"Presentiment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me, I shall not forget you, Alett. Let us hope for the best. Yet a strange presentiment I have that ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... "Thank God you are still safe!" she added; "I knew, if you were, you would be here." (Was not this strange? So swiftly and wisely does Nature prepare our hearts for these great life-long intimacies, that both my wife and I had been given a presentiment on this the second day of our acquaintance. I had even then hoped that she would seek me; she had felt sure that she would find me.) "Do not," she went on swiftly, "do not stay in this place. Promise me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... filled his soul—a haunting, vague idea that this sudden love, with its glowing ardor and intoxicating delirium, was like the brilliant red sunset which frequently prognosticates a night of storm, ruin and death. Yet, though he felt this presentiment like a creeping shudder of cold through his blood, it did not hold him back, or for a moment impress him with the idea that it might be better to yield no further to this desperate love-madness ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... what this insolent little roue could have heard about her own pure Lida, her darling child, and again she had a terrible presentiment of the latter's downfall. It utterly unnerved her, and for the moment her eyes had ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... be stampeded by unconscionable journalism. Lord Haldane is no political dilettante. Few men in modern times have brought to politics a mind so trained in right thinking, or a spirit so full of that impressive quality, as Morley calls it, the presentiment of the eve: "a feeling of the difficulties and interests that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow." Long ago he foresaw the need in our industrial life of the scientific spirit, and in our democracy of a deeper and more profitable education. "Look at Scotland, the best educated nation; ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... who entered the board-room that late afternoon remembered that it was May Eve; and even had he remembered, it would have amounted to nothing more than the mental process of association. It would not have given him the faintest presentiment that at that very moment the Little People were busy pressing their cloth-o'-dream mantles and reblocking their wishing-caps; that the instant the sun went down the spell would be off the faery raths, setting them ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... and execution of the queen, Marie Antoinette, had plunged me, too, into deepest sadness. Solange was all tears, and we could not rid ourselves of a strange feeling of despondency, a presentiment of approaching danger, that compressed our hearts. In vain I tried to whisper courage to Solange. Weeping, she reclined in my arms, and I could not comfort her, because my own words lacked the ring ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... "I am afraid the mother has not always treated the daughter well," he continued, "feeling a little jealous of her growth, perhaps; for, though we hope England has not yet begun to descend on the evil side, we have a presentiment that she has got to the top of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to me directly afterwards that he could not see the nod; but I showed him that I fully understood by bearing off to the left, crawling steadily and softly, and feeling Denham's hand come tap, tap regularly upon my heel. All the time I had a presentiment that the Boers must be ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... timid and hesitating find everything impossible, chiefly because it seems so. It is related of a young French officer, that he used to walk about his apartment exclaiming, "I WILL be Marshal of France and a great general." His ardent desire was the presentiment of his success; for the young officer did become a distinguished commander, and he died a ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... nine o'clock I arose to watch, and soon after midnight, the moon coming up bright and clear, I awoke Nelson, and suggested to him we should saddle up and cross over to Cedar Creek, for I had a strong presentiment that some misfortune would befall us if we remained longer where we were. It is not a little singular, but true, that man has a wonderful instinct, and can nearly always divine coming trouble or danger. This instinct in the frontiersman, of course, is wonderfully developed by the perilous life he ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... morning, January the first, 1917, that I learned of my boy's death. And he had been killed the Thursday before! He had been dead four days before I knew it! And yet—I had known. Let no one ever tell me again that there is nothing in presentiment. Why else had I been so sad and uneasy in my mind? Why else, all through that Sunday, had it been so impossible for me to take comfort in what was said to cheer me? Some warning had come to me, some sense that all was ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... became our guide to the sick man's room. Sperver spoke no more; he hurried forward. Sebalt stretched his long legs. I felt a shuddering horror creep through my whole frame—a horrible presentiment of something shocking and ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... yard wide, which led to the back door. Standing on this and peering through the chink in the boards, he gained at last a view of the interior of the house. From the first, he had entered upon this search with a certain presentiment. He looked into the room and shivered. It was apparently the kitchen, and was unfurnished save for half a dozen rickety chairs, and a deal table in the middle of the room. Upon this was stretched the body of a motionless man. There were ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Presentiment.—We walk in the midst of secrets—we are encompassed with mysteries. We know not what takes place in the atmosphere that surrounds us—we know not what relations it has with our minds. But one thing is sure, that, under certain conditions, our soul, through the exercise of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... crying outside, or is it the wind?" Mr. Jerrold asked, as the sobbing seemed like a wail of anguish, while there crept over him one of those indefinable presentiments which we have all felt at times and could not explain; a presentiment in his case of coming evil, whose shadow was ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... none the less. I never felt better in my life except for twinges occasioned by my nitrogen experiment. But still I hear a voice calling to me, as my mother often did, when I was a boy 'Peter, Peter, it is about bed-time,' and I have an old man's presentiment that I shall ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... Malbone, taken in her early girlhood when about fifteen years old—beautiful as an angel, with light chestnut hair and a soft blue eye, in the look of which is a touch of sadness, as if caused by some dim presentiment of her early death. I remember hearing Miss Sedgwick say that she should always think the better of Verplanck for having been the husband of Eliza Fenno. Several of her letters written to him before their marriage are preserved, which, amidst the sprightliness natural to her age, show ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... said to have had a presentiment of his approaching fate. On the day preceding his death, a council of officers was convoked, in consequence of the continued absence of General Hand, and their entire ignorance of his [155] force or movements, to consult and determine on what would be the course for them to pursue under ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... bachelor state and comfort, I had accompanied my friend Dick Forrest on a farewell yacht cruise from which I returned to find the first two hotels of my seeking packed from cellar to roof. But the third had a free room, and I took it without the ghost of a presentiment. What would or would not have happened if I had not taken it is a thing ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... she, presenting the dose to me with a serene air of matronly confidence, 'Here, Senor, is a tea containing no less than seventeen different ingredients; and I have a presentiment that this is the very thing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... or two afterwards she was seized with a presentiment of impending evil—a formless shadow that seemed to settle down upon her spirit, and that no argument could relieve. Her mother-in-law writes: "I must tell you a very strange thing that happened just before his death. For a day or two Fanny had been telling us that she knew—that she felt—something ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... frosty air; so that most of the townsmen went back to their own firesides and sat talking with their wives and children about the calamities of the times. Others who were younger and less prudent remained in the streets; for there seems to have been a presentiment that some strange event was on the eve of ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in you," he declared, "and Fergusson is equally confident about the play; chance has given you this opportunity—the result is beyond question! Yet I confess that I have a presentiment. If the manuscript of 'The Heart of the People' were in my hands at this moment, I think that I would tear it into little pieces, and watch them flutter down ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moment sings. But to new horror I awake each morn, And I could weep hot tears, to see the sun Dawn on another day, whose round forlorn Accomplishes no wish of mine—not one. Which still, with froward captiousness, impains E'en the presentiment of every joy, While low realities and paltry cares The spirit's fond imaginings destroy. Then must I too, when falls the veil of night, Stretch'd on my pallet languish in despair. Appalling dreams my soul ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that perhaps a presentiment was given him that this was his last march, with the battery, he had fought so often, and loved so much; and this saddened, and softened his usually bold, soldierly spirit, and bearing. I walked and talked with him a good deal that afternoon, and certainly I was struck by ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... a thoroughly healthy appetite for my breakfast," said Diana, as they went into the dining-room. "I'm feeling particularly cheerful just this moment. I have a presentiment that something very delightful is going to happen to me to-day—though, to be sure, Sunday isn't usually a day ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... no, it is not so. The joy is, I suppose, something like our joy at the long pleasant summer days—it has the presentiment of the dark days coming. And it is this presentiment that casts its shadows over the joy of men, just as the driving clouds cast their shadow over the fjords. It lies there so bright and ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... Mr. Holden. So far from being frightened at him, when I was a child, nothing pleased me better that when he took Faith and me into his arms, and told us stories out of the Bible. I do believe I had then a presentiment he was something different from what ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... feeling nervous. A sense of the ridiculousness of his mission had come upon him. After all, he asked himself, what on earth had he got to say? A presentiment had come upon him that he was about to look a perfect ass. At the sight of Lady Wetherby his nervousness began to diminish. Lady Wetherby was not a formidable person. In spite of her momentary peevishness, she brought with her an atmosphere ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... presentiment quickly acquired confirmation. The police were immediately informed of the elopement; its most active agents bestirred themselves; the Indians were closely watched, and if the retreat of the young girl was not discovered, evident proofs of an approaching revolt came to light, which accorded ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... pleasure into which one plunges and finds no end; whereas, it is the ideal woman, to be seen sometimes in reality in Spain or Italy, almost never in France. Well, I have again seen this girl of the gold eyes, this woman caressing her chimera. I saw her on Friday. I had a presentiment that on the following day she would be here at the same hour; I was not mistaken. I have taken a pleasure in following her without being observed, in studying her indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation, ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... soul, I've no notion of laughing at you! Your presentiment may be the real thing,—for all I know. Anyway, if you want to ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... though he had never felt less like sleeping. He got into bed, however, but tossed about uneasily for hours, the distant roaring of the seals on the rookery and other unaccustomed noises keeping him awake. And ever, through it all, Colin was conscious of this presentiment of some trouble on hand. Suddenly, this feeling rushed over him like a flood and, impelled by some force he could not resist, he sprang from bed and hurried ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... given their loved and cherished ones to camp and field. The son of a dear friend had said to his mother, "I know I shall be killed, but I go to free the slave." His presentiment had been met, for he had been ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the morning with a presentiment that all would be over now before long, and to make his presentiment come true, resolved, before night, to go himself to Hardy and give in. All he reserved to himself was the liberty to do it in the manner which would be least painful to himself. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... a moment, but averted her face still further from him. At last she said, in a low tone: "Mr. Van Berg, did you ever have a presentiment of evil?" ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... fell rustling to the floor and spread into a sheaf of paper bound between home-made covers of cloth, but when the girl opened the improvised book, with the presentiment that here was the message out of the past that would explain the rest, she knitted her brows and sat studying it in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... convey the concentrated scorn and sarcasm Mr. Rogers infused into these words, and he continued to glare at me for fully a minute, his eyes as searching as x-rays. When that glare shifted I had a presentiment it would leave me forever a stranger to him, and I made up my mind to turn on my heel and leave his office without a word. I felt that he was in the right, and that if I were in his ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A human figure—or it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than mortal—lifted from the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle's screech clanged on the wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... moral convictions in a cloud of dust and dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them. As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his adversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned. But he will be justified in the world below. Then ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... died away and Naoum appeared. His face was calm, but George noticed a something in his look that seemed foreign to it, and a presentiment that he was about to hear bad news took possession of him. As Naoum came forward, our ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... the honest simpleton, in all likelihood for the purpose of disgusting our adventurer with the stage, communicated to him the first proud presentiment he felt of what afterwards occurred. The thought instantly struck him, "If performers, so very despicable as this man describes, are endured upon a public stage, thought he, why may not I?—cannot I be as useful as them? besides I can—but these men sing, I suppose—do not they sing John, much ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... strong presentiment that (bating some out of the way accident) you will survive me. The difference of eight years, or whatever it is, between our ages, is nothing. I do not feel (nor am, indeed, anxious to feel) the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... gazing at her father and the strange faces around. To the poor child it seemed as if she had lived through an unknown space of terror and misery during the few minutes that had elapsed since from the passage window she had seen the fiacre stop, and, with the presentiment of evil which had been haunting her during these last hours of suspense, intensified to conviction, had flown downstairs only to meet her father's insensible form as he was carried in. She was kneeling ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... where the poor Juli and her grandfather lived, the girl had to have it repeated to her. She stared at Sister Bali, who was telling it, as though without comprehension, without ability to collect her thoughts. Her ears buzzed, she felt a sinking at the heart and had a vague presentiment that this event would have a disastrous influence on her own future. Yet she tried to seize upon a ray of hope, she smiled, thinking that Sister Bali was joking with her, a rather strong joke, to be sure, but she forgave her beforehand if she would acknowledge ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... exclusively with physical and natural science. He passed the greater portion of his life in prison by reason of alleged sorcery and, more especially, perhaps, because he had denounced the evil lives of his brethren. He had at least a presentiment of almost all modern inventions: gunpowder, magnifying glass, telescope, air-pump; he was distinctly an inventor in optics. In philosophy, properly speaking, he denounced what was hollow and empty in scholasticism, detesting that preference should be given to ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... of the preceding, born Bettina Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild, indulged daughter of a banker in Frankfort-on-the-Main. She became blind soon after her elder daughter, Bettina-Caroline's troubles and early death, and had a presentiment of the romance connected with her younger daughter, Marie-Modeste, who became Madame Ernest de la Bastie-La Briere. Towards the close of the Restoration, Madame Charles Mignon, as the result of an operation by ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... difficult to manage. As I grew up, I still retained my vague dread and abhorrence of our absent relative. I always listened intently, yet without knowing why, whenever his name was mentioned by my father or my mother—listened with an unaccountable presentiment that something terrible had happened to him, or was about to happen to me. This feeling only changed when I was left alone in the Abbey; and then it seemed to merge into the eager curiosity which had begun to grow on me, rather before that time, about the origin ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... that powerful love which engrossed us, lay supported in my arms, when the captain of the vessel, coming down to speak to me, perceived that she was arrayed in the religious attire. He started when he viewed it, and hastily quitted the cabin. I had a presentiment that all was not right, and, removing my arms from Rosina, repaired on deck, where I found him in consultation with the crew. The subject in agitation was their immediate return to Cadiz to deliver us to the Inquisition. I resisted the suggestion; claimed the vessel ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... listen to Job, who was more inclined to talk than usual. She had conquered her feeling of impatience towards him so far as to be able to offer him her father's rejected supper; and she even tried to eat herself. But her heart failed her. A leaden weight seemed to hang over her; a sort of presentiment of evil, or perhaps only an excess of low-spirited feeling in consequence of the two departures which had taken ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... at once to the door, as if eager to leave the house, and while I followed her through the hall, and down the short flight of steps to the pavement, I was conscious of a sharp presentiment that I should never ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... and when the mists had risen above the meadows, Robbie saw before him, nigh at hand, the ancient city of Carlisle. A presentiment that he came too late took the joy out of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... unexpectedly to set out far from Buenos Ayres, and she had not benefited at all by the fine air of Cordova. But then, the fact that she had received no response to her letters from her husband, nor from her cousin, the presentiment, always lively, of some great misfortune, the continual anxiety in which she had lived, between the parting and staying, expecting every day some bad news, had caused her to grow worse out of all proportion. Finally, a very serious malady had declared itself,—a strangled ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... her head. "But will they come back?" she said despairingly. "I feel something different to what I ever felt before—a presentiment of evil, as if something would happen. What could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... had better tell her," sighed Grace. "I hate to begin a holiday by gossiping, but something will have to be done, or Mabel will find herself in an embarrassing position, for I have a curious presentiment that Miss Kathleen West will pounce upon her the moment she sees her, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... after the next birthday, Miss Burney should be set at liberty. But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty showed displeasure at being reminded of it. At length Frances was informed that in a fortnight her attendance should cease. "I heard this," she says, "with a fearful presentiment I should surely never go through another fortnight, in so weak and languishing and painful a state of health. . . . As the time of separation approached, the Queen's cordiality rather diminished, and traces of internal displeasure ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was on his brow; he felt himself oppressed and overcome by this magical beauty. He who had looked death in the face without emotion, who had seen the deadly cannon-balls falling thickly around him without a trembling of the eyelids, now felt a presentiment of danger, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... given, and the expedition started on their return home. It had not travelled many hours before an uncontrollable disposition seized them to go back again to the spot of separation to see if all was well, for some declared that they had a presentiment that there had already been foul play. Back they went, and when they reached the spot where good wishes had just been interchanged, the first spectacle which met their eyes was the mutilated dead bodies of their faithful hostages! Without any consultation, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... presentiment did not prepare him for the astonishing sight which met his eyes when he entered the drawing-room. There the three ladies were all assembled, regarding with different developments of interest the new-comer, who had thrown himself, half-reclining, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features; he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words, "Seven or ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... sweet in his mouth, a pursuing Fate seemed to him the most mythical of myths. His child-like self-confidence was pathetic. The laws that govern human affairs had little interest for the man who was always a law unto himself. Yet by some extraordinary prescience, some inexplicable presentiment, the approaching catastrophe cast its shadow over his mind and he felt vaguely that the life-journey of genius would be incomplete and farcical without the final tragedy: whoever lives for the highest ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... confident we shall have to fight the Russians on the Indus, and I have long had a presentiment that I should meet them there, and gain a great battle. All dreams, but I have ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. I would have postponed this avowal till I was able to resume my position in society, by the means which industry might have afforded me; but my departure upon this business, and the kind of presentiment which I have, that I may not see you again, has forced it from me. In a few days I leave you—be gentle with me for my involuntary offence—pity me while you condemn, and I will return ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... The following presentiment, though he was no 'waster,' may very well have been his own. He was only half Scotch, and ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... when our host suggested going out with the guns, these, we understood, being a somewhat thin disguise for our true purpose. Personally, I was glad to be in the open air, for the atmosphere of the house was heavy with presentiment. The sense of impending disaster hung over all. Fear stalked the passages, and lurked in the corners of every room. It was a house haunted, but really haunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite though incalculable influence that was actively alive, and ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... presentiment that the knowledge of my secret would prove fatal to you. Why I feel such a presentiment I know not; but I feel it, Krantz; and I cannot afford to ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Mrs. Weldon; "but I have, as it were, a presentiment that the tempest is going down or is going to ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... presentiment of Aunt Jane, Andy set out for New York with Mr. Gale. An hour and a half brought them to ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... Saxony where he had been welcomed. The Emperor granted her a pension of twelve hundred francs, and took upon himself the education of her son, the only legacy left her by her husband. "This is the first time," said Napoleon, "that I have alighted to avoid a storm; I had a presentiment that an opportunity of doing good awaited ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that of George Fox the quaker, and that of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found more correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir Benjamin Back bite says in the play, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow. Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for one minute from the time he set off ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was sought for in vain by the civil authorities. Glancing back at the threshold of the building, he had caught sight of the Professor, and, as if fascinated to the spot, he had watched him take up the fatal hymn-book. Then, with an instant presentiment of the consequences, he had rushed away. He has since joined the Parsees, and the Democrat, visiting America on business, met him the other day in New York, in the full costume of a Fire-worshipper. His complexion ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... gone to fight a duel, and she rose from her bed and started to the railroad depot. I pleaded, I reasoned with her that she could not bear the journey, but I might as well have talked to the winds, I never knew her obstinate before, but she seemed to have a presentiment of the truth. God pity her two ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... that an uncertainty has arisen as to what has befallen Naraguana and his people, her fears became redoubled and intensified. Standing in the trellissed verandah, her eyes fixed upon the departing forms of her husband and daughter, she has a heaviness at the heart, a presentiment of some impending danger, which seems so near and dreadful as to cause shivering throughout ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... yesterday—in fact it was the day before—we gazed upon the youthful form, instinct with life, and looking forward to a useful and pleasant career. The whale shared not the forebodings of its friends. Mr. Barnum was possessed with a strange presentiment of calamity, and summoned the public to either a house of mourning or a house of joy, he knew not which, but at all events to be quick. At daybreak, we believe, the great ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... entertainment. "What the devil is he laughing at now?" our hero asked himself. But he put the question without acrimony, for he felt that Madame de Cintre's brother was a good fellow, and he had a presentiment that on this basis of good fellowship they were destined to understand each other. Only, if there was anything to laugh at, he wished to have ...
— The American • Henry James
... should love to take to bed as of yore—not to read, but to suffer over and to contemplate and to seek calmness and courage with which to face the inevitable. Could there be men base enough to do to death the noble Wallace? Or to break the heart of Helen Mar with grief? No argument could remove the presentiment, but facing the matter gave courage. "Let tomorrow answer," I thought, as the piano-forte in the next room played "La Reve." ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... Dagobert caused a painful feeling to Agricola. He believed that they sprang from a presentiment of the separation ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the vicinity of the cell. A melancholy presentiment seemed to possess his mind, that these stolen visits were soon to cease. After a little delay, however, they descended to the apartments below, and as Jacopo desired to quit the palace without re-entering ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... elevator and out on the street he was comforting himself with stories of strange coincidences; of how, sometimes, walking alone and thinking of a person he had not seen or thought of for years, raising his eyes he had met that person face to face. And a presentiment that he should meet his neighbor under the wistaria arbor grew stronger and stronger, until, as he turned into the broad, southeastern entrance to the Park, his heart began beating an uneasy, expectant tattoo ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for himself—touching his recent ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... there, I redeemed my promise, so far as Bob would let me; and it cost me a good deal to do so, for he soon became exceedingly unpopular. But he managed to scrape through his final, and, some six months before the opening of this story, was appointed to the Terrible—to my great chagrin, for I had a presentiment that his coming meant ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... possible, by some miracle of faith, so to rise above her present despondency that she might look down upon what she was, just as Petronilla in the picture looked at her own corpse. A hope, born of hysteric trouble, fluttered in her heart. A presentiment, or what she fancied such, whispered her, that, before she had finished the circuit of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doing me a service instead. I am restless to-night. I have a curious presentiment that before long these lovely hills will hear the roar of guns in earnest." Dreamily speaking as if to himself he continued, "And Russia will lose . . . but I shall not see it." Abruptly he looked up, sat erect in his chair and shook himself as if throwing off ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... be interested in the following additional instance of composing with a visual object in mind: "I wrote to you concerning a presentiment; it occurred to me on the days from March 24th to 27th, when I was at work on my new composition. There is a place in it to which I constantly recurred; it is as if some one sighed, 'Ach, Gott!' from the ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... efforts. It therefore falls to the worm, to the wisdom of that bit of an intestine, to prepare the way for him. We see renewed, in another form, the feats of prowess of the Anthrax, whose pupa, armed with trepans, bores through rock on the feeble Fly's behalf. Urged by a presentiment that to us remains an unfathomable mystery, the Cerambyx-grub leaves the inside of the oak, its peaceful retreat, its unassailable stronghold, to wriggle towards the outside, where lives the foe, the Woodpecker, who may gobble up the succulent little sausage. At the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Underwood had been much clearer in mind, had enjoyed the presence of her holiday children, and had for a short time even given hopes that her constitution might yet rally, and her dormant faculties revive. She had even talked to Mr. Audley and Geraldine at different times as though she had some such presentiment herself, and had made some exertions which proved much increased activity of brain. Alas! though their coming had thus been rendered very happy, the brightening had been but the symptom and precursor of a sudden attack of paralysis, whence there ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... continuations, were carried up to your uncle, whom we found busily preparing for a ball, which was to be given that night by the heiress of Rookawn Lodge. I confess that my brother and myself felt a strong presentiment that something unfortunate would occur, and our forebodings were shared by the buckskins, who, like ourselves, felt considerable reluctance to join in the expedition. Remonstrance, however, would have been idle; we therefore submitted with the best grace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... assent, resent, sentimental, dissension, sensation, sensibility, sentence, scent, nonsense; (2) sentient, consensus, presentiment. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... missed his master? Had he an instinctive dread of the dangers of the voyage? Had he a presentiment of the coming perils? The sailors were sure that he had, and more than one said the same in jest, who in his heart regarded the dog as ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... sometimes, but rarely, succeed in turning it, and compelling it to move in the required direction. It is a curious fact that "breaking back" is a movement general to all animals, which have an instinctive presentiment of danger in the front, if alarmed by the sound of beaters from behind. If once they determine upon a stampede to the rear, nothing will stop them, but they will rush to destruction and face any opposition rather than move forward before the line. The tiger in such cases is extremely dangerous, although ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... my feet; but the wretch had leaped over the counter, and fortified himself behind it. He looked as ugly as sin itself; but I could see that he was not without a presentiment of the consequences of his rash act. I do not profess to be an angel in the quality of my temper, and I was as mad as a boy of fifteen could be. I made a spring at him, and was going over the counter ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... are come," she said. "I was thinking of sending my father for you, but I had a presentiment that you would be here this evening. The fact is, I wanted to tell you that I am going to France. I shall start on Friday. It is necessary for me to go there, if I wish to become a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, "Why is it that the young are never grateful?" This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally wicious." Everybody then murmured "True!" ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Mrs. Morrison. Then a horrid presentiment laid cold fingers on her heart. "Is any one else going to help?" ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... poor creature here was painful to behold. I spoke soothingly and encouragingly, but with a presentiment that she must be disappointed. While I was speaking the supper-bell rang, and I proposed to get her a seat at ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... With a sort of presentiment of what was coming, all eyes were turned upon Egerton; while in the hearts of many a feeling of shame—honest, good-producing shame—sprang up for the unkind part they ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... wife overcame every other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... me that she is innocent. She says that she has a proof of it which I shall see some day—and her husband also. A presentiment has fixed itself in her mind that she can't live, and before the ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... that I never wanted to be a clergyman; but, after mother died, I began to think it over. She was so sort of sweet and changed that last year, almost as if she had a presentiment; and though she took such an interest in my studies, she never spoke of that, though I know it was her heart's desire. All the time I seem to have had a leaning towards it. It is a grand life, when one's heart and soul are in it; and ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at the time had not deceived her—that that state of freedom and readiness for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... speak so, Curtis?" she exclaimed. "Leave Uncle John the hope that he has so long cherished. I have a presentiment ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... kindness enough to satisfy her sentiment of atonement towards the same being. One evening they were walking in that part of the park which overlooks the sea, when a sail appeared in the horizon, then another, and another. The sight of ships never failed to remind the mother of her son; for the presentiment regarding his disappearance never forsook her. 'Dearest Catherine,' she exclaimed, 'would that one of those sails were wafting him back to us.' The girl trembled, and Mrs Hardman begged forgiveness for an involuntary ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... he lived. Aristotle, however, distinguished this science from all others and from domestic economy, which is so akin to it. Doubtless, he did not found the modern study of Political Economy, but his powerful intellect gave him a presentiment of it. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in being able to drift so slowly that the wind might fall before we struck, and if that did not take place before nightfall it probably would not till the next morning. Rationally I understood this perfectly, but I could not feel that there was imminent danger. I had no presentiment of death, and nothing that I could do would enable me to realize the real ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... to talk to Alan about many matters, however little he might answer her. Indeed it seemed almost as though she feared to let him leave her side; as though some presentiment of loss ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... Him who has given me life and planted this spirit in me? Unto Thee, then, do I cry from the depths of my soul for light to suffer. If there is anything for me to do, why this darkness all around me? I ask not to be happy. I will forego, as I always had a presentiment I must do, all hopes which young men of my age are prone to picture in their minds. If only I could have a ray of light on my present condition! O Lord! open my eyes to see the path Thou wouldst have me walk in. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... to me that....' And his intuitions always seemed to amount to prevision, he never seemed to have acted amiss, however eccentric his act, however baseless his premonition. I have a feeling that in Agathemer's case he acted on some such presentiment." ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... as usual, he had not waited many moments before a slight chill fell upon his sanguine mood. The house was so still, and the rain dripped and the wind sighed so dismally without, that a vague presentiment of evil began to assert itself. Heretofore he had found the apartment full of life and mirth, and he could not help remembering that some who had been its guests might now be out in the storm. Would she think of ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm. Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happened must be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not have slept many ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... his leave, feeling a presentiment of evil within him which it was impossible for him to shake off as he pressed Barneveld's hand ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had to pause a moment behind the wall of spectators which barred his way, and as he paused some ladies in white cloaks crossed from their carriages to the door on the carpet laid for the purpose. He had not seen their faces, nothing of them but vague forms, and yet he was suddenly seized with a presentiment. Its gist was that he might be going to re-encounter the Well-Beloved that night: after her recent long hiding she meant to reappear and intoxicate him. That liquid sparkle of her eye, that lingual music, that turn of the head, how well he knew it all, despite ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... nervously all over his clothes, "I've given it to the cabman. Of all the infernal idiocy! I knew I should. I had a presentiment that I should get it muddled up with my other money and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... was to be his last trip for the year, the following spring was fixed for their marriage; and when he took his leave, it was with the gloomy presentiment that he had ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the course of reasoning to extend the selection theory to the descent of man, was seen by many as soon as Darwin's work on the origin of species was published and began to attract {42} attention; although not a syllable upon this question was presented in this work. Various persons manifested their presentiment or perception according to their point of view—partly by the most violent opposition to the new doctrine, partly by scientific development or modification of their anthropogonic views, partly also by revelling in imagination in the consequences hostile to religious faith which they thought could ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... replied Arthur; 'his journey was successful. You have seen the specimens he brought. I was intoxicated with delight; but Adele did not share my joy. Nature has given woman a faculty of intuition denied to man. Alas! Adele's presentiment has been verified; your account of the interview between Pepito and his friend proves her ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... so," replied the master, who appeared to be unusually grave (as if in sad presentiment of evil). "I've watched him often.—But it's no use—they mind ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... because it is either so small, or the hive so destitute of supplies, that they are discouraged or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony to leave the hive under such circumstances, on a springlike day in December! They seem to have a presentiment that they must perish if they stay, and instead of awaiting the sure approach of famine, they sally out to see if something cannot be done ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the big handsome mis-presentiment of himself disappear into the hallway with every nerve ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... the air, which moment by moment grew more oppressive, presaging a coming storm. Darrell was suddenly filled with a strange unrest—a presentiment of some impending catastrophe. For a while he walked restlessly up and down the narrow plateau; then, seating himself in front of the cabin, he bowed his head upon his hands, shutting out all sight and thought of the present, for his mind seemed ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... for too little; another child used no also for yes; a third used I for you. If these by no means isolated phenomena rest upon a lack of differentiation of the concepts, "then the child already has a presentiment that opposites are merely the extreme terms of the same series of conceptions" (Lindner), and this before he can command ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... fell backward from his ear. She was too happy to go to sleep—too happy to think that Tito would wake up, and that then he would leave her, and she must go home. It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, where it will find its world and paradise all in one, and never have a presentiment of the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, and the gentle breathing of some loved life near—it would be paradise to us all, if eager thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had not long since ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... back of the garden seat, into the light, with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... persons who are inexperienced in the use of fire-arms. Mr. Burton had been out with Ensign Beckwith, and some soldiers of the New South Wales corps, intending to kill ducks on the Nepean. With that sensation of the mind which is called presentiment he is said to have set out, having more than once observed, that he feared some accident would happen before his return; and he did not cease to be tormented with this unpleasant idea, until his gun, which he carried rather awkwardly, went off, and lodged its contents in the ground within ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... fruit was abundant and luscious. She had read of the portion to which man was born, and had decided that if Thackeray and Dickens had lived in California they would have been more cheerful; but to-day, assailed by a presentiment general rather than specific, she accepted, for the first time, life in something like ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... you have been kept waiting twenty minutes; but I myself have waited twenty years for this to happen. Ive often wrestled with the temptation to pray that it might not happen in my own household. Perhaps it was a presentiment that it might become a part of our old Bridgenorth burden that made me warn our Governments so earnestly that unless the law of marriage were first made human, it ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... mourning and hope the mother, drawn by some invincible presentiment, had thrice returned to see her daughter. Once when Juana fell ill with a ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... and was reading in the original the "Divina Comedia" of Dante, a work which consumed many hours, and was not likely soon to be over. To-day, however, for some reason Melville found it more difficult than usual to fix his mind upon his pleasant study. Was it a presentiment of coming evil that made him so unusually restless? At all events, the hours, which were wont to be fleet-footed, passed with unusual slowness, and he found himself longing for the return of his ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... contented him as the sound of the sea does the sailor; and dear as the odors of the ocean to the mariner were the resinous scents of the forest to him. Like a sailor, too, he had his superstitions. He had a presentiment that he was to die by one of these trees,-that some day, in chopping, the tree would fall upon and crush him as it did his father the day they brought him back to the camp on a litter ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... feverish, or rather I am in a state of feverish enervation, which makes my mind suffer as much as my body. I have without ceasing that horrible sensation of some danger threatening me, that apprehension of some coming misfortune or of approaching death, that presentiment which is, no doubt, an attack of some illness which is still unknown, which germinates in the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... first visited the temple of the Sun Goddess in Ise, where he worshipped at the shrine of his great ancestress. He must have had a presentiment that he never would return alive from this expedition. His aunt Yamato-hime,(58) who was the priestess of this temple, gave him on his departure the sword(59) which the Impetuous-Male-Deity discovered in the tail of the snake which he slew in Izumo. ...
— Japan • David Murray
... especially vehement in denouncing the project of placing the scion of a great Protestant dynasty on the 'throne of Charles V.' M. Ollivier tells us that when the news first reached him it brought upon him suddenly and painfully the presentiment of impending war, to the discomfiture of all his efforts for the preservation of peace until the Liberal Empire should ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... England I had a very strange, almost an overwhelming presentiment that I had better not come to Russia. I had by that time promised Mrs. Wynne that I would come, and I couldn't see that it would be the right thing to chuck her. I thought the work would suffer if I stayed at home, as she might ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... tapestry is very unequal, some of the latter scenes being weak in comparison, especially that of the death of Harold; the eleventh-century artist, perhaps becoming tired of the work, or having, more probably, a presentiment that this scene would be painted and exhibited annually, by English artists, to the end of time. Perhaps the most interesting and important scenes are:—first, when Harold takes the oath of allegiance to William, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... twiddling my somewhat exhausted prick. "I have a surprise for you," she said. "For me,—what?" "I'm in the family way." "The devil,—whose fault is that?" "No one's fault, and perhaps no misfortune,—would you like a child?" "I?—why?" (I had a presentiment of what was coming.) "Because it is yours." "Nonsense." "It is my dear,—I have felt certain of it for some time past, but waited to be quite sure before telling you." "Are you quite sure?" "As certain as I am ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... upon his spirit the presentiment of coming doom. He looked round upon the eager, expectant faces, and his own kindled with a loving enthusiasm. He had loved these men, and they loved him. The sight of his tall, gaunt form and thin, white face evoked cheer after cheer from soldiers ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... predicting hopefully that he would wake up quite well the next morning. In a few minutes more the clock stuck nine; and Ida heard the servant's step ascending the stairs. She suspected what his errand was, and went out to meet him. Her presentiment had not deceived her; the police agent had arrived, and was ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins |
