"Presentiment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Madame de Montespan went to Bourbon she paid all her charitable pensions and gratuities two years in advance and doubled her alms. Although in good health she had a presentiment that she should return no more. This presentiment, in effect, proved correct. She felt herself so ill one night, although she had been very well just before, that she confessed herself, and received the sacrament. Previous to this she called all her servants ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... his voice attracted the mother's attention. A presentiment quickened the beating of her heart; the fan ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... 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 ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... declining, and Ernst and Elise sate in one of the parlour windows. Mutual communications received with mutual sympathy, had made them have joy in each other—had let them feel at peace with life. They were now silent; but a presentiment that for the future they should be ever happier with each other, like a harmonious tone, responded in their hearts, and brightened their countenances. In the mean time, the shadows of evening began to grow broader, and a soft rain pattered on the window. The sonorous voice of the Candidate, as ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... passion with Laertes, his love for Ophelia blazing out, his tendency to generalize on all occasions in the dialogue with Horatio, his fine gentlemanly manners with Osrick, and his and Shakspeare's own fondness for presentiment: ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... not been final, after all. She had had a vague presentiment that the cross might be at the end; she had been totally unprepared to find it pressed to her lips, that ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... woman trembled and shook and crossed herself, she knew not why. She felt a presentiment of ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... so quietly and cleverly with Meyer and achieved precisely what he willed was not the usual Pelle. A greater nature was working within him, with more responsibility, according to his old presentiment. He tested himself, in order to assimilate this as a conviction, and he felt that there was virtue ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... something wrong about this ravine, though. At first, it was only a vague presentiment, growing stronger as he followed the dry gully down to the valley below. Something he had smelled, or heard, or seen, without conscious recognition. Then, in the dry sand where the ravine debouched into the valley, he saw faint tank-tracks—only one pair. ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... 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 ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... old man, starting up. "My staff, Toby! When I was out, I heard voices in the direction of the school-house,—I felt then a presentiment that something was happening to Penn. I can control the mob,—I can save him, if it is not too late." He grasped the staff Toby ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... her without looking at her. It was evident he did not dare just yet. "Nothing much, I reckon. I've been a bit down all day. I really don't know why, myself. I've had a queer presentiment, as if something were going to happen. As if something terrible were coming ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... of heavily-laden drays moved slowly down the rock-paved street. "Lights out! Protect yourself!" thought Steve. "I feel a presentiment that there'll be a heavy transportation bill on that stuff and that my friend won't have enough cash to settle it. Perhaps he will accept a temporary accommodation from me. Thompson, he pays ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... often offended. He had just published Le Contrat Social, "The Gospel,"; says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "of the theory as to the sovereignty of the state representing the sovereignty of the people." The governing powers of the time had some presentiment of its danger; they had vaguely comprehended what weapons might be sought therein by revolutionary instincts and interests; their anxiety and their anger as yet brooded silently; the director of publications (de la librairie), M. de Malesherbes, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Rhine, where all was well. My father was swayed by this specious reasoning, and believing that there was more merit in going to the more dangerous post, he persisted in his intention of going to Italy, in spite of the objections of my mother, who had a secret presentiment which made her wish for my father to go to the Rhine. This presentiment was not false. She never saw her ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the watch, I was seized with a shuddering presentiment, and I would have given the world to throw it out of the window. But I could not bear to see him pinched with hunger, and he had already tossed the doctor's eighteenpence to a beggar woman. So I trudged off to the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... he was so close to it, that he could pass his sword-point over parts of its rugged surface. He had scarcely examined thus a space of more than ten yards, before his weapon encountered a sharp, jagged edge; and a sudden presentiment assured him instantly that he had found the spot where he had beheld the momentary light, and that he stood on the same stone which had been occupied by the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... had never seen or heard of so peaceful an end as hers— such fervent faith, such earnest reliance on her Saviour. She seemed to have a presentiment from the first, of her death; and, when she was told there was no hope of her recovery, she only grieved for those she left behind; and for me and my disappointment, my old ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... one 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 ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... thee for the hint. It turns My sad presentiment to certainty. And it is so!—Not one friend have we here, Not one true heart! we've nothing but ourselves! O she said rightly—no auspicious signs 110 Beam on this covenant of our affections. This is no theatre, where hope ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... window, in the stillness that tells of intense mental engrossment. Self-deception was impossible for her; her mind was too acute for tolerance of subterfuge; and for her, also, away and beyond the merciless findings of intellect was the besetment of presentiment, intuition, inward convictions that can override logical conclusions, words that are breathed in the soul as by a wind, and, like the wind, are born and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... had affected resolution which she was far from feeling. She felt a presentiment that danger was nigh, and it weighed heavily on her heart. But she saw him depart without tears, and, after watching him from the door till he entered the forest, betook herself to the usual duties of a woman in the house of her husband. Yet she could not forbear going frequently to the door, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... cheerfully. "I have a strong presentiment that the men are coming in this very night. I am going to put everything in readiness for them, and we must go to bed early, dear mother. Perhaps we shall have very little ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... was a meet," said the Baroness; all the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,' she said to me; ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... hear me speak so confidently? Well, I can only speak as I feel. I have had, for some days past, a presentiment—you will think me, doubtless, weak for yielding to it. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... never been able to efface them from my memory,—I am dying of them! Yes, each time that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I asked myself involuntarily, "What must be such joys?" Our mutual looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure of my arm on yours, your voice ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... guardian spirits; he will then ask you to attempt the recovery of his scalp; he will show you the direction, and if you feel inclined, as I dare say you do, go forward, my son, with a strong heart, persevere, and I have a presentiment you will succeed." The young man answered, "I will try." Early next morning, after having eaten from the magic kettle, he started off on his journey. Toward evening he came to the lodge as he was told, and soon heard the groans of the magician. "Come in," he said, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... guarded Caesar rigorously, according to orders, he had a great respect for so brave a general, and took pleasure in listening to the accounts of his battles. So he had often insisted that Caesar should not only dine but also breakfast with him; happily the prisoner, yielding perhaps to some presentiment, had till now refused this favour. This was of great advantage to him, since, thanks to his solitude, he had been able to receive the instruments of escape sent by Michelotto. The same day he received them, Caesar, on going back ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Charmides he tells us that the body cannot be cured without the soul, so in the Timaeus he strongly asserts the sympathy of soul and body; any defect of either is the occasion of the greatest discord and disproportion in the other. Here too may be a presentiment that in the medicine of the future the interdependence of mind and body will be more fully recognized, and that the influence of the one over the other may be exerted in a manner which ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... Quebec, i. 293; Monckton sent by, to occupy Point Levi, i. 294; unsuccessful attempt of, to storm Montcalm's intrenchments, i. 295; on a sick-bed concerts with Saunders, a plan for scaling the Heights of Abraham—news of the repulse and subsequent success of, received by Pitt on the same day (note)—presentiment of death upon the mind of, i. 297; impromptu stanzas composed by, on the eve of the attack—Gray's Elegy quoted by, on his way to the Heights of Abraham, i. 298; last words and death of, i. 299; and Montcalm, joint ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... had a presentiment that events would one day serve her wishes. It may be that the longing of a mother constitutes a pact between herself and God. Was she not, moreover, one of those mysterious beings who can hold converse with Heaven and bring back thence a vision of the future? ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... added he, "there are other accidents that neither you nor I can think of; therefore, I say again, moderate your expectations, and do not depend too much on Hassan's success; for to tell you what I think, and what I always thought (whether you like to hear it or not), I have a secret presentiment that you will not have accomplished your purpose, and that I shall succeed better in proving that a poor man may sooner become rich by ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... jurisdiction. Some time after this, the unfortunate monarch was overtaken by trouble and distress. His enemies had risen up, and were gathered in fearful strength around him. His "heart greatly trembled," a dark and gloomy presentiment came over his spirit, and his bosom was convulsed by an agony of solicitude. He turned toward his God for light and strength. He applied for relief to the priests of the altar, and to the prophets of the Most High; but his prayers were unanswered, and his efforts vain. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... into the road beyond it, his head bent as if he were pondering a pain. At moments he felt as if he must return at once, and refuse to leave the castle for any reason. But he could not see that it was the will of God he should do so. A presentiment is not a command. A prophecy may fail of the least indication of duty. Hamlet defying augury is the consistent religious man Shakspere takes pains to show him. A presentiment may be true, may be from God himself, yet involve no reason why ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... and help Constance, as he felt death approaching. She went out again just to tell her mother and to fetch a priest. When she returned she found Mozart in lively conversation with Suessmayer. 'Did I not say that I was writing the "Requiem" for myself?' he said; and then, with a sure presentiment of approaching death, he charged his wife instantly to inform Albrechtsberger, on whom his post at St. Stephen's would devolve. Late in the evening he lost consciousness. But the 'Requiem' still seemed to occupy him, and he puffed out his cheeks as if he would imitate ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... or anything in the guards. But he took my hand. And we climbed out to charge—Poor fellow, he was killed—" Herbertson dropped his head, and for some moments seemed to go unconscious, as if struck. Then he lifted his face, and went on in the same animated chatty fashion: "You see, he had a presentiment. I'm sure he had a presentiment. None of the men got killed unless they had a presentiment—like ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... clear that a struggle had been going on in his mind, and that he had resolutely determined to go on and meet his fate, whatever it might be, and when he was killed a few weeks afterwards at Gettysburg, I recalled the conversation of that night and wondered if he had not a presentiment of his coming fate, for he seemed so grave and preoccupied, and profoundly impressed with a sense of the great sacrifice he was making. A soldier neither by profession nor from choice, he wore the uniform of the Union because he could not conscientiously shirk the duty he felt that he owed the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... we being only fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late arrival and boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was little to encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as I had always had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate voyage, and our experience so far had justified ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... overpowering, yet unutterable awe crept over him—a fearful but undefined sensation—a presentiment that something terrible was about to happen. He strove to shake it off, but could not—like an icy thrill it ran, slow and curdling, through his veins. A low rustling, as of silken drapery, struck upon his ear. He turned to know the cause, and leaned eagerly forward. A shriek, wild and agonizing, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Miss Mohun was popularly regarded in those quarters as an intolerable busybody, and Miss Adeline as a hypochondriacal fine lady, so that Gillian might perhaps reasonably object to put herself into absolute subjection; so, though Kalliope might have a presentiment of breakers ahead, she could say no more, and Gillian, feeling that she had been cross, changed the subject by admiring the pretty short curly hair that was being tied back ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... difficult to prognosticate that the night is at hand; and, admonished by the increasing gloom, man, wearied by the tolls of the day, gladly looks forward to the hour of repose. Universal nature shares in the feeling of presentiment. The cattle seek the shed; the birds fly back to their nests; and the gentle flower folds its delicate petals, as if for sleep. Is It wonderful that as life closes in, especially when protracted to a good old age, the human spirit should feel an instinctive ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... The nauseating presentiment of failure, the distaste and scorn of her own work, were upon her, which the artist never escapes, which return as acutely after twenty successes as in the hours of suspense before the first essay. Marion's surroundings were not of a nature to reassure her. To her unaccustomed ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... a queer start, for I had been trying several days to throw off a similar presentiment concerning him,—a foolish presentiment that grew out of ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Paris that afternoon than Philip Wentworth. Life had become so delicious to him that he shrunk from looking beyond to-day. What could the future add to his full heart? what might it not take away? In certain natures the deepest joy has always something of melancholy in it, a presentiment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling without a name. Wentworth was conscious of this subtile shadow, that night, when he rose from the lounge, and thoughtfully held Julie's hand to his lip for a moment before parting. A careless observer would not have thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... upon her, as a relief from his pain. He was filled with a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughed as ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... I'm none the worse o' it! I had a presentiment o' somethin' o' this sort, an' loaded his gun wi' ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... a presentiment that the play would soon become earnest; but he seated himself in the saddle (after a short delirious dance on one toe), and in a state of extreme agitation, not to say perspiration, proceeded at a walk, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... word of advice," commented the spectator at last, "you'll cut that—for the time being at least." He hesitated; then went on reluctantly. "I've been in your pay and I'll try to be square with you. If you've got an atom of presentiment you'll realise that this is no place for you to get into the shape you're getting." Again he halted, and again with an effort he gave the warning direct. "If I were you I wouldn't be at this ranch a second longer than it took me to leave; not as long as I had a broncho or a leg or ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... confidence 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
... depressions of spirits—but never before had he felt exactly as now; and though in all former cases the event referred to had been the cause of his sad abstractions, yet in the present instance it scarcely held a place in his thoughts. Could it be a presentiment, he asked himself, sent to warn him of danger and prepare him to meet it? But the ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... different families who depended upon her for their supply of fresh butter and eggs. A year ago she had a neat little wagon and a good horse to drive. There was something in the mind of Ellen; what it was she could not tell—a kind of sad presentiment of something—as she was preparing to go to market. I shall tell you in the next story what it was. You will see that Ellen was very kind to her husband and tried every way ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... Impelled by some presentiment of evil, Mr. Hardwick got up from the table, and sternly motioning the boys back, went down to the shop. As he came near the door, he saw the surveyor holding one end of the chain and taking sight upon a staff which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... 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. ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... rear. This may 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 ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Franz and the dear master that the child kept watch?—but I went not myself to that outlook, though my heart stood still every time Bertha returned, with her head bent down, and had seen no one coming. She had a presentiment or fancy, she said, that the wanderer would return after nightfall. I knew not,—I began to tell lies to myself that I cared not,—and for this reason; I had long feared that the Herr postmaster liked not me to be loved by his son; for behold ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... the jubilation of his home-coming, he had been disquieted by a presentiment of evil, a visionary dream that now confronted him in ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... 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
... his eyes on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... on me through her happy tears. "What happiness—what consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was always sure that he had written—I suppose some blessed instinct told her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... roused from his revery and for a long time contemplated the quiet, thoughtful lad who sat beside him. Gradually a deep concern spread across his comfortably aged features, a presentiment of impending loss shadowed his pleasant eyes. He reached out to lay his hand on ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... had a presentiment which has been with me all my life—all my life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who abases and lifts up has thought fit to raise my lowliness to the most sublime dignity that exists on earth, but I have always lived in the fear that some day I should ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... 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
... Watts, "I got a presentiment I'm goin' to be shot in the rear. It will kill me to be shot in the back, and I've got a notion that's how I am ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... 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
... of far higher order than his "Nightmare," although the latter caught the public fancy most. It is distinguished by singular power, full of feeling and terror. The desolate old man is seated on the ground, and his whole frame seems inspired with a presentiment of the coming vengeance of heaven. His daughters are clasping him wildly, and the sky seems mustering the thunder and fire in which the tragic bard has made him disappear. "Pray, sir, what is that old man afraid of?" said some one to Fuseli, when ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... it—for I have a presentiment, good people, that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation—I shall return to Europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 was no symptom ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horizon,—the logs of drift-wood,—the fresh shrub, floating with its leaves and berries,—the flocks of land-birds,—the shoals of fish that inhabit shallow water, the indescribable smell of the shore,—the mysterious presentiment that seems ever to go before a great event, and finally, on that ever-memorable night of the 12th of October, 1492, the moving light seen by the sleepless eye of the great discoverer himself, from the deck of the Santa Maria, and in the morning the real, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... "Pardon me, reverend father, if I do not go with you; but my convictions will not allow me to do so. I even refused to come and fetch you, so I beg you not to say that you have seen me, but to declare that you had a presentiment—a sort of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... by any stranger holding aloof on the other. Hence Hunilla, who naturally associated the possible coming of ships with her own part of the isle, might to the end have remained quite ignorant of the presence of our vessel, were it not for a mysterious presentiment, borne to her, so our mariners averred, by this isle's enchanted air. Nor did the widow's ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... write. Who would do this for her in the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he, while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one. He was too dreamy and pleasure-loving himself to be a spur to others. A vague wonder, almost like a presentiment, haunted his thoughts continually as to the nature of the relation which would exist between Stephen and Mercy. One day he wrote a long letter to Stephen, telling him all about Mercy,—her history; her peculiarities, mental and moral; her great need of mental training; ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... near her, she begged us to go away, and not to tire ourselves needlessly on her account. She was so persistent that, fearing a nervous crisis, we departed. I went slowly downstairs, for she resided on the fourth story, and I paused several times to listen attentively, troubled by an evil presentiment; for she had wounded herself several times a few days before. I had already reached the courtyard, when I paused again, asking myself whether or not ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... eve of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire, Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re- established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give Europe monarchs, sons or brothers ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... had just joined the army. I had many times quailed under his fierce eye and writhed under his birch rod. The strain to which he was subjected under these circumstances was doubly trying, waiting inactive for his first baptism of fire. His eye was restless as we passed; perhaps he had a presentiment, as he received his death-wound before the ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... of Virginia in his arms, her lips against his, the wicked blood of the man pulsing so close that she could thrill at it and hear it, might set him on fire again. He must destroy the evidence. The night might bring his own death—he had a vague presentiment of disaster—and this photograph must never be found beside his body. She knew his father's story; her quick mind would leap to the truth at once. Besides, the destruction of the photograph—so that he could never look at it again—might lessen his own bitterness and give him a ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,—of a principle such and so ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Khamisi, a pagazi, suffered from a weakness of the loins; Farjalla had a bilious fever; and before night closed Makoviga was very ill. Out of a force of twenty-five men one had deserted, and ten were on the sick list, and the presentiment that the ill-looking neighbourhood of Kingaru would prove calamitous to me ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... so, that an Aino who recounts one of his stories does so under the impression that he is narrating an actual event. He does not "make believe" like the European nurse, even like the European child, who has always, in some nook or corner of his mind, a presentiment of the ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... A horrible presentiment steals over him, numbing his senses—paralysing his brain. This man seems their evil genius, the red firelight playing on his tall slim figure, transforms him in Philip's eyes to a crimson Mephistopheles. Eleanor pours out a fresh cup of tea, and hands it ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... hearing of the delight with which the young Countess listened to their letters—a strong motive lurking behind Balzac's anxiety to hear often from his family, was the desire to impress Madame Hanska favourably with the idea of their affection for himself, and their unity. At the same time, a sad presentiment warned her, that if ever her brother were married to this great lady, his family and friends would see little more of him. The prospect cannot have been very cheerful to poor Laure, as either Honore would return to France brokenhearted and overwhelmed ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... bore no postmark, and the address prevented Monsieur de Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... great good luck my sexton had about him his own short black dudheen, which accordingly the Minstrel filled and fired. Wild language occupied the way, until we shook farewell at Combe. 'This,' said Tennyson, 'has indeed been a day to be remembered.'" Hawker had a presentiment that they would never meet again, and they never did, though Tennyson visited Cornwall in later years. There was some slight correspondence, and an interchange of books; but the two drifted apart in ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... tried to think it all out and prepare for everything. But I am certain I have forgotten something. I have a feeling amounting to a dreadful presentiment that I have overlooked something important. I wish you would see if you can think ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... looked at Ellis keenly, and, as Ellis recalled afterwards, there was death in his eyes. Unable to draw a syllable from Sandy, he had found his servant's silence more eloquent than words. Ellis felt a presentiment that this affair, however it might terminate, would be fatal to this fine old man, whom the city could ill spare, in spite of his age ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... worked over him, bathing his face and chest in cool water, the feeling became strong in him that he was fighting death in this gloomy room for Marion's sake. It was like the whispering of an invisible spirit in his ears—something more than presentiment, something that made his own heart grow faint when death seemed winning in the struggle. His watchfulness was acute, intense, desperate. When, after a time, he straightened himself again, rewarded by Obadiah's ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... during the night. I was awakened about three o'clock in the morning by an explosion, and immediately sprang out of bed and rushed into the Captain's cabin to find out the cause, though with a terrible presentiment in my heart. Quickly as I went, Goring went more quickly still, for he was already in the cabin stooping over the dead body of the Captain. It was a hideous sight, for the whole front of his face was blown in, and the little ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... proclaimed; and happy the rulers, happy the law-givers, who have power to understand their great mission in the light of true Christianity. Why was the first appearance of the Reformers hailed with such universal joy, their annunciation of the Gospel with such hosannas, by the people? Because the presentiment had been awakened in millions of hearts that the day of freedom was dawning and the hour of their deliverance from spiritual and corporeal bondage had arrived. But what could liberty do for minors, who had been ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... 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 and ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... himself, for he granted to them to see darkly and from afar what he has brought nigh to us, and poured into our hearts by divine revelation. You all know the name of Plato. He, from whom Salvation was hidden, saw remotely, by presentiment as it were, many things which to us, the Redeemed, are clear and plain and near. He perceived the relation of earthly beauty and heavenly truth. The great gift of Love binds and supports us all and Plato gave the name of the divine ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the high glass shade that covered the blowing candles from them. He stood and looked at their hopeless efforts to reach the flame. He had an unpleasant thought; one of those thoughts which have the force of a presentiment. He put it away with annoyance, muttering, "It is time enough to meet misfortune when ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... profound, ingenious mind, with much power of sarcasm, and who had formed a partnership with Wade, on the retirement of Mr. Giddings from the bar. He stood a little in awe of him, whose good opinion he would have gladly secured, but who, he had a presentiment, would not understand him. Indeed, he was quite certain ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... height, with his back to the fire. There had been nothing very remarkable in the observation made by the man to whom he had addressed himself, but he was in a peculiar state of mind, that gave undue importance to every word, sounding, as it did, a vague presentiment of some coming evil, which the very singular manner of the dog had created, although he would scarcely acknowledge this ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... held Jesus in his arms; Anna, daughter of Phanuel, regarded as a prophetess[1]—passed their life about the temple, fasting, and praying, that it might please God not to take them from the world without having seen the fulfillment of the hopes of Israel. They felt a powerful presentiment; they were sensible of ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... 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
... is destroying me. I've a terrible presentiment that they were burying Podbury. If so, we're done all round. I'm going right away to Podbury's now. I shall see in a moment by the blinds ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gay spirit, she piloted her two friends on that summer morning. No presentiment of evil touched her, no cloud was in her sky. Gaily she sped along the sunny road, little dreaming that that same sun that so gladdened her was to set upon the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... departure, he turned toward the city with a wild expression and words that were remembered afterwards. Si salgo bien, he said, te volevre a ver; si no, adios para siempre! "If I succeed, I shall see thee again; if not, farewell forever!" Was it a presentiment of the truth which came upon him, like that which clouded the great mind of the first Napoleon as he left the Tuileries when the Hundred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... stated that the monks themselves, when out upon search for travellers, have frequently owed their preservation to their dogs, in a manner which would seem to show that the dogs are endued with a presentiment of danger. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... sent me away," he said as he came in, "I had a presentiment that you would call me back. The attraction of the same moon causes both ebb and flow. I was so sure of being sent for, that I was actually waiting out in the passage. As soon as I caught sight of your man, coming from your room, I said: 'Yes, yes, I am coming, ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... tried to keep awake by thinking. It was the first time I and Davies had been separated for so long; yet so used had we grown to freedom from interference that this would not have disturbed me in the least were it not for a sudden presentiment that on this first night of the second stage of our labours something would happen. All at once I heard a sound outside, a splashing footstep as of a man stepping in a puddle. I was wide awake in an instant, but never thought of shouting 'Is that you, Davies?' for I knew in a flash that it was not ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... stood tying her bonnet before the mirror, and drawing on her gloves, she glanced wistfully at the inviting-looking bed, feeling strongly tempted to lie down there among the pillows and wait till she was rested before she went out in that broiling August sun upon her strange errand. But a haunting presentiment of what the dizziness and pain in her head and temples portended urged her to do quickly what she had to do; so with another gulp of the ice water she had ordered, and which only for a moment cooled her feverish heat, she went from her room into the hall, where the boy was waiting to show ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... 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 ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... were cleared at the hasty ringing of a bell. A convulsive movement made by the sick man showed that he was suffering agonies. Before half-past nine every guest had left, greatly troubled. The majority of those who had been present never saw the unfortunate monarch again. They all shared the same presentiment of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... we were both a little disappointed when no letter arrived by the morning's post. "Local letters often come by second post," urged my friend, who was very keen upon her presentiment. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... me no thanks, dear," Mrs. Linden would say, and, thinking remorsefully of that little feminine gossip at the Crane mansion, would redouble her efforts in the young girl's behalf. Mrs. Linden had a fear which amounted to presentiment, that the aforementioned clique, of which Mrs. Crane was the acknowledged leader, would learn, by some means, of her new interest in Clemence Graystone. So great was her dread of such a discovery, that she carefully avoided the society of those ladies, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... he said, fumbling 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
... the heart of the anxious wife. It was soon ascertained that Marvel had been a passenger on board of this vessel; but, from some cause, nothing in regard to him beyond this fact could she learn. Against all persuasion, she started for the hospital, her heart oppressed with a fearful presentiment that he was either dead or struggling in the grasp of a fatal malady. On making inquiry at the hospital, she was told the one she sought was not there, and she was about returning to the city, when the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... Jacques, that yonder carriage brings trouble for us. I have a presentiment of it, and my presentiments have ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... and could sustain him on the throne. The unfortunate prince sent his consort, the daughter of the King of the Belgians, to Europe to plead against this act of desertion; but her efforts were vain, and her reason sank under the just presentiment of her husband's ruin. The utmost on which Napoleon could venture was the postponement of the recall of his troops till the spring of 1867. He urged Maximilian to abdicate before it was too late; but the prince refused to dissociate himself from ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... life, almost at the cost of her own. He thought, too, of that scene when on the following day he had entered the room where she was asleep, when the wandering ray of light had wavered from her breast to his own, when that strange presentiment of the ultimate intermingling of their lives had flashed upon him, and when she had awakened with an unearthly greeting on her lips. While Effie slowly sobbed herself to silence in the corner opposite to him, one by one, he recalled every phase and scene of their ever-growing ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... a better chance to cure his intermitting fever. This process of ejection had been carried into force by Mrs. Mac-Guffog while her husband parleyed with Bertram in the courtyard, that good lady having a distinct presentiment of the manner in which the treaty must necessarily terminate. Apparently the expulsion had not taken place without some application of the strong hand, for one of the bed-posts of a sort of tent-bed ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... becoming depressed by a presentiment of the dull, stagnant days to come. Scoville had been lost in the great outside, unknown world completely. She was suffering from reaction after the strong excitements and fatigues of her experience. Her two lovers, remaining on the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her head, 'that my family will appear on ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... religion or devotion to its observances. He was a man of determination and capacity. He set before himself two distinct ambitions, both of which he accomplished: to free the Soudan of foreigners, and to rule it himself. He seems to have had a queer presentiment of his career. This much he knew: there would be a great religious leader, and he would be his lieutenant and his successor. When Zubehr conquered Darfur, Abdullah presented himself before him and hailed him as 'the expected Mahdi.' Zubehr, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... which may be filled up thus:—'was told by an apparition;'—the writer being probably uncertain whether he was asleep or awake, when his mind was impressed with the solemn presentiment with which the fact afterwards happened so wonderfully to correspond. BOSWELL. 'Lord Hardinge, when Secretary at War,' writes Mr. Croker, 'informed me, that it appears that Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... reassuring enough in his speech and manner, but Eleanor had a presentiment of evil; a foreboding that ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... been ahead of her years. At twelve she could outdo me by the logic of her reasoning on the mysteries of religion. We both adore, my dear Jean, a very extraordinary little person. I will get out of your way gracefully, if you succeed; but I have a presentiment that neither you nor I will be the lucky fellow. I shall console ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... happen to 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 a ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Major knew best. Mr. Foker had been very kind in the wretched business with Miss Costigan, certainly, and she was grateful to him. But she could not feel otherwise than a dim presentiment of evil; and all these quarrels, and riots, and worldliness, scared her about the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 principle of life in me tend to longevity. My father and mother died, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the contrary, there are undoubtedly influences other than material which affect us at times, and give us mysterious intimations of events happening or about to happen. Both Mrs. Hill and her children had a presentiment of some impending calamity, and, although they had not the faintest suspicion of the real state of affairs, they did not look on William Bennett as they would have done on any other person casually introduced into their household. A damper seemed to have been placed on all their spirits, ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... other. Lawrence was too gentle and polite ever to breathe a word against his antagonist, if, indeed, he did not respect his talents too highly to disparage them. Perhaps he was conscious that victory would be his in the end; as Hoppner might also have a presentiment that he was to be defeated. He was of a quick temper; was a husband and a father; entirely dependent on his own exertions, though he could earn five thousand a year easily when fully employed. But certainly the innkeeper's son was ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... gleamed mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly, I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... A terrible 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 minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... mere sense of touching him had made her shudder. Did she feel a vague presentiment of some evil to come from that momentary ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... met my remarks rather coldly, and, at last, I retired in pretended vexation. Princess Mary was triumphant, Grushnitski likewise. Triumph, my friends, and be quick about it!... You will not have long to triumph!... It cannot be otherwise. I have a presentiment... On making a woman's acquaintance I have always unerringly guessed whether she would fall in love with me ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... in company with our fellow-labourers, the buckskin 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; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at last, 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 ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... 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 ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Churchwarden, I felt little or no resentment on that account. I had expected neither candour, liberality nor justice from them, and they had not disappointed me; I was therefore quite indifferent on that score. But as my father always had a sort of presentiment that something would turn out unpleasant to me before I got quit of the volunteer service, I was exceedingly guarded in all my movements in the Marlborough troop; and was particularly careful never to omit any part ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... who maintained me there in 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
... insult *Sanguis blood sang froid, ensanguined Scio, scitum know prescience, plebiscite Scribo, scriptum write prescribe, manuscript, escritoire Seco, sectum cut secant, dissect Sedeo, sessum sit supersede, obsession Sentio, sensum feel presentiment, consensus Sequor, secutus follow sequence, persecute, ensue Signum sign insignia, designate *Solus alone solitude, desolate Solvo, solutum loosen solvent, dissolute *Somnus sleep somnambulist, insomnia *Sono sound consonant, resonance *Sors, sortis lot sort, assortment Specio, spectum look despicable, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... them now a full day and a half, and many a change might take place—many a danger might arise in that time. In fact, he began to blame himself for having left them alone. It would have been better to have let his cattle perish. So thought he now. A presentiment that all was not right was gradually forming in his mind; and he grew more anxious to proceed ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... twenty-four passengers, all told. There were no ladies and no children. We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant acquaintanceships were soon formed. The journey bade fair to be a happy one; and no individual in the party, I think, had even the vaguest presentiment of the horrors we were soon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... would have laughed at such an idea, but all day I have had a vague presentiment of coming evil which I have found impossible to shake off," explained ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to overflowing by the country class, and the nobles strained every nerve in opposition when Caius was elected tribune. He was only fourth on the list out of ten, and entered on his office on December 10, B.C. 124. With a fixed presentiment of his own fate, he felt that, even if he wished to remain passive, the people would not permit him to be so. He might, he said, have pleaded that he and his young child were the last representatives of a noble line—of P. Africanus and Tiberius Gracchus—and that he had ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... in his arms, carried it to the gangway. There, in the midst of the tumult, with blood running over the decks, amidst the confusion of cries and the crash of falling masts, he wished to engrave on the child's memory the circumstance of a separation, of which he had a strong presentiment. In this moment, which should leave even upon the memory of an infant, a souvenir that would never be effaced, he called out to the child, while shielding it with his huge body, "Kneel, ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... she despaired of the child from the moment we had ascertained that it was unwell. As it happened, her presentiment was but too truly prophetic. The apothecary said the child's ailment was "suppressed small-pox"; the physician pronounced it "typhus." The only certainty about it was the issue—the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... poppa was still strongly under the influence of the Venetian sentiment when he invited me to go out in a gondola with him after dinner, and pointedly neglected to suggest that either momma or Dicky should come too. I had a presentiment of his intention. If I have seemed, thus far, to omit all reference to Mr. Page in Boston, since we left Paris, it is, first, because I believe it is not considered necessary in a book of travels ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... his way back to the camp and sought his lodge. He heard the wolves howling on the hills, and a dark presentiment of evil crept ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... might have thought he believed it himself. When he called on me last with that letter he wanted me to take charge of, he was not depressed at all. Perhaps a shade more deliberate in his talk and manner. Not depressed in the least. Had he a presentiment, I wonder? Perhaps! Still it seems a miserable end for such a ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... death in The Pit of Fortune's Wheel. But all lesser excellencies must make way in our regard before a distinguishing spiritualising element which exists in these ballads only, or mainly amongst the author's works. Natural portents are here first employed as factors of poetic creation. Presentiment, foreboding, omen become the essential tissue of works that are lifted by them into the higher realm of imagination. These supernatural constituents penetrate and pervade The White Ship; and The King's Tragedy is saturated in the spirit of them. We do not speak of the incidents associated ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... as he was in the act of turning on his heel at the end of the terrace, and it should be added, discoursing with passion's privilege of the passion of love to Miss Durham, Sir Willoughby, who was anything but obtuse, experienced a presentiment upon espying a thick-set stumpy man crossing the gravel space from the avenue to the front steps of the Hall, decidedly not bearing the stamp of the gentleman "on his hat, his coat, his feet, or anything that was his," Willoughby subsequently observed to the ladies ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... used in "OEdipus," vol. vi. p. 149. to impress, by a description of the feelings of the unfortunate pair towards each other, a presentiment of their fatal relationship. The prophecy of Nostradamus is also obviously imitated from the response of the Delphic Pythoness ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... metallic melody from the pine-tops 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 Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... observed the merchant—not in a tone as if he intended to do so. "You, at all events, Mr Braithwaite, can be landed, and you can easily get back to Batavia." Against this proposal of course my manhood rebelled, though I had a presentiment, if I may use the expression, that we should be attacked. "No, no! I will stay by you and share your fate, whatever that may be," I replied. Night came on, and darkness hid all distant objects ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... all. I often found myself skipping Colonel Prowley's accounts of old Doctor Dastick, Mrs. Hunesley, and other great people of his town, and pondering upon the notices of his Western correspondent. I began to have a mysterious presentiment—which, in view of the calisthenics, I could not explain—that we might be not unadapted to each other. In any case, the lady's fine family-name was a recommendation that I knew how to appreciate. They have very young professors out West, I thought, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... cruelty to lift me from it. You have told me yourself, madame, that I have been drawn into a snare; I, perhaps, may leave my life in it—for, although it may be strange, I have for some time had a presentiment that I should shortly die." And the duke smiled, with a smile at ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fortune's garden once again is green! My wife has hopes,—a sweet presentiment— [Draws him whispering apart. She lately whispered of a glad event— [Inaudible words intervene. If all goes well . . . at Michaelmas ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... the strange incidents of the day, and speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his windows open, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rejected on account of his eyesight. But there was, he said, a good chance of his being sent out, almost immediately, as one of the Daily —'s special correspondents. 'And then,' he exclaimed, 'I shall see something of it.' I had a presentiment that he would not return, and a belief that he did not want to return. He did not return. Special correspondents were not so carefully shepherded in that war as they have since been. They were more at liberty ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... intensified by recollection of its suddenness. 'But a moment before, I had been quite happy, quite secure. A moment later—' I shudder. Why be thus at Fate's mercy always, when with a little ordinary second sight...Yet no! That is the worst of a presentiment: it never averts evil, it does but unnerve the victim. Best, after all, to have only false presentiments like mine. Bolts that cannot be dodged strike ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm |
