"Ill-omened" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Manu had told. Even if no canyon intervened, his chances of surmounting even low hills seemed remote should he have the fortune to reach their base; but with another canyon hope was dead. Above them Ska still circled, and it seemed to the ape-man that the ill-omened bird hovered ever lower and lower as though reading in that failing gait the nearing of the end, and through cracked lips Tarzan ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Catholic church Friday is a fast day, and is considered an unlucky day because it was the day of Christ's crucifixion. Soames ("Anglo-Saxon Church," page 255) says of it, "Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on Friday and died on Friday." Shakspere refers to the ill-omened nature of the day as follows: "The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton Friday" ("Measure for ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... her pipe. In the name of the Gods, get her her pipe and stop her ill-omened mouth,' cried an Oorya, tying up his shapeless bundles of bedding. 'She and the parrots are alike. They screech in ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses—kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit. The one is clear and firm. The other ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one who gives and another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and—if I may use the expression—a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... they finished their ill-omened repast, when the air above us was darkened by two mighty shadows. The captain of my ship, knowing by experience what this meant, cried out to us that the parent birds were coming, and urged us to get on board with all speed. This we did, and the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... better end for an Italian prince than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's faults, an Italian should remember that it was he who first took up arms to the cry which was later to redeem Italy: independence from Alps to sea; and if he stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he need not refuse to uncover his head ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Shaykh, and claim his Mushahirah, or monthly pay; not a cateran came near us but affected to hold himself dishonoured if not provided at once with the regular salary. 'Brahim was wholly beardless, and our Egyptians quoted their proverb, Sabah el-Kurud, wa la Saban el-'Ajrud—"Better (see ill-omened) monkeys in the morning than the beardless man." As the corruption of the best turns to the worst, so the Bedawi, a noble race in its own wilds, becomes thoroughly degraded by contact with civilization. I remember a certain chief of the Wuld Ali tribe, near Damascus, who was made a Freemason ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville ears," he objected. "You've no idea how people ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... did so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived by any present, or the attempt could be resumed, she dropped ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... for my girl: for she vowed to sacred Venus and to Cupid that if I were re-united to her and I desisted hurling savage iambics, she would give the most elect writings of the pettiest poet to the tardy-footed God to be burned with ill-omened wood. And this the saucy minx chose, jocosely and drolly to vow to the gods. Now, O Creation of the cerulean main, who art in sacred Idalium, and in Urian haven, and who doth foster Ancona and reedy Cnidos, Amathus and Golgos, and Dyrrhachium, Adriatic tavern, accept and acknowledge ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... that the women had spoken evil of Judith in our harbor; and pursuing this ill-omened rumor, in a rage I could not command, I came at last upon the shameful truth: the women had spoken scandal of the maid, the which she had learned from Aunt Esther All, the Whisper Cove gossip. The misfortune ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... to sad unhallowed rites Of an ill-omened nuptial tie, Too well ye know their father bore A bride of mournful destiny, Torn from his sire, whose awful curse has sped Heaven's vengeance on the impious bed! This fierce, unnatural rage atones A parent's crime—decreed by fate, Their mother's ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he certainly did not do that deed. He began the tribune, however, in the ancient church, which may have been a preparation for the entire renewal of the edifice; and he did much toward the decoration of another round church, that of the Madonna delle Febbre, an ill-omened name, attached to the Vatican. He also built the Belvedere in the gardens, and surrounded the whole with strong walls and towers (round), one of which, according to Nibby, still remained fifty years ago, which very little of Nicholas' building ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... me, could she join with the marchesa against me? Was I not induced by my love for her to pay her aunt's debts? Answer me that, my father. Why did she insist upon this ill-omened marriage?—a proceeding as ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... murmured: "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... tribesmen of the ill-omened prophet do with them? They cannot hide them on the desert or anywhere on the banks of the Nile, for they all would die of hunger and thirst on the desert, and they certainly would be apprehended on the Nile. Perhaps they will try ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "broad day," and here was nothing sinister to cause Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as though he sang paeans to a translated ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... him!" shouted the mob once more, urging on the executioner, who, his superstitious nature not having overcome the ill-omened fact that the matchlock a moment before had jumped out of his hand (which he probably attributed to the doing of some supreme power and not to the over-charge), seemed quite ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stationary, always ready to our had when we want them, never running away? But the taking them, for all that, not so easy. One man shrinks from picking flowers, another from cutting down trees. And, it's curious that most of the forest tales and legends are dark, mysterious, and somewhat ill-omened. The forest-beings are rarely gay and harmless. The forest life was felt as terrible. Tree-worship still survives to-day. Wood-cutters... those who take the life of trees... you see a race of ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... tale, stranger, if this token had not confirmed thy speech:—verily thou hast a better witness than a fool's tongue to thy story. That ill-omened losel may depart. See thou fall not hastily into the like offence, else shalt thou smart from Childermas to All-hallowtide. Hence! to thy place." Barnulf awaited not further dismissal, glad to escape the scrutiny of Nicholas with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the chance of ever discovering his son, it is, after all, mere opinion. Things more wonderful than such a discovery have happened. By me, at least, he shall be sustained and encouraged. Disappointment, if it comes, will come soon enough. I will not be its ill-omened herald." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... thought of my character. Ah! boy, I am wearing out; people will soon be staring at that portrait and wondering if it was like me. In a very few years I shall no longer be 'devil,' but 'devilled,'" and he would chuckle at his grim and ill-omened joke. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... to endure, too rare to be forgotten? It is for this, O dread waker of the blast, that the fairies would consecrate this little spot; for this they would charm away from its tranquil turf the wandering ghoul and the evil children of the night. Here, not the ill-omened owl, nor the blind bat, nor the unclean worm shall come. And thou shouldst have neither will nor power to nip the flowers of spring, nor sear the green herbs of summer. Is it not, dark mother of the evil winds,—is it not our immemorial office to tend ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nothing really to fear from him. He was too wise not to understand the gulf between them. To-morrow she would confront him flatly with his deceit; she would array the power of the authorities behind her race. She would sweep instantly from that ill-omened palace. There would ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... point. It is indignantly denied by the adopted member of the tribe. The Iroquois, he says, like other Indians, never eat human flesh, unless driven to it by hunger. He turns the tables (on which this ill-omened repast is spread) against the worthy Doctor. He charges him (falsely, however) with having represented Charles the Fifth as "a pattern of abstinence," when he was in fact one of the greatest of royal gourmands. On this point he is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... listen through space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight sounded from ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... luck, and we will not begrudge it to him. His subjects will some day give him enough anxiety. He must grow to be a mighty man for their sakes, and I doubt not that his nurse gives him better nourishment to that end than I could who am only a weak woman. But you, you poor, dear, little ill-omened mite, I shall nourish you myself, and if your life is unhappy it shall not be because I have not done ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... trapped. They realised that they had been out-generalled, and they understood their deficiencies. Not a man among them knew the finer points of warfare. They were thugs and roustabouts and ill-omened fellows who could stab in the back; they were craven in the face of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... of smoke. Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind, and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog. But, one way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the first steps of my escape, and led ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... grey and yellow garment worn and patched, an ill-omened rag thrown down at the foot of a tree. It bore the convict's original number at the Perth Penitentiary. The felon was not there, but his filthy garments betrayed his passage. This livery of crime, after having clothed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... clover, blood-red anemones, and pale yellow amaryllis, only showed their arid brown or gray remnants. The moat had become a deep waterless cleft; and beneath, on the accessible sides towards the glen, clustered a collection of black horsehair tents, the foremost surmounted by the ill-omened crescent. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... put in his appearance, he was profoundly impressed and respectful: we were brisk, unhaunted, and unafraid, after a night in Hynds House! The three colored women who had come with him, induced by cupidity and curiosity to enter ol' Mis' Scarlett's ill-omened domain, at first hung back. They were plainly prepared to bolt at the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... ordinary degree, popular applause and the favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on which side he should embark in that perilous and ill-omened insurrection. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... arcades, terraces—a vast metropolis in the wilderness, a Babylon untenanted from the beginning, a Nineveh fashioned only by the great builder Nature. Little wonder that the peasants formerly spoke of the dolomite city, when forced to speak at all, with bated breath, and gave it so ill-omened a name. The once uncanny, misprized, even accursed city, since surnamed Montpellier-le-Vieux, from a fancied resemblance to Montpellier, is now very differently regarded ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... 'forties', were not), proved far from content. If the form of Osmanli government had changed greatly, its spirit had changed little, and defective communications militated against the responsibility of officials to the centre. Money was scarce, and the paper currency—an ill-omened device of Mahmud's—was depreciated, distrusted, and regarded as an imperial betrayal of confidence. Finally, the hostility of Russia, notoriously unabated, and the encouragement of aspiring rayas credited to her and other foreign powers ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... he had never been its owner! that he had never brought it to Ellerslie, to draw down misery on his head! Ill-omened trust! whatever it contains, its presence carried blood and sorrow in its train. Wherever it has been deposited war and murder have followed: I trust my dear master will never ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and 216, speaking upon the great question of the proper relations of Christianity and science, Mr. Draper says: "In the annals of Christianity the most ill-omened day is that in which she separated herself from science. She compelled Origen, at that time (A. D. 231) its chief representative and supporter in the church, to abandon his charge in Alexandria and retire to Caesarea. In vain through many subsequent centuries did her leading men spend themselves ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the illustrious Delobelle returned home, with downcast face and that air of lassitude and disillusionment with which he ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... hundred years since, and had failed. Their mission-house and chapel are now a heap of ruins, and the ferocious Apache Indians keep the fertile valley a solitude by the mere terror of their name. To this ill-omened place Penrose and his companions have made their daring pilgrimage; and they are now risking their lives in the attempt to open the hearts of these bloodthirsty savages to the influence of Christianity. Nothing has been yet ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching simplicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a worship ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... That ill-omened man Flitch had sidled round by the bushes to within a few feet of him. Flitch primarily defended himself against the accusation of drunkenness, which was hurled at him to account for his audacity in trespassing against the interdict; but he admitted that he had taken "something short" for a fortification ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... see? Elec. That self-same form indeed, in piteous case. Ores. Alas, alas, for this sad lot of thine. Elec. Surely thou dost not wail, O friend, for me! Ores. O form most basely, godlessly misused. Elec. Thy words, ill-omened, fall, O friend, on none But me alone. Ores. Alas, for this thy state, Unwedded, hopeless. Elec. Why, O friend, on me With such fixed glance still gazing dost thou groan? Ores. How little knew I of my fortune's ills! Elec. What have I said to throw such light on them? Ores. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... thenceforward be a hinderance rather than a help to the Patriots. His counsel was of no further avail, and he only brought odium on them; indeed, his advice had from first to last been misleading and ill-omened. The Patriots were now only anxious to get rid of him; Pulteney gave Bolingbroke pretty clearly to understand that they wanted him ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... meditation, in which many objects, somewhat foreign to the place and time, passed through his mind, when, chancing to look down, he saw a small funeral wreath, of mingled yew and cypress, lying at his feet, and a slight tremor passed over his frame, as he found he was standing on the ill-omened grave of Abbot Paslew. Before he could ask himself by whom this sad garland had been so deposited, Nicholas Assheton came up to him, and with a look of great uneasiness cried, "Come away instantly, Dick. Do you know where you ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... setting at naught the law of the land, and the whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,—their motto the famous ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... might be murdered that night, or some other night, and that when the brig, with its golden cargo, reached port, he might not be in command of her. It was true that a hundred things might happen to prevent the advancing enjoyments from ever reaching him. But ill-omened chances threaten everything that man is doing, or ever can do, and he would not let the thought of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Broughton and Miss Woolsworthy did not meet till the evening. She had said, before those few ill-omened words had passed her lover's lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger's house on the following morning. Those ill-omened words did pass her lover's lips, and then she remained at home. This did not ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... a voyage that, for adventure and discovery, deserves a high place in the history of maritime enterprise in the Pacific. Voyages take their rank from the scientific attainments and literary ability of the men who record them, and the Pandora, unlucky in her fate as in her ill-omened name, was scarcely less unfortunate in ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... these ill-omened words, Lucian! Were I to survive but for a day, I should be happy, having once ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... Now then I am calm! When Alice left me she had no child. I knew not that she bore within her the pledge of our ill-omened and erring love. Verily, the sins of my youth have arisen against me; and the curse has come ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... himself, take the oath which shall silence the disgraceful accusation. He unhesitatingly asks for a weapon upon which to swear. Hagen craftily offers his spear. Siegfried placing his right hand on the point, solemnly calls upon the sacred weapon to register his oath, wording it in the following ill-omened fashion: "Where sharpness may pierce me, do you pierce me; where death shall strike me, do you strike me, if yonder woman spoke the truth, if I broke my vow to my brother!" Bruennhilde hearing, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... turned to account, and possibly a rich widow to wed, to say nothing of expectations; it would be a marriage into the family of Negrepelisse, and for him this meant a family connection with the Marquise d'Espard, and a political career in Paris. Here was a fair tree to cultivate in spite of the ill-omened, unsightly mistletoe that grew thick upon it; he would hang his fortunes upon it, and prune it, and wait till he could gather its ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of number thirteen, a grain of spilt salt, ill-omened, disastrous? Camille would not think so; but it seemed to her that she had never been able to make anyone happy, and that there must be some taint in her therefore, some ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... for the frequent but varying use of nevermore. This word could not be spoken in the right tone by a human being; it must come from an unreasoning creature, hence the introduction of the raven, an ill-omened bird, in harmony with the main tone of the poem. He then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty. Hence the death of ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... couch under the spreading arms of a huge oak, he invited her to lie down and rest. She was about to accede to his invitation, when they were startled by a shrill and discordant sound accompanied with a heavy flapping of wings, and presently a flight of dull ill-omened ravens issued from their solitary abodes, and hovered about, as if to dispute the possession of their ancient homes ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasant wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more than ordinary ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Bartholomew; it was seen that he now was dying, and the Queen-mother took the opportunity of laying hands on the middle party. She arrested Alencon, Montmorency, and Henri of Navarre, together with some lesser chiefs; in the midst of it all Charles IX. died (1574), in misery, leaving the ill-omened crown to Henri of Anjou, King of Poland, his next brother, his mother's favourite, the worst of a bad breed. At the same time the fifth civil war broke out, interesting chiefly because it was during its continuance that the ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her mute with dismay, for it at once brought a cloud over the future, which to her eye was dark with portents. Elwood himself was also obviously considerably disquieted ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... severe conditions, fitted to bring out the real force of a man. After half an hour's talk you part as if you were parting with an old friend, yet knowing that the same roof is not likely ever to cover both of you again. There are, of course, rough and ill-omened explorers and settlers in South Africa, as in other new countries: but having wandered a good deal, in different countries, on the outer edge of civilization, I was struck by the large proportion of well-mannered and well-educated ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... said. "I warn you to keep a watch upon your words. Yesterday you would have slain me with your toy. Today you stab me with your ill-omened tongue. Be fearful lest I ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... night, to drift together again presently. He tried to tell me of some things she had asked him to do should she not get over this, but what they were I know not, for they engulfed him at the first step. He would draw back from them as ill-omened things, and next moment he was going over them to himself like a child at lessons. A child! In that short year she had made him entirely dependent on her. It is ever thus with women: their first deliberate act is to make their husband helpless. There are few ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... use of the simple pronouns is common (see Abbott, Sec. 223). Compare l. 163. ominous; literally full of omens or portents: comp. 'monstrous' full of monsters (Lyc. 158); also l. 79. 'Ominous' has now acquired the sense of 'ill-omened'; compare the acquired sense of ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... German soul appears so deep and rich in meaning. What a world of thoughts, what germs of future forms lie concealed in this symphony! He himself stands upon this great work, and from this vantage strives to advance further. During this period the ill-omened raven, Professor Hanslick, uttered his silly words about Wagner's "luck." But the victory was this time with ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... to myself just at present," thought Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid glance round that ill-omened ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... This ill-omened anniversary we sang dirge and mass for the souls of those who were slain by treachery seven years ago. Our forces have returned from the south. They say the Danes have gone into winter quarters on the Thames, and that all the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks, as we proceed rapidly under the rocky slopes of the Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which extends in a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses from the summit of its protecting cliff to the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the question arose what we should do. Of course, I wished to return to camp and get out of this ill-omened place as soon as possible. But I had reckoned without the vanity of Umbezi. Umbezi stretched over the edge of a sharp rock, whither he had been hoisted by the nose of a buffalo, and imagining himself to be mortally wounded, was one thing; but Umbezi in a ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... 'council,' to which Joseph of Arimathea—the one swallow which does not make a summer—appears to have been the only exception; and he probably was absent, or, if present, was silent. He did 'not consent'; but we are not told that he opposed. That ill-omened unanimity measures the nation's sin. Flagrant injustice and corruption in high places is possible only when society as a whole is corrupt or indifferent to corruption. This prejudging of a case from hatred of the accused as a destroyer of sacred tradition, and this hunting for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Towering over his left front was the Drakensberg Range through which Botha's Pass runs into the Orange Free State; on his right front was the Buffalo River with a difficult country beyond; and on his front was Majuba of ill-omened memory and Laing's Nek, over which the road to Volksrust ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... to be worn as a court undress, and on which, if need were, one could buckle a cuirass, for battle: like his father, he was pale; like his father, he was to die young, and, even more than his father, his countenance wore that ill-omened melancholy by which fortune-tellers recognise those who are ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... another ignis fatuus, such as the others I have pursued, for I have been chasing rainbows now for three years, and I suppose I shall go on chasing them; but as long as there is a chance left, I can't quit—I can't. And something tells me that I have left that ill-omened thing behind at last, and I am ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... calling on the Mother of our Lord. O for the power to stand again erect, And look men in the eyes! What penitence, What scourging of the flesh, what rigid fasts, What terrible privations may suffice To cleanse me in the sight of God and man?" Ill-omened silence followed his appeal. Patient and motionless he lay awhile, Then sprang unto his feet with sudden force, Confronting in his breathless vehemence, With palpitating heart, the timid priest. "Answer me, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and Stapleton. They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table. Both of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in front of them. Stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronet looked pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the ill-omened moor was weighing ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Dublin Castle. The audience were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard on Wednesday.' Mr. O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as 'ill-omened tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr. O'Rourke was not a man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been sucking blood were ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... fact, were abandoned weapons, sabers, bayonets, and, more particularly, chassepots; and so numerous were they that they seemed to have sprouted from the earth, a harvest that had matured in a single ill-omened day. Porringers and buckets, also, were scattered along the roads, together with the heterogeneous contents of knapsacks, rice, brushes, clothing, cartridges. The fields everywhere presented an uniform scene of devastation: fences ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... St. Helen's shore Holds Burrard, Hope, ill-omened Moore, Clinton and Paget; while The transports that pertain to those Count six-score sail, whose planks enclose Ten thousand ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Unless prevented, it would strike savagely with its beak, and the motions of its head were as quick as lightning. It was, indeed, a strange captive, and the children looked at it in wondering and rather fearful curiosity. My wife, usually tender-hearted, wished the creature, so ill-omened in her eyes, to be killed at once, but I granted Merton's request that he might put it in a box and keep ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... as if the whole south side must go. At certain points the very heavens seemed on fire. The sparks filled the air like flakes of fiery snow, and great blazing fragments of roofs, and boards from lumber yards, sailed over his head, with the ill-omened glare of meteors. The rush and roar of the wind and flames were like the thunder of Niagara, and to this awful monotone accompaniment was added a Babel of sounds—shrieks, and shouts of human voices, the sharp ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... judged correctly. Cornelia was disappointed from the first moment. She was taken to the dim uncanny drawing-room by Ameer, and left among its ill-omened gods, and odd treasure-trove for nearly half an hour before madame came to her. The rudely graven faces, so marvellously instinct with life, made her miserable; she fancied a thousand mockeries and scorns in them; and no thought of Hyde, or Arenta, or of the happy hours spent in that ill-boding ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... position as the independent and unbending defender of nationality and as the foe of compromise. He might then have brought Mr. Clay to his side, and remained himself the undisputed head of the Whig party. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun was a hollow, ill-omened thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in fact, it did, within a few years, and then Mr. Clay, if he had held out so long, would have been helpless without Mr. Webster. But such a course required a very strong will and great tenacity of purpose, and it was ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... resolution directly censuring the treaties, he spoke with an eloquence, energy, and dignity which raised his fame and popularity higher than ever. To the coalition of Fox and North he alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous applause from his followers. "If," he said, "this ill-omened and unnatural marriage be not yet consummated, I know of a just and lawful impediment; and, in the name of the public weal, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that we had owned that horse Rashid had never once before alluded to him by the name which I had chosen. It was ill-omened, he had often warned me. But nothing could be too ill-omened ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... last the spell seems broken, and, as the well-spiced bowl goes round, shout after shout echoes and re-echoes through the castle, "An heir, an heir!" Many a year had passed without the prospect of such an event, and it had looked as if the ill-omened words uttered in the past were to be realised. It was no wonder then that "in the gloomy towers of Moy" there were feasting and revelry, for a child is born who is to perpetuate the clan which hitherto had seemed threatened with extinction. But, even on this festive night when every ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... laughing, "she must be stupid indeed. To drive away any one dear to her. And moreover, into an ill-omened wood. The forest and its mysteries might have ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... try to prove that the Shivaites have no right to it. From the first days of their rule the English inherited endless lawsuits between the fighting sectarians, cases decided in one law-court only to be transferred on appeal to another, and always having their origin in this ill-omened tail and its pretensions. This tail is a mysterious deus ex machina that directs all the thoughts of the Nassik Brahmans pro ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... psalm-book in her hands for hours, for the more part in a mere stupor of unconsenting pleasure and unreasoning fear. The fear was superstitious; there came up again and again in her memory Dandie's ill-omened words, and a hundred grisly and black tales out of the immediate neighbourhood read her a commentary on their force. The pleasure was never realised. You might say the joints of her body thought and remembered, and were gladdened, but her essential ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in blind terror. He was in the mood in which men compose poetry, for he felt himself a midget in the grip of immensities. He knew no poetry, save a few tavern songs; but in his youth he had had the Scriptures drubbed into him. He remembered ill-omened texts—one especially about wandering through dry places seeking rest. Would to Heaven he were in a ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... all the Lithuanian folk gazed each night at this heavenly marvel, foreboding ill from it, and likewise from other signs: for too often they heard the cries of ill-omened birds, which, gathering in throngs on empty fields, sharpened their beaks as if awaiting corpses. Too often they noticed that the dogs rooted up the earth, and, as if scenting death, howled piercingly, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... so outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wondered the plaintiff had not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had interposed as vainly—as vainly as Serjeant Rowland himself interposed in Court to prevent this case being made known—and with piteous outcries, in the name of outraged neglected woman, of castaway children pleading in vain ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... If you have compassion for these pangs, you will not refuse to conduct me to the spot where the dear remains of Monimia are deposited; there let me enjoy a full banquet of woe; there let me feast that worm of sorrow that preys upon my heart. For such entertainment have I revisited this (to me) ill-omened isle; for this satisfaction I intrude upon your condescension at these unseasonable hours; for to such a degree of impatience is my affliction whetted, that no slumber shall assail mine eyelids, no peace reside within my bosom, until I shall have adored that earthly shrine where my Monimia ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... ceased. The spoiling of arms, at least during the battle, was also interdicted; and the consecration of the spoils of slain enemies to the gods, as, in general, all rejoicings for victory, were considered as ill-omened. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... tide was too strong to be stemmed, and Sidney Smith himself was captured. He had so harried the French coast that the French refused to treat him as an ordinary prisoner of war, and threw him into that ill-omened prison, the Temple, from whose iron-barred windows the unfortunate sailor watched for two years the horrors of the Reign of Terror in its last stages, the tossing crowds, the tumbrils rolling past, crowded with victims for the guillotine. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... had not gone very far before he heard a long, piteous howl that chilled his very soul with dread. He struggled forward desperately, and, turning the angle of a rock, saw a dying fire, and beside it a human form merely outlined through the snow. As the dog was again raising one of his ill-omened howls, Webb stopped him savagely, and sprang to the prostrate figure, whose face was buried ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... pale-faced young man, stared at us all in amazement He shrugged his shoulders; he smiled, and positively could not conceive what had happened to us, and why we were in such a state of excitement. He himself did not see an insect at all, did not hear the ill-omened ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... hear no more, Ye tempests howl! Ill-omened owl. Your wrath outpour To joy we soar, With angry growl! Despite your scowl! Do ye your worst, my vengeance The echoes of our festival call Shall rise triumphant over all! Shall rise triumphant over all! Prepare for woe, Away you go, Ye haughty lords, Collect ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Prince was worse. Still he walked out on one of the terraces, and wrapped in a coat lined with fur he witnessed a review of the Eton College volunteers, from which his absence would have been remarked. The ill-omened chilly feeling continued, but there were guests at the Castle and he appeared at dinner. On Sunday, the 1st of December, the Prince walked out again on the terrace and attended service in the chapel, insisting "on going through all the kneeling," though ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... and then, having left his wife and mother-in-law out of ear-shot, abruptly began the tale of his mishaps. As I conjectured, he had totally failed in his attempt to mollify his father, who was furious at his temerity in appearing before him, and whose rage redoubled when he heard of his ill-omened marriage. Unfortunately for Van Haubitz, the jeweller and some other tradesmen at Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had not the remotest intention ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the public clamor; and so ill-omened a commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for position, in which both armies were now manoeuvring. The real details of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. General Bragg's friends declare that he forced Rosecrans ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Prince landed at Glenfinnin,[53] which is situated about twenty miles from Fort William, and forms the outlet from Moidart to Lochaber; here the standard of Charles Edward was unfurled. The scene in which this ill-omened ceremonial took place is a deep and narrow valley, in which the river Finnin runs between high and craggy mountains, which are inaccessible to every species of carriage, and only to be surmounted by travellers on foot. At each end of the vale is a lake of about twelve miles ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... a telegraph. I daresay it's something about Charley," said the old man, in a slightly husky voice—"to make up to us for inventing troubles." The Squire was a good deal disturbed by the sight of that ill-omened message; and it was the better way, as he knew by experience, to throw his excitement into the shape of anger rather than that ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... once more, became a prey to the terror of another visit from the so-called Madame Le Prun, whose ill-omened approaches had inspired her with so much terror on the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... masked) admittance find, That very hour my ruin's signed.' Now, in his howl's continued sound, Their words were lost, their voice was drown'd. Ever in awe of honest tongues, Thus every day he strained his lungs. It happened, in ill-omened hour, That Yap, unmindful of his power, Forsook his post, to love inclined; A favourite bitch was in the wind. 150 By her seduced, in amorous play, They frisked the joyous hours away. Thus, by untimely love pursuing, Like Antony, he sought his ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... a new born thing, Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing; My mother died to give me birth: forlorn I came into the world, a babe of woe, Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn; Yet heir to what the idolators of show Deem life's good things, which ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... bring gold and silver; I, alas! a worthy vessel, Many months have lain at anchor, I, a war-ship well constructed, Am decaying in the harbor, Never having sailed to conquest; Worms are gnawing at my vitals, In my hull their dwelling-places, And ill-omened birds of heaven Build their nests within my rigging; Frogs and lizards of the forest Play about my oars and rudder; Three times better for this vessel Were he but a valley birch-tree, Or an aspen on the heather, With the squirrels in his ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... good luck to be foretold. So it appears on the surface. You are overcast by sorrow and losses, with death to many present hopes. As holding up the cup, gravestones, tears—heart-tears—seems an ill-omened cup, yet no one need to ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... they lay breathless and exhausted, of seeing this bird or one of its relatives rise from below the cliff edge one day as they approached; and, looking down, they saw upon a ledge, where it had fallen, a dead lamb, upon which the great ill-omened bird had ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two of its officers ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... Jews, destroying all they touched. Wandering to and fro among these people was that crazed man Jesus, the son of Annas, who had met them with his wild prophetic cry as they entered into Jerusalem, and whose ill-omened voice Miriam had heard again before Marcus was taken at the fight in the Old Tower. To and fro he went, none hindering him, though many thrust their fingers in their ears and looked aside as he passed, wailing forth: "Woe, woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the city and the Temple!" Of a sudden, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... an ill journey for someone," I said. "I think, sir, for you. Something speaks in my bosom; and so much it says plain—that this is an ill-omened journey." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in fact, the five acts of a portentous drama, full of shifting scenes and striking situations, on the issues of which depended the fortunes of France and of Germany; it was played out with ill-omened rapidity in nine days. In regard to the train of causes and consequences that brought France to the tremendous disaster upon which the curtain fell, diverse accounts have been given to the world by the leading actors—by M. de Gramont, by Bismarck, Benedetti, and, the latest by many years, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... to get away from a place where such disagreeable things had happened. We accordingly marched about two hours, the marabouts accompanying us, and then pitched tent for the night. Sinister rumours, however, were still about, like a flight of ill-omened birds, and it was said that another troop of people were collecting further on to intercept our passage to Soudan. During this halt, grave conferences were held between the Kailouee merchant, En-Noor, and the marabout, on the subject of these fresh ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Asa-queen, could not rest because of the ill-omened dream that her son had had; and in her distress she called all the Asa-folk together to consider what should be done. But they were speechless with sorrow and alarm; and none could offer advice, nor ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... some years ago in the city of New York over an ill-omened young person, Duffy by name, who, falling into the bad graces of the police, was most incontinently dragged to headquarters and "mugged" without so much as "By your leave, sir," on the part of the authorities. Having been photographed and measured (in most humiliating fashion) he was ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... and look affected Edith very unpleasantly. The mystery about her father seemed to grow darker, and to assume something of an ill-omened character. The name also—Van Diemen's Land—served to heighten her dark apprehensions; and this discovery that she had known even less than she supposed about her father made it seem as though the knowledge that had thus been hidden could ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... veneering, instead of being crowded with generous wines, or with good spirits that had mellowed for years in the cellars, was now crowded in every shelf with forbidding-looking bottles of black draughts, with packages of salt and senna, and with ill-omened piles of raking pills, perhaps not less destructive in their way than shot and shell of a more explosive sort. The butler's pantry and store rooms had their shelves and drawers and boxes filled, not with jellies and marmalades and preserves, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... supposing alpha to mean ama or omou, Apollo becomes equivalent to ama polon, which points to both his musical and his heavenly attributes; for there is a 'moving together' alike in music and in the harmony of the spheres. The second lambda is inserted in order to avoid the ill-omened sound of destruction. The Muses are so called—apo tou mosthai. The gentle Leto or Letho is named from her willingness (ethelemon), or because she is ready to forgive and forget (lethe). Artemis is so called from her healthy well-balanced nature, dia to artemes, or as ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... like a dragonfly in the midst of his angular dartings, and said: "Since your scissors are not to be found, it is fortunate that I have a pocket pair, which are always at your service." Mr. Tiffles produced the ill-omened article, and handed it to her. This called out a new lot of thanks, regrets for having troubled him, apologies, and a peremptory refusal to take his scissors, immediately followed by their acceptance, and a promise that ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton |
