"Portent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (even if his really manly modesty had permitted it) any vaguest vision of what he did when he saw that portent. He acted as men do when a theatre catches fire—very differently from how they would have conceived themselves as acting, whether for better or worse. He had a faint memory of certain half-stifled explanations, that the heiress was the one ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... man by toil outdone. God sends Saint Gabriel down, the Emperor to guard. All night beside his head the Angel stands, And in a dream forebodes that 'gainst the French A battle is prepared, and its portent Explains; then glancing up tow'rd Heav'n, King Carle Sees thunder-clouds and winds, hail, raging storms And wond'rous tempests—smould'ring fire and flames Ready to burst forth. Suddenly on all His people falls the blast. Their spears with shafts Of apple-tree or ash—those shields ablaze Unto ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... of religion. If men in the twelfth century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted atheists. Probably they ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... since she is beautiful to a marvel!" said Don Ruy lightly. "If they tell us truly that the world is round, who knows that we may not be nicely balanced on an opposite to Seville, and all things of life and portent to be reversed? There's a thought for your ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... shade of the headlands, runneth down, water under land. It is not far from hence, a mile by measure, that the mere lies; over it hang groves of [rimy] trees, a wood fast-rooted, [and] bend shelteringly over the water; there every night may [one] see a dire portent, fire on the flood. No one of the sons of men is so experienced as to know those lake-depths. Though the heath-ranging hart, with strong horns, pressed hard by the hounds, seek that wooded holt, hunted ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... couvrent non seulement une vaste etendue de pays pres des cotes, mais encore le premier plan des Montagnes-Bleues; et 3. Le lignite stratiforme qu'on exploite au Mont-Yorck, a 1000 pieds au-dessus du niveau de la mer, et dont la presence ajoute aux motifs qui portent a penser que les gres ferrugineux de ces contrees appartiennent ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... a portent. There was nothing in him. Just about that time the word Thrift was to the fore. You know the power of words. We pass through periods dominated by this or that word—it may be development, or it may be competition, or education, or purity or efficiency or even sanctity. It is the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... greater. She ate as much as she could swallow and pushed the rest away. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking again, here and there, aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked at. There was a shadow over her, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark and sharp out of the age-long hour. She leaned against the balsam and then she rested in the stone seat, and then she had to walk again. It might have been long, that time; she never knew how long or short. There came a strange ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... thought it quite enough to damn a man that he bore the name of Lyco, which is said to signify a greedy-wolf; and Livy calls the name Atrius Umber abominandi ominis nomen, a name of horrible portent."—Nares' Heraldic Anomalies.] ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... I rise and dress. Through the window I see the Square, shrouded in mist, the nearer leafless shrubs swaying in the chill wind, pavement glistening in the flickering light of street lamps. A dismal morning to be setting off to the sea! Portent of head winds and foul weather that we may meet in Channel before the last of Glasgow's grime and smoke-wrack ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Roused by the portent of the sky The sages fix their gaze on high, And speed them 'neath the furrowed way Marked by the ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... queerest shock of his life when he met the gaze of those contrasting eyes. Yet he did not believe that his strange feeling came from sight of different-colored eyes. There was an instinct or portent in ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... will not be scared away when I boldly confront him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because in them we shall ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... practice in forgiveness, and that there are many probabilities to favor his interpretation of the fact. No one who reads the book can deny that the case is presented with great power, or fail to recognize in the writer a portent of the sort of negro equality against which no series of hangings and burnings will ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... what I think," said Ruth exasperated at the little prattler. It seemed so awful for a girl with brains—or hadn't she brains?—to chatter on interminably in that inane fashion about a matter of such awful portent. And yet perhaps the child was only trying to cover up her fears, for she all too ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... rested on the face of the French maid. "Well! Mr. Davlin must come and, unfortunately, I can't be present at this interview. However, I shall be able to judge pretty accurately by their future movements what was its portent." ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... where the body was buried there grew up a bamboo of extraordinary size and a bush with sweet and beautiful flowers: many people tried to cut down the big bamboo and to pluck the beautiful flowers but every arm that was raised to do so was restrained by some unseen power. Eventually the news of this portent reached the ears of the Raja who went to see what was happening. When the Raja tried to pluck a flower he succeeded at the first attempt. The Raja then cut down the bamboo and out of it stepped the mongoose boy who told of the illtreatment which he had received ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... will then be worth something and the sun will be farther up. But nothing of a topographical nature ensues. The hills remain to obscure the sun. And the brute has to be saddled. The mood of that grim breakfast, voiceless, tense, high with portent, is still ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... now that the weather is fine again. We had a whole day's rain (which Herodotus says is a portent here) and a hurricane from the south worthy of the Cape. I thought we should have been buried under the drifting sand. To-day is again heavenly. I saw Abd-el-Azeez, the chemist in Cairo; he seemed a very ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... case now and, as a further portent, Mr. Blinkhorn was observed to come down and, after a few words with Mr. Tinkler, withdrew with him through the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... profusely as Billy. Three times had they met in noble battle, and three times had Billy been the conqueror, but somehow the spirit of young McMasters did not seem particularly broken, nor did he become a serf. Billy felt that the air was full of portent, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... a true portent; for the wind freshened during the first watch, causing us to take in all of our stu'n'sails before midnight. Then followed the royals and topgallants in quick succession, the main-sail and inner and outer jibs being next furled and the foresail reefed, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... came into the wood to listen for themselves. No one was in the least able to account for the sounds, and the general opinion was that the tree was haunted. Superstition ran rife, and most of the neighbours considered it must be a portent. Poor Mrs. Treasure began to be quite sure it had some intimate connection with her mother's illness. Several girls were weeping hysterically, and one of them asked if the end of the world was coming. Meantime, more and more people ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... this, I believe, is the first application of the celestial portent to this particular comparison. Yet Milton's "imperial ensign" waves defiant behind his impregnable lines, and even Campbell flaunts his "meteor flag" in Waller's face. Gray's bard might be sent to the lock-up, but ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... says Dean Stanley,—"the chief work of the Confessor's life,—was the portent of the mighty future. When Harold stood beside his sister Edith, on the day of the dedication, and signed his name with hers as witness to the Charter of the Abbey, he might have seen that he was sealing his own doom, and preparing ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... their stoical demeanor breathing the deep solemnity of the vast woods and plains amid which their savage lives were passed; nor could one fail to feel the deep gravity with which they gathered in this council of life or death. To them it was evident that the meeting was of most serious portent. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... what odds? and I sat down all wondering and dazed, and drew a cigar from the box upon the table. The wine, of which I drank nearly a tumblerful, put new courage of a sort into me; and so, troubled and amazed, I began to ask myself what the proceeding meant, or what the portent of it all could ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... and again continued his hegira, a frosty sparkle in the air had succeeded the drowsy warmth of the day, and as this portent of a chilly night translated itself to the brain of Sir Peregrine, he lengthened his stride and bethought him of shelter. He travelled a road that faithfully followed the convolutions of the levee, running along its base, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... in 'the Courier' upon the opening of that Temple at Jerusalem, with all that about the 'Mark of the Beast;' that mock (I suppose it was mock) miracle, with the fire consuming the sacrifice, and then that awful portent of darkness, thunder, and lightning—but no rain. It reminded me of the scene at Calvary, when the Christ was crucified. What does it ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... coolness of McClellan went so far that an event occurred which Hay indignantly set down in his diary: "I wish here to record what I consider a portent of evil to come. The President, Governor Seward and I went over to McClellan's house tonight. The servant at the door said the General was at the wedding of Colonel Wheaton at General Buell's and would soon return. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... finish her sentence; she clasped her hands and hid her face on the back of her armchair, quite overcome by this dreadful portent. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... leaped over the gap, floundered in the mud . . . still veiled. The unexpectedness of his coming was the only thing, you understand, that saved him from being at once dispatched with krisses and flung into the river. They had him, but it was like getting hold of an apparition, a wraith, a portent. What did it mean? What to do with it? Was it too late to conciliate him? Hadn't he better be killed without more delay? But what would happen then? Wretched old Allang went nearly mad with apprehension and through the difficulty of making up his mind. Several times the council was broken ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... have been written found that it was necessary to say it loudly and to say it at great length. Their very violence showed their sense of Chesterton as a peril even when they abused anyone who felt him to be a portent. It was not the kind of contempt that is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handle him without gloves, henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night?—a great red letter in the sky,—the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for, in truth, I only asked with a half hope that he might have some other interpretation of this portent than that of violent death, which seemed the plain meaning of it—that is, if he saw aught, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I tried to think that his glance had met the sun for a moment before he looked on the king; but I could not think it, for in ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... been honoured with a quarter of a line in the Dunciad. But it attracted some notice on account of the situation of the writer. For, a hundred and twenty years ago, an eclogue or a lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent, [372] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for months, had been immured in the oil fields, Wichita Falls did indeed resemble a city of marvelous portent. Pavements, large buildings, bright lights, theaters—Buddy was thrilled. He prepared himself for introduction to oil operators, to men of finance sitting in marble and mahogany offices; he made ready to step forth ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... wrath—two riders, in a glade of the Park close to the Ham Gate, of whom she on the left-hand was most assuredly Holly on her silver roan, and he on the right-hand as assuredly that 'squirt' Val Dartie. His first impulse was to urge on his own horse and demand the meaning of this portent, tell the fellow to 'bunk,' and take Holly home. His second—to feel that he would look a fool if they refused. He reined his horse in behind a tree, then perceived that it was equally impossible to spy on them. Nothing for it but to go home and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... courts by those who had solemnly proclaimed and deliberately sworn that they would tell and were telling it. The State loyalty as being a mental reservation evermore to abrogate the oath of National loyalty:—what is it but a modern reproduction of the old Jesuit portent? ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... speedily brought him to the grave. We next catch the sparkle of the magic diamond at various epochs of the merry reign of Charles the Second. But its sinister fortune still attended it. From whatever hand this ring of portent came, and whatever finger it encircled, ever it was the pledge of deceit between man and man, or man and woman, of faithless vows, and unhallowed passion; and whether to lords and ladies, or to village-maids,—for sometimes it found its ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his chair with stately dignity, unmarred by even the semblance of a smile. Young Peter Johnson howled with the rest, his sulks forgotten; and even the withered serving-man relaxed to a smile—a portent hitherto unknown. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... he, the simple fool, Who says that wars are over? What bloody portent flashes there, Across the Straits of Dover? Nine hundred thousand slaves in arms May seek to bring us under But England lives and still will live, For we'll crush the despot yonder. Are we ready, Britons all, To answer foes with ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heav'ns with cries. Amid the host the fallen serpent lies. They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd, And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold." ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... that Tommy had done most of the braying, I was willing to let it go at that. A lack of discriminating accuracy on his part might have been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... be eighty-five (Sec. 130).* When Ferris was Secretary of Utah Territory, in 1852-1853, he found that the Mormons were still expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date forward to 1870. All through Smith's autobiography and the Millennial Star will be found mention of every portent that might be construed as an indication of the coming disruption of this world. As late as December 6, 1856, an editorial in the Millennial Star said, "The signs of the times clearly indicate to every observing mind that ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... strange return of Ugh-lomi, a wonderful animal seen galloping far across the river, that suddenly changed into two animals, a horse and a man. Following this portent, the vision of Ugh-lomi on the farther bank of the river.... Yes, it was all plain to her. Uya was punishing them, because they had not hunted down ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... "dear constituents," whom he did all his wit could do to make ridiculous, that the Senate laughed, and even Roscoe Conkling, who never condescends to sneer at a woman in public, turned and listened and smiled his most sardonic smile. Then Thurman blew his loudest regulation blast—sure portent of approaching battle—and rose and moved that the petition be referred to the committee on public lands, of which Oglesby is chairman. At this proposition—intended to be equally humorous and contemptuous—the whole ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Conchobar to Sencha son of Ailill: "Come, O Sencha my master," said Conchobar; "stay the men of Ulster, and let them not go to the battle till there come the strength of a good omen and favourable portent, till the sun mounts to the roof-tree of heaven and sunshine fills the glens and lowlands and hills and ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... season a herring-barrel appears in the midst of a storm-cloud; and at a place called Columkille's Strand, a place of marsh and mire, an ancient boat, with St. Columba himself, comes floating in from sea on a moonlight night: a portent of a brave harvesting. They have their dread portents too. Some few seasons ago a fisherman saw, far on the horizon, renowned Hy Brazel, where he who touches shall find no more labour or care, nor cynic laughter, but shall go walking about under shadiest boscage, and enjoy the conversation ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... because he was a small poet that he came to his strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in literature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... and the Borneo harvest taboo (carrying prohibition of other work) lasts sometimes for weeks. There is mention in a Maori legend of a taboo of three years.[1023] According to the later Hebrew law, in every seventh year all agricultural operations ceased.[1024] A portent may demand a long period of restriction, as in the case of the Roman nine-day ceremony (novendiales feriae).[1025] As has been remarked above, economic taboos are often dictated by convenience—they are prudential rules to which a supernatural ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... building of the Pyramids was commenced three hundred years before the Deluge, in the time of Saurid, the son of Sabaloc, who, it is said, was the first to receive a warning dream of the coming flood. Saurid, being convinced by his priests, astrologers and soothsayers that the portent was a true one, became from that time possessed of one idea, which was that the vast learning of Egypt, its sciences, discoveries and strange traditions should not be lost,—and that the exploits and achievements of those who were ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... army, the general feeling is one of wonder that this act of direst portent to the rebellion has been so long delayed. Even the rebels share in this amazement. When secession was first openly mooted at the South, every Unionist argued that secession was practical abolition. It has puzzled them to comprehend the weary months through which their ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the future are out-numbered by erroneous forecasts and one vivid dream of the death of a friend though coinciding as to the day, is not of great value as evidence as I had been expecting the news for weeks, and further, beyond the surface portent the dream is remotely allied in certain details with ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... wit, its propriety to elegance, and even its decorum into naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions of the paper do not allow you to sign at the end, but which you take care to sign with the most extravagant flourishes between the lines. I am not sure that this is not a portent of Revolution. In eighteenth century France the end was at hand when men bought the Encyclopedia and found Diderot there. When I buy the Times and find you there, my prophetic ear catches a ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... path from behind a tree, towering over him, almost mountainous to his eyes, like the very shape of doom! Himself hurling sideways, and rolling over and over, snarling, to prevent the crowning disaster of collision with this terrible portent! A blow, two blows, with enormous paws whose claws gleamed like skewers, whistling half-an-inch above his ducked head! Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged confusion, and rumblings deep down in the inside of the thing that ran cold lightning-sparks all up his spine. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... weather, so frequently startle the night traveller, and that some peculiarity of form in the meteor had been exaggerated by the obscuring influence of the frost-rime and the briefness of the survey; but the apparition had filled his whole mind, as one of strange and frightful portent from the spiritual world. And often since that night has it returned to us in recollection, as a vision in singular keeping with the wild valley which it traversed, and the credulous melancholy of the solitary shepherd, its ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... sensuous long dark lashes hung above her dreamy eyes, Like twin clouds of stormy portent balanced over limpid deeps; Like the wings of birds of passage seen against the hazy skies; Like the petal o'er the pollen of the flow'ret when ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... whereas in reference to all other matters sky-divination either allowed things to be done and they were carried out without consulting any individual augury further, or else it would prevent and hinder something, it restrained the balloting of the populace altogether and was always a portent to check them, whether it was of a favorable or ill-boding nature. Now the cause of this custom I am unable to state, but I set down the common report. Accordingly, many persons who wished to obstruct either the proposal of ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... just, inevitable scorn, Strong child of righteous judgment, whom with grief The rent heart bears, and wins not yet relief, Seeing of its pain so dire a portent born, Must thou not spare one sheaf of all the corn, One doit of all the treasure? not one sheaf, Not one poor doit of all? not one dead leaf Of all that fell and left behind a thorn? Is man so strong that one should scorn another? Is ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... idea of this important day at Friars Carse, I have watched the elements and skies, in the full persuasion that they would announce it to the astonished world by some phenomena of terrific portent. Yesternight until a very late hour, did I wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet firing half the sky, or aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians, darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... opposition amongst the workmen in the surrounding districts. When the local school-mistress, a girl of seventeen, found a temporary grave in this sort of Black Hole of Calcutta the wells of Kushva and Taighill became a dreadful portent ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... utterly in vain that I attempted to argue the honest fellow out of his belief that their appearance was a portent of disaster, for his mind was deeply imbued with all those superstitious notions which appear to take such peculiarly firm hold on the ideas of sailors; and against superstitions of lifelong duration, argument and reason are ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... l'Huguenot Un combat heroique Lui livra a propos, Au lieu nomme la Crosse, Et reprirent par force La chasse du Patron. Puis de la Rue des Carmes La portent a Notre ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... standing round some object on the ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within that distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained winding-sheet. {5a} Many thought that this apparition was a portent of the deaths ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... calm, equal, solemn manner, and in a voice mellow and penetrating, with eyes keen and black, yet softened into some degree of tenderness while fastened full upon the prisoner—this speech, its occasion, its portent, and its object, had an effect upon every hearer of producing the most respectful attention, and, out of the committee box at least, the strongest emotions in the cause of Mr. Hastings. Again Mr. Hastings made the lowest reverence to the court, and, leaning over the bar answered, with much ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... and womanly grace to gleam out upon my page with a strange repulsion and unattainableness in the very spell that made her beautiful. At her side, and familiarly attentive to her, sat a gentleman of whom I remember only a hard outline of the nose and forehead, and such a monstrous portent of a beard that you could discover no symptom of a mouth, except, when he opened it to speak, or to put in a morsel of food. Then, indeed, you suddenly became aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome shrubbery. There could be no doubt who this ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no man but he hath seen The World's Desire, the fairy queen. None but hath seen her to his cost, Not one but loves what he has lost. None is there but hath heard her sing Divinely through his wandering; Not one but he has followed far The portent of the Bleeding Star; Not one but he hath chanced to wake, Dreamed of the Star and found the Snake. Yet, through his dreams, a wandering fire, Still, still she ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... specimens enough. One morning he broke out at breakfast with an intimate conviction. They'd see that she was actually starting— they'd receive a wire by noon. They didn't receive it, but by his theory the portent was only the stronger. It had moreover its grave as well as its gay side, since Granger's paradox and pleasantry were only the method most open to him of conveying what he felt. He literally heard the knell sound, and ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... nothing loth to convince her of her folly, said, "Your importunity, wife, has prevailed, listen to a dreadful and portentous matter. It has been told us by the priests that a lark has been seen flying in the air with a golden helmet and spear: it is this portent that we are considering and discussing with the augurs, as to whether it be a good or bad omen. But say nothing about it." Having said these words he went into the Forum. But his wife seized on the very ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... consider another "miracle" discovered in the plays,—a miracle if the actor be the author. The new portent is the courtliness and refinement (too often, alas! the noblest ladies make the coarsest jokes) and wit of the speeches of the noble gentlemen and ladies in the plays. To be sure the refinement in the jests is often conspicuously ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... point of losing touch with sanity? As my thoughts leaped from one conjecture to another, the tiled room took on the chill that pervades a mausoleum. From the bowl on the table the petals of a dying rose fell in a sudden cascade, like a dismal portent. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... him mutter, and was glad. He seemed more of a man invoking God in his pain than in waving deity like a portent before unbelievers. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... pourtant dans une reconciliation solide, basee sur la reconnaissance des droits et des obligations des deux cotes. Je me trouve poussee a vous soumettre ici, Sire, une priere pour un Prince qui s'est malheureusement trouve en conflit avec votre Majeste, mais pour lequel les liens de parente me portent a plaider, le Duc de Holstein-Augustenburg. Je suis persuadee que la magnanimite de votre Majeste lui rendra ses biens particuliers, qu'elle a juge necessaire de lui oter pendant la guerre de 1848, ce que je reconnaitrais bien ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... proves of no avail; they seem one and all to be laboring under the impression that my appearance is of evil portent to themselves. Perchance some social calamity they have just been visited with, is attributed in their superstitious minds to the fell influence of the foreign devil, who has so suddenly bobbed up in their midst just at this unhappy, inauspicious moment. Perad-venture some stray and highly exaggerated ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... exploded, releasing a flaming 'dropper.' About the time the 'dropper' reached the earth Tuxall lighted up his well-oiled barn. All Harwick, having had its attention attracted by the explosion, and seen the portent with its own eyes, believed that a huge meteor had fired the building. So Tuxall and Company had a well attested wonder from the heavens. That's the little plan which Bailey's presence threatened to wreck. Is it your opinion that ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... penetrating. His complexion was a yellowish-brown, bespeaking Indian blood. I knew at once that it must be John Randolph. As he uttered the words, 'Mr. Speaker!' every member turned in his seat, and, facing him, gazed as if some portent had suddenly appeared before them. 'Mr. Speaker,' said he, in a shrill voice, which, however, pierced every nook and corner of the hall, 'I have but one word to say,—one word, sir, and that is to state a fact. The measure ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... gorge, while myriad shades of color pulsated into new life in earth and sky. The two men watched this magic beauty of the dawn in silence. So wondrous was it, so majestic, so far beyond the schemes and thoughts of insignificant man, that it was almost impossible not to see in it some portent, something of promise or warning. Even Seth, practical and farseeing as he was, forgot the actualities of life for a little space, while Richard's dreams took flight into that upper world of rosy flame and forgot the deep valleys, dark with difficulty ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... would easily have joined the long procession of forgotten dreams, but it was recalled many a time during many years. And, try as I might, I felt it to be a portent ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Vanderbilt died in 1877, America's first great industrial combination had become an established fact. In that year the Standard Oil Company of Ohio controlled at least ninety per cent of the business of refining and marketing petroleum. A new portent had appeared in our economic life, a phenomenon that was destined to affect not only the social and business existence of the every-day American but even his ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... the sea! My dream's come true. Ho, lodgers, ho, This portent view. Glyce has vanished, carrying off my cock, My cock that crew! O Mania, help! O reads of the rock Pursue! pursue! For I poor girl, was working within, Holding my distaff heavy and full, Twir-r-r-r-r-rling my hand as the threads I spin, ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... that the operator understood the portent of the message but I know the fellow—his name is Wicks, and I think he's a ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... at the hearing of some portent, the professor stood rooted to the spot for a moment, and then was about to leap to the door, when the simulacrums before him sprang to their feet and with a tremendous stamping, smote their wooden legs upon the floor, "stamp, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... night, as Tycho bent his way Home to the dark old abbey, he upraised His eyes, and saw a portent in the sky. There, in its most familiar patch of blue, Where Cassiopeia's five-fold glory burned, An unknown brilliance quivered, a huge star Unseen before, a strange new visitant To heavens unchangeable, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... answered! When a king asks twice, and has A question as an answer to his question, It is a portent. What! they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... suddenly up. A direful cracking resounded under the bed-clothes as she did so, but in the excitement of the moment its possible evil portent went unnoticed. ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... Benjamin, pointing to the Portent in the chair. "Which is it—an Indian idol, or ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... "Guv'nor" and the Old Un up a flight of stairs and into a large chamber fitted as a gymnasium, where are four roped and padded posts socketed into the floor; close by is a high-backed armchair in which the Old Un seats himself with an air of heavy portent. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... purple backs and smooth purple legs on the box before them, Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone rolled home silently, a silence of thunderous portent. Another purple person opened the door for them, and when Madam Weatherstone said, "We will have tea on the terrace," it was brought ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... portent The greatness of the sixteenth century Artists, scholars, reformers, religious defenders Maritime discoveries Literary, ecclesiastical, political achievements Youth of Galileo His early discoveries Genius for mathematics ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... had been cast upon himself, suspicions he had vainly endeavored to fathom. What was in the wind, anyhow? he asked himself. There seemed to be forces at work over which he had no control, forces big with portent, heavy with menace. Like a towering thunder-cloud that casts its sickly green over all about, so these unknown influences were overshadowing ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... you to't? will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light; And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... to reach her house even in advance of herself, and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before the sainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside him as little Maurice Levy emerged from the front ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... upon to rise, together with their fellow-citizens of all races, to free not only this country but the whole world from the oppression of the rulers of Germany, an oppression far less capable of being endured and of far graver portent. ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... languished during the trip; a disturbed conscience on the part of the father, and on the part of Kay and her mother an intuition, peculiar to their sex and aroused by the doctor's comments, that events of more than ordinary portent had occurred that day, were responsible ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Aulis, freighted with trouble for Priam and the Trojans; and we round about a spring were offering on the holy altars unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, beneath a fair plane-tree whence flowed bright water, when there was seen a great portent: a snake blood-red on the back, terrible, whom the god of Olympus himself had sent forth to the light of day, sprang from beneath the altar and darted to the plane-tree. Now there were there the brood of a sparrow, tender ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... vain flight—the miserable lover knew it to be the flamboyant ether of the pyromaniac transformed into a trumpeting tornado. And he hoped that it would not spare him, as this phantasm twirled and ululated in the heavens, a grim portent of the iron wrath of the Almighty. In a twinkling it had passed him, high in the dome of heaven, only to erase in a fabulous blast the moaning multitude. And prone upon the strand between the stormy waters and the field of muddy ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... belonging to every season fell on that spot where he of Vrishni's race, with Ganga's son and the son of Pandu were. Celestial instruments of every kind played in the welkin and the tribes of Apsaras began to sing. Nothing of evil and no portent of any evil kind were seen there. An auspicious, pleasant, and pure breeze, bearing every kind of fragrance, began to blow. All the points of the compass became clear and quiet, and all the animals and birds began to rove in peace. Soon after, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Each dream had some special significance, or was at least susceptible of classification under some significant head. Dreams, as a general rule, went by contraries; but a dream three times repeated was a certain portent of the thing defined. Rena's few years of schooling at Patesville and her months at Charleston had scarcely disturbed these hoary superstitions which lurk in the dim corners of the brain. No lady in Clarence, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... opened and closed very softly. Then he heard a low, quick gasp. Some one had entered. Suddenly the room seemed strange, full, charged with terrible portent. And he turned as if a giant hand had heavily swung ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... a few months. The great general marched steadily north, taking the boroughs one by one, storming, massacring young and old, burning, sometimes, whole towns, and leaving, as he went on, a new portent, a Norman donjon—till then all but unseen in England—as a place of safety for his garrisons. At Oxford (sacked horribly, and all but destroyed), at Warwick (destroyed utterly), at Nottingham, at Stafford, at Shrewsbury, at Cambridge, on the huge barrow which overhangs ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... des veuves; et en France et ailleurs, celles-ci l'ornent et l'entourent d'une cordeliere ou cordon a divers neuds. Quant aux femmes mariees, elles accollent d'ordinaire leurs armes avec celles de leurs epoux; mais quelquefois elles les portent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... noticed that Peter's eyes often rested with a troubled look upon his sister. In fact, it seemed to Paul that a black shadow of direful portent hung over ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous |
