"Portentously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a sound of about the most commonplace, matter-of-fact character that can be imagined. Fitz, as he lay half upon a heap of dry leaves and canes, opened his mouth very widely, yawned portentously and loudly, ending with, "Oh, dear me!" and a quickly-uttered correction of what seemed to him like bad manners: "I beg ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... whose name and book are now remembered only to be detested. But the first principles of morals and politics, which have long been settled, acquire the authority of self-evident truths, which, when first discussed, may have been vehemently and portentously contested. John Locke, a kindred soul to Algernon Sydney, seven years after his death published an elaborate system of government, in which he declares the "false principles and foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and his followers are detected and overthrown." ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... destiny or heredity permeates all the works of this portentously ambitious series. Details may be repellant. One should not "smell" a picture, as the artists say. If one does, he gets an impression merely of a small blotch of paint. The vast canvas should be studied as a whole. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... of this yellow sun of Florence that has been restoring the text of my own young romance; the thing has been lying before me today as a clear, fresh page. There have been moments during the last ten years when I have fell so portentously old, so fagged and finished, that I should have taken as a very bad joke any intimation that this present sense of juvenility was still in store for me. It won't last, at any rate; so I had better make the best of it. But I confess it surprises me. I have led ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... perhaps five feet five inches in his boots. With the exception of his legs, he was a heavily built man, with a large head, an ample brow, a hairless face, very red, with large cheeks, and an under jaw like a lion. His eyes were small, but wonderfully bright and intelligent. He looked so portentously solemn, that when you learnt that he was perfectly well in mind, body and estate, the inclination to laugh was irresistible. This remarkable man began to speak in a husky, asthmatical voice, that gradually ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... out, calm and silently, from the deep: "Ere yon glorious orb is on the zenith," thought he, "I may be—what?" He shrank from the conclusion. "Surely the wretch will not dare to execute his audacious threat?" He again caught that red and angry star gleaming portentously on him. It seemed to be his evil genius; its malignant eye appeared to follow out his track, to haunt him, and to beset his path continually with suffering and danger. He stood by the narrow grating, feverish and apprehensive; again he heard ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... agreement was slightly blurred by a mouthful of tomato. "Varr owns Wimpelheimer's store. If he catches Wimpy bein' too accommodatin' to us chaps he's fixed to make trouble for him." He nodded portentously. "Get it?" ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... dark wave beams out at last! "Victory's our own—'tis written in that Book "Upon whose leaves none but the angels look, "That ISLAM'S sceptre shall beneath the power "Of her great foe fall broken in that hour "When the moon's mighty orb before all eyes "From NEKSHEB'S Holy Well portentously shall rise! "Now turn and see!"—They turned, and, as he spoke, A sudden splendor all around them broke, And they beheld an orb, ample and bright, Rise from the Holy Well and cast its light[123] Round the rich city and the plain for miles,— Flinging ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... her heart. Oh, good Charles, wonderful Charles! She did not know how to be grateful enough. She moved meekly, humbly through the hall and up the stairs. All was terribly, portentously still, but in her bedroom there were no signs of the trouble in the house. The fire was lighted, her evening gown had been laid out on the bed, her silk stockings and slippers were in their usual places. Nobody had ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... slowly and portentously delivered, the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom which tallied so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's constitutions ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... too, had come over the "ex-brave". He assumed a portentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by no ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... Beverly, when I gave explicit orders that no one should leave the gymnasium?" demanded Miss Woodhull, frowning portentously upon the delinquent. ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... had taken the information as some weak men take any kind of information referring to themselves or their belongings — namely, as an insult. He drew himself up, and lowered portentously. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... began. It was a day car. Celia crouched into her seat, trying to sleep, afraid of everything, of the staring eyes of the porter, of the strange faces about her, of the jet black of the night that gloomed portentously through the window. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... "Just wait!" said Patty portentously. "When I went upstairs to dress for dinner, the maid met me in the hall with her eyes ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... house in America, if not in the world—silent, solemn—an atmosphere of impregnable rectitude—the solid furniture, the heavy carpets, the chill high walls, the massive desks, the impressive chairs, the great majestic table portentously suggestive of power. Presto! the dim calm is broken; the air vibrates as when an ancient church is invaded by a swarm of vampire-bats. Into the great room enter a group of men and a flock of youths, who settle in the impressive chairs round the majestic table. You wonder what is the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... if he did not obviously know this and carefully avoid the furniture; he is so light that the subject must not be mentioned in his presence, but it is possible that, were the ladies to combine, they could blow him out of a chair. He enters portentously, his hands behind his back, as if every bit of him, from his domed head to his little feet, were the physical expressions of the deep thoughts within him, then suddenly he whirls round to make his guests jump. This amuses him vastly, and he regains ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... Boyd Connoway frowned portentously at his eldest son. The youth shook his head. The sign was well understood, especially when helped out with a grin, broad as all County Donegal 'twixt Killibegs and ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett |
