; Though in the action burst the tide In torrents, from his wounded side. "Then it was truth," he said—"I knew That the dark presage must be true. I would the Fiend, to whom belongs The vengeance due to all her wrongs Would spare me but a day! For wasting fire, and dying groan, And priests slain on the altar stone Might bribe him for delay. It may not ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... of Spaniards were entered into Perpignan: the other, that the plague was spreading through the camp. Moreover, the country folk warned us there would soon be a great overflowing of the sea, which might drown us all. And the presage which they had, was a very great wind from sea, which rose so high that there remained not a single tent but was broken and thrown down, for all the care and diligence we could give; and the kitchens being all uncovered, the wind raised the dust and sand, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... instant for this important information to sink in. Several slight, little sighs of relief escaped the students, especially from the girls' side of the great room. This speech did not presage anything very ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... love to which death seems to menace irretrievable and final disaster. But it is personal love to which comes the divinest presage. Some voice says to our yearning heart, "Fear nothing, doubt nothing, ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... western posts to meet him on the 10th of July at the River Des Sables, to the eastward of the country of the Tsonnonthouans, against whom they were first to act. The governor marched upon this point with his army, and, by an accident of favorable presage, he and the other detachments arrived at the same time. They immediately constructed an intrenchment, defended by palisades, in a commanding situation over the river, where their stores and provisions were safely deposited. M. d'Orvilliers, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... tumult which tore him, of the slow forces gathering for the inevitable battle waged somewhen, somehow, by every mortal soul. And that face, gaunt, with haunted, shadowed eyes, looked all at once strangely purged of the heat of its lawlessness, for on it was the first presage of the fierce slow travail of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... see the goodnesse of the Deities, who still with grace preuents our ill presage, This groue was hallow'd to no Hiadres, but chast Diana, who with violent rage Discending from her towre of Christalline, To keepe the place still sacred and diuine: against her rites, brought with her thereupon white Poplar from the banckes ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... balanced against each other so exactly, that the scale would turn on neither side. She refused to give any decided answer, but requested a day or two for reflection; and the vicar, who recollected the adage, that, in an affair of the heart, "the woman who deliberates is lost," left her with a happy presage that his endeavours would be crowned with success. But Mrs Rainscourt would not permit her own heart to decide. It was a case in which she did not consider that a woman was likely to be a correct judge; and she had so long been ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as the veranda by the three women, Jean made his final adieus and strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a sturdy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage the success of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... worse about the accident than he felt already. She did not wish him to be uncomfortable, and had gladly assumed an equal share of blame. It was extremely silly in her to allow her mind to dwell on a foolish old tradition. How could the breakage of a bit of china, no matter how precious, presage misfortune? It was ill doing that entailed ill fortune, not blind chance, or heathen fate. She would think no more of foolish ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... crop of the dead bird. Whereupon he took it and opened it and found the talisman which had been the cause of his separation from his wife. But when he saw it and knew it, he fell to the ground a-fainting for joy; and, when he revived, he said, "Praised be Allah! This is a foretaste of good and a presage of reunion with my beloved." Then he examined the jewel and passed it over his eyes[FN329]; after which he bound it to his forearm, rejoicing in coming weal, and walked about till nightfall awaiting the gardener's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... into life! Sure presage that the myrmidons of fate, The fool's unmeaning laugh, the critic's hate, Will dire assail thee; and the envious strife Of bookish schoolmen, beings over rife, Whose pia-mater studious is fill'd With unconnected matter, half ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... have time during their flight to ponder their own case and that of their vanquished party. At the spectacle of my noble country, a corpse for monks to prey on, my eyes filled with tears; I read in it the presage of Spain's ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... this agonizing presage Taken shape within my tortured brain, When good REUTER flashed the welcome message, "Chancellor Returns," across the main. Neptune, be thy waters calm, not choppy, As they speed them on their homeward way, GEORGE and HENRY and, bowed down with "copy," Our unique ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... When, a few days afterwards, the unfortunate Prince addressed his council for the first time, he said, with mournful truth, these words. "For me it will be no new thing if I am unfortunate: my whole life, even from my cradle, has been a constant series of misfortunes." This sentiment of ill-presage was re-echoed in the address ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... admiration; and one of them humorously asserted that it had been engaged, at a huge expense, to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence. So the celestial arch vanished in the echo of a horse-laugh. But Bressant and Cornelia, as they stood silently arm-in-arm, felt as if it were rather the presage of an emancipation of their own selves. From, or to what, they did not ask; nor did the old superstition, that such signs foretell ruin and disaster, recur to their ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... and was resolv'd on his Favourite's marrying Agnes, conjur'd her so tenderly to prevent these Persecutions, by consenting to a secret Marriage, that, after having a long time consider'd, she at last consented. I will do what you will have me (said she) tho' I presage nothing but fatal Events from it; all my Blood turns to Ice, when I think of this Marriage, and the Image of Constantia seems to hinder ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... in the darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our fellow-soldiers," he eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of the bank; see—they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to emulate and assist their courage." The united and rapid motion of a great fleet broke the violence of the current, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... satisfied us, that, when our latitude was 59 deg. 44', our longitude was 121 deg. 9'. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the calm was succeeded by a breeze at S.E. The sky, at the same time, was suddenly obscured, and seemed to presage an approaching storm, which accordingly happened. For, in the evening, the wind shifted to south, blew in squalls, attended with sleet and rain, and a prodigious high sea. Having nothing to take care of but ourselves, we kept two or three points from ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... without. Dense black clouds veiled the moon, and a gust of wind moaned up the creek in presage of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... over words, as with blast and forge and hammer, which startle us in the two battle-pieces. The lines "Annus Memorabilis," dated Jan. 6th, 1861, read like prophecy in 1865. "Wood and Coal" (November, 1863) gives a presage of the fire which the flame of the conflict would kindle. "The Burial of the Dane" shows the true human sympathy of the writer, in its simple, pathetic narrative; and the story of the "Old Cove" had a wider circulation and a heartier reception than almost any prose effort ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... thus given often dazzles us, and deepens the darkness which is in front. We can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap- door opens beneath us and ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... him polite manners, to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomy was rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A dangerous ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Theomancy, or Prophecy; Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity; which was called Horoscopy, and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology: Sometimes in their own hopes and feares, called Thumomancy, or Presage: Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches, that pretended conference with the dead; which is called Necromancy, Conjuring, and Witchcraft; and is but juggling and confederate knavery: Sometimes in the Casuall flight, or feeding of birds; called Augury: Sometimes in the Entrayles of a sacrificed ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... received me with his usual bland smile, gave me his clammy fat hand, put me to sit in the arm-chair, hoped my unexpected visit did not presage worse news from the Big house, and finally asked ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine |
