"Prophecy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man talked with the light of prophecy in his gaunt face, the young man's imagination took wing into the future, that mighty and alluring void, black as night, yet teeming with transcendent, potential unborn men and women, and his brain grew numb with the effort and his heart ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... first and the last," i.e. Mohammed, who claimed (and claimed justly) to be the "Seal" or head and end of all Prophets and Prophecy. For note that whether the Arab be held inspired or a mere imposter, no man making the same pretension has moved the world since him. Mr. J. Smith the Mormon (to mention one in a myriad) made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... lose (his life), He says, for my sake. There is the whole cause. He that shall lose, not in any way whatsoever, not for any reason that you like; but: For my sake. In prophecy those other martyrs already said: For thy sake we are killed all the day long (Ps. xliii, 22). Not therefore is it the punishment, that makes a martyr, but the cause." This is found in St. Augustine's sermon In natali martyrium ("On the festival ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If something would ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... give her what she often realized to be the best of practical advice, and his amusing generalities, though to her mind insults to humanity, had been so bitterly proved true that she looked fearfully to see his lightest adverse prophecy fulfilled. ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... future; but there is something very striking in the following language, taken from his pamphlet "The Rights of the Colonies," if we consider how soon after there occurred the two great crises in the world's affairs, the American and French revolutions. "I pretend neither to the spirit of prophecy, nor to any uncommon skill in predicting a crisis; much less to tell when it begins to be nascent, or is fairly midwived into the world. But I should say the world was at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur, that has ever ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... Sometimes he would reproach me with absent-mindedness, and scold me seriously for carelessly stepping upon interesting plants, but he would assert that I was endowed with a sense of method, and that some day I might invent, not a theory of nature, but an excellent system of classification. His prophecy was never fulfilled, but his encouragement aroused a taste for study in me, and prevented my mind from being wholly paralyzed by camp life. To me he was as a messenger from heaven; without him I should perhaps have become, if not the Hamstringer of Roche-Mauprat, at all ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Miss Blake's prophecy, just ten days later, Hilliard did come again. It was a Sunday and Sheila had packed her lunch and gone off on "Nigger Baby" for the day. The ostensible object of her ride was a visit to the source of Hidden Creek. Really she was climbing away from a hurt. She felt Hilliard's ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and said, No; you must not have all; your brother must have a bit; and broke it between them. Seized with one of those emotions, to which some few people are subject, Mr. Elford snatched me in his arms, kissed me, and exclaimed—My good boy, I prophecy thou wilt one day ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... sombrely that it is an omen of a change of rule. He is king now, has usurped a throne, has had himself crowned. But for how long is he monarch, with this flaming menace burning into his courage? The year finishing saw the prophecy fulfilled by ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... In the vicinity of the Slave Market on the Grand Parade he passed—without seeing them—several groups of unemployed artisans whom he knew. Some of them were offended and remarked that he was getting stuck up, but others, observing how strange he looked, repeated the old prophecy that one of these days Owen would go out of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... we could get one now," said I. "But the prospect isn't cheerful. Molly Winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. She was certain that sooner or later I should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... his contempt. The close of Ockley's preface shows a love-like tenderness for his studies; although he must quit life without bringing them to perfection, he opens his soul to posterity and tells them, in the language of prophecy, that if they will bestow encouragement on our youth, the misfortunes he has described will be remedied. He, indeed, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... alarming than the most definite denunciations. Her answer yet rings in my ear:—'Why should I make myself odious to you and to your innocent wife? Messenger of evil I am, and have been to many; but evil I will not prophecy to her. Watch and pray! Much may be done by effectual prayer. Human means, fleshly arms, are vain. There is an enemy in the house of life,' [here she quitted her palmistry for the language of astrology;] 'there is a frightful danger at hand, both for ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... quiver to the touch; where pride and fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have thought: "You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share your impatience and to wonder what ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... general question dependent upon the decision of this particular one. No attempts have been made by the Mahometans to find any predictions respecting their founder in the Old Testament, and they have never pretended even that he was the Messiah; therefore, as far as prophecy is concerned, there is no ground for admitting the truth of the religion of Mahomet. It has been the fashion with a particular sect of infidels to praise the morality of the Mahometans, but I think unjustly; they ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really happen. It had happened again and again. The miracle might happen ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... its dregs the wine, Of bitter Prophecy. The world is weary of its past. Oh, might it die ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... Prophets. Daniel never could have written the book attributed to him, he says, because that book contains statements of fact which occurred long after Daniel! That is to say, M. Renan does not believe in such a thing as prophecy, and, by consequence, Daniel never wrote the book of Daniel! This is taking things for ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat Her promise half fulfilled. The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died; Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will Shall yet be satisfied. The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be; But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong Go ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... keep their shops and dwellings at a summer temperature through the severest winters, the half-frozen nobles would have flouted the suggestion as an “iridescent dream,” a sort of too-good-to-be-true prophecy. ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... without repentance 'they should all likewise perish.' 'Likewise,' that is by the hand and rage of the Roman empire. Neither should they be more able to avoid the stroke, than were those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them (Luke 13:1-5). The fulfilling of which prophecy, for their hardness of heart, and impenitency, was in the days of Titus, son of Vespasian, about forty years after the death of Christ. Then, I say, were these Jews, and their city, both environed round on every side, wherein both they and it, to amazement, were miserably ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... military renown, no other success for which I cared to struggle, or would value when obtained. "Aut Caesar aut nullus," thought I; and when my uncle determined I should be a lawyer, I neither murmured nor objected, but hugged myself in the prophecy of Considine that hinted pretty broadly, "the devil a stupider fellow ever opened a brief; but he'd have ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... pleaded are so much a part of our modern thought that we do not realize the fact that in those days of routine, pedantry and slavish worship of authority, they were the daring dreams of an enthusiast, the seeming impossible prophecy of a new era. Aristocratic mothers were converts to his theories, and began nursing their children as he commanded them. Great lords began to learn handicrafts; physical exercise came into vogue; everything that Emile did, other ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... see the day when women who wear diamonds around their throats will have harsh, horny ringers there instead. There will be rich men's blood on every paving stone and beautiful necks will be slit with less mercy than marked the French butchery years ago. That's my prophecy. Some day you'll recall it to mind, especially if you happen to become very prosperous. It's bound to come. Now get out. I have a lot of writing to do." ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... that even this sinister prophecy produced no impression upon the baron, he pressed his hand as if to bid him an eternal farewell, and opened the door to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... but also the highest significance of liberty and democracy and the reactions of President and people to the great developments of the times. The second Inaugural Address with its sense of solemn responsibility serves as a prophecy as well as prelude to the declaration of war and the message to the ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... mighty man—doom them all to the shelf— And, when next thou with prophecy tronblest thy sconce, Oh, forget not, I pray thee, to prove that thyself Art the Beast (chapter 4) that ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... months ago to Fisher's going away, but she has told me now that she consents. She can't withhold him with the thought of holy Hannah in her mind." And I felt as if I might apply (though not in the first sense) the prophecy "Instead of thy fathers, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moment become the Saviour. In all this, if Browning has the burden of a prophecy to utter, he utters it, after the manner of earlier prophets, as a vision. His art is sensuous and passionate; his argument is transformed into a series of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... repeat to Dexter all that Lady Clarinda told you about Mrs. Beauly," he went on. "And you think it is likely that Dexter will be overwhelmed, as you were overwhelmed, when he hears the story. I am going to venture on a prophecy. I say that Dexter will disappoint you. Far from showing any astonishment, he will boldly tell you that you have been duped by a deliberately false statement of facts, invented and set afloat, in her own guilty interests, by Mrs. Beauly. Now tell me—if he really try, in that way, to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... hold the consular office in company with Drusus, men immediately began to prophecy destruction for Drusus from this very circumstance. For there is not a man who was ever consul with Tiberius that did not meet a violent death, but in the first place there was Quintilius Varus, and next Gnaeus Piso, and then Germanicus himself, who perished violently and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... soon in death as the obsidian knives of the priests performed their fiendish work. The disastrous situation of the Spaniards was made worse by the desertion, at this juncture, of the Tlascalan and other allies. Awed by a prophecy sent out confidently by the Aztec priests, that both Christians and allies should be delivered into their hands before eight days had passed (prophecy or doom, which the priests said, was from the mouth ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... literary device but a quality of mind. They have the power of standing aloof from matters in which they are personally interested, and surveying them from outside like impartial spectators, with the keenest interest, but without bias. As the Delphic priestess in the act of prophecy lost her individuality and became the mouthpiece of the god, so the Greek allowed facts to speak for themselves, became their mouthpiece and banished the intrusive ego. If therefore we call the Greeks objective, all this must be included in our ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... sentence was immediately interpreted to Lander by a native of the country, a boy, who afterwards bled to death from a wound in the knee, but Lander made light of the matter, and attributed Jacket's prophecy, for so it proved, to the petulance and malice of his disposition. Soon, however, he discovered his error, but it was too late to correct it, or evade the danger which threatened him. On ascending as far inland as sixty or seventy miles, the English approached an island, and their progress ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Greeks: so in Kor. xxx. 1. "Alif Lam Mim, the Greeks (Al-Roum) have been defeated." Mr. Rodwell curiously remarks that "the vowel-points for defeated' not being originally written, would make the prophecy true in either event, according as the verb received an active or passive sense in pronunciation." But in discovering this mare's nest, a rank piece of humbug like Aio te Aeacida, etc., he forgets that all ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... of remark that a certain speculative writer of quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December, 1893, in a long-defunct publication, the Pall Mall Budget, and I recall a caricature of it in a pre-Martian periodical called Punch. He pointed out—writing in a foolish, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... The clerk's prophecy proved all too true. Percival and his valet sat all night in a crowded, smoke-dimmed car, between a fat Japanese wrestler and a fatter Buddhist priest, both of whom squatted on their heels and read aloud in monotonous, wailing tones. The air was close, and the floor was strewn ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... about a month old he was carried up to the great city of Jerusalem, where, according to the religious custom of the Jews, he was to be offered or presented to the Lord, in the temple. Here a saintly old man named Simeon took him in his arms, with some strange words of prophecy of the salvation which this child was to ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... artichokes, its weather-stained statues and bits of ancient marbles. Beyond are the walls of Rome, and beyond these the Campagna stretches away in level lines of beauty to the blue billow of the Alban hills. On this view the eyes of the dying poet rested, while his heart gave no prophecy to him of coming fame. Would it have cheered him, during those last disheartened days, to have foreseen that so soon England would rank him among her honored children, and place his portrait in the gallery of the most worthy of her dead; while a line of his writing, "A thing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Editor Hildreth's prophecy concerning the probable attitude of the administration newspapers in the discussion of the oil field affair waited but a day for its fulfilment. On the Friday morning there appeared in the Capital Tribune, the Midland City Chronicle, the Range County Maverick and the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... anxiety concerning the health of the young Queen Myra, who seemed gradually becoming deranged; the especial significance of their anxiety being explained by the fact— stated with the utmost gravity—that an ancient prophecy, in which they placed the most implicit faith, foretold that should ever a monarch die without issue, the fall of the nation and its absorption by its savage neighbours would immediately follow. The point of it all lay in the fact that the Queen was unwedded, and insisted on remaining ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... Lord ascended to the Father he has given us a further revelation, that wondrous book of the Apocalypse, which opens and closes with a beatitude upon those who read and faithfully keep the words of this prophecy? And one characteristic feature of this book is its chronological predictions concerning the time of the end, its mystical dates, which have led many sober searchers of the word of God to inquire diligently "what and what manner of time" the Spirit did signify in giving us these ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... Middle passed into the modern age, there came a great literary foregleam of the new life upon which the world was about to enter. From Italy, where the European ferment, both in its political and its spiritual character, mainly centred, came the prophecy of the new day, in a poet's "vision of the invisible world"—Dante's Divina Commedia—wherein also the deeper history of the visible world of man was both embodied from the past and in a measure predetermined for the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... minutes will settle the question. It's only a little ways off now. My! it's getting to be a terrible din, we must be close at hand." Charley's prophecy soon proved true for they suddenly came out of the forest into a space which had evidently been fire-swept years before, for it was bare of undergrowth and of the former mighty pines nothing remained but the white, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... doomed to die a hero's death. His character was too candid, and his disposition too honest, for times which suggested concealment. He had become one of the Illuminati, and La Harpe ascribed to him the celebrated prophecy which described the minutest events of the Great Revolution. A Royalist pur sang, he freely expressed his sentiments to his old friend Ponteau, then Secretary of the Civil List. His letters came to light shortly after the terrible day, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Ben stopped short, drew his sword, said a few words in a sharp tone, and marched off, with Sam Rogers keeping step; while a muttering of voices told of how strangely matters had turned out according to old Ben's prophecy, for, on turning to see what it meant, Roy saw down through one of the narrow windows that the whole of the household had turned out to do likewise. But there was no giggling and laughing, for the women seemed to be impressed, and the men-servants were shaking their heads and talking ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... shroud with which they tried to cover our nation there still was some life. Czech books were read more than ever, and the life of the national soul expressed itself in the performances in the National Theatre. When we heard about the storm of enthusiasm which greeted the prophecy in Smetana's opera Libusha, we felt suddenly relieved, and we knew that our sufferings were not ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... him. Don Giovanni easily disposes of Masetto, and then rejoins his servant near the equestrian statue, which has been erected to the memory of the murdered Don Pedro. To their astonishment the statue speaks, and warns the libertine he will die before the morrow. Don Giovanni laughs at the prophecy, and invites the statue to a banquet to be given the next day at his house. While the guests are assembled at the feast, an ominous knock is heard at the door and the statue unceremoniously enters. All except Leporello and Don Giovanni fly from the room in terror. The doomed ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... "The prophecy of progress contained in the above paragraph has been fulfilled so far as the North-Western and Mr. Smith are concerned. His example, however, was not infectious for other lines; and till within the last three months, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... wear a huger perriwig, Shew in his gait or face more tricks, Than our own native lunaticks? 770 And if w' out-do him here at home, What good of your design can come? As wind i' th' hypocondries pent, Is but a blast if downward sent, But if it upward chance to fly, 775 Becomes new Light and Prophecy So when your speculations tend Above their just and useful end, Although they promise strange and great Discoveries of things far set, 780 They are but idle dreams and fancies, And savour strongly of the ganzas. Tell me but what's the natural cause, Why on a sign no painter draws The full moon ever, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... which he might acquire unbounded sway over his ignorant and superstitious subjects. He instructed him in the poisonous qualities of arsenic, and furnished him with an ample supply of that baneful drug. From this time the Blackbird seemed endowed with supernatural powers, to possess the gift of prophecy, and to hold the disposal of life and death within his hands. Woe to any one who questioned his authority or dared to dispute his commands! The Blackbird prophesied his death within a certain time, and he had the secret means of verifying ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... John, but a'm concerned aboot Sabbath, for a've been praying ever syne ye were called to Drumtochty that it micht be a great day, and that I micht see ye comin' tae yir people, laddie, wi' the beauty o' the Lord upon ye, according tae the auld prophecy: 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... Courage Pintal Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The President's Prophecy of Peace, The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... thine all-greedy lust. And still thou art not satisfied, but, like the devouring grave, criest for more. Where shall we get the strong women of the next generation—the women who will live for principle—whose commanding virtues shall be a tower of strength—whose wisdom shall be a poem of prophecy, and whose love a hymn of praise? Who will be the mothers of genius and wisdom, of the manhood and womanhood that shall redeem mankind? Oh, not from thee, all-degenerating Fashion! shall we get them. Thy reign is the blast of womanly virtue and manly strength. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... published from his works; and I hope that they may be of some use hereafter in recalling the ordinary aspect of our English seas, at the exact period when the nation had done its utmost in the wooden and woven strength of ships, and had most perfectly fulfilled the old and noble prophecy— ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... was less living than a tombstone. For who was Chloe? Her family might pass the grave of Chloe without weeping, without moralizing. They had foreseen her ruin, they had foretold it, they noised it in the waters, and on they sped to the plains, telling the world of their prophecy, and making what was untold as yet a lighter thing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... section of country caused considerable anxiety and stir among this oppressed people. About the close of July an article appeared in the Mercury, edited by Colonel A. G. Horn, at Meridian, Mississippi, in which occurs the following: "We would like to engrave a prophecy on stone, to be read by generations in the future. The negroes in these States will be slaves again or cease to be. Their sole refuge from extinction will be in slavery to the white man." Do not forget, dear reader, that though ignorant, as a large majority of ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... were the first words I heard Chaka speak, and they were words of prophecy, and they came true. The last words I heard him speak were words of prophecy also, and I think that they will come true. Even now they are coming true. In the one he told how the Zulu people should ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... graces of his child, but at the same time his heart was heavy with anxiety for her fate, whenever he called to mind the prediction concerning her; so that at length he determined to consult a celebrated dervish, his friend, on the possible means of averting the fulfilment of the prophecy. The dervish gave him but little hopes of being able to counteract the will of heaven, but advised him to carry the beautiful maiden to a sequestered mansion, situated among unfrequented mountains surrounding ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... out of anguish and darkness such as the world seldom has borne, the enduring morning evolved of the true world and the true man. It is not clear to us. Hands wet with a brother's blood for the Right, a slavery of intolerance, the hackneyed cant of men, or the blood-thirstiness of women, utter no prophecy to us of the great To-Morrow of content and right that holds the world. Yet the To-Morrow is there; if God lives, it is there. The voice of the meek Nazarene, which we have deafened down as ill-timed, unfit to teach the watchword of the hour, renews the quiet promise of its coming in simple, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... it will be urged, is ex hypothesi an accomplished fact at the time that we ask for it? We reply that the Divine indwelling in man is of the nature of a capacity for striving rather than of an attainment, a potentiality rather than an actuality, a prophecy rather than a fulfilment. Man's longing for communion with God, as for an unrealised good, is the longing of like for Like, but it is only through struggle and effort that the goal can be reached. The Eternal is indeed the Life of all ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Nightingale, so full of hope and prophecy to Mrs. Jameson five-and-twenty years ago, has proved indeed an earnest of better things, which all these years have been passing into realities. Who shall say how much inspiration the noble band ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... mud at a walk, slipping noisily at every step, but my father was correct in his prophecy. Only the noise of our progress interrupted us. The sand dunes were becoming something more than a shadow. My father walked in tranquil silence at the bridle, while I ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... asked me to refrain from prophecy. There is no prophecy in our day but history. But history is a trustworthy prophet. History is always repeating itself, because conditions are always repeating themselves. Out of duplicated conditions history always gets ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bryce divined that his father was closer to him than motherly Mrs. Tully or the half-breed girl, albeit the housekeeper sang to him the lullabys that mothers know while the Digger girl, improvising blank verse paeans of praise and prophecy, crooned them to her charge in the unmusical monotone of her tribal tongue. His father, on the contrary, wasted no time in singing, but would toss him to the ceiling or set him astride his foot and swing him until he screamed ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... a small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a rolling-pin and puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hand funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise; and so on till the tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... friend's favourite eider-down squab, lay the wasted form of Ellen D——. She slept soundly and breathed loudly; and Dr H——, who entered while we stood at the bedside, informed us that in all probability she would awake only to die, or if to sleep again, then to wake no more. The latter was the true prophecy. She awoke an hour or two after my departure, and passed away that same night in a quiet ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... The prophecy was fulfilled sooner than the prophet expected. Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when a cab was heard to draw up at the door, and a moment later Fladgate himself, a big, jovial man, wearing a white hat very much on one side, entered ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... prophecy of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left, broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole array was scattered, and the entire ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... he felt in the mood—sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler; which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians that he would fall in some—day and be drowned. For which reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved; for ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... they; "we agree to the test. Pick out and give us an exposition of some doubtful passage in the Scriptures, so that we can put this boast of yours to the proof." And they all chose that most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel. ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... be ridiculous. All that can be said is, that either way it is partly ridiculous to make it a matter of prophecy and lamentation that a human being must, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... do go so fast to decay in the next hundred years of grace, as they have done or are like to do in this, it is to be feared that sea coal will be good merchandise even in the city of London." Harrison's prophecy was fulfilled in a very few years; for about 1615, there were two hundred sail employed in carrying coal to London. See Anderson, vol. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the most sweet and precious promises of God to the minds of those he wishes to deceive as to their own good estate. But we must be satisfied that the promises belong to us, before we take them to ourselves. We have "a more sure word of prophecy," by which we are to try every impulse, feeling, and impression, produced upon our minds. Anything which does not agree with the written word of God does not come from him, for ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... Many times I have thought, "Now," and some man or woman has risen up healed, and looked at me with eyes of prophecy. But a Voice would cry, "On, on!" and I would go forward, driven by a force and a will not my own.—I didn't know what it all meant, but I ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... will purge your streams and woods, And smite both hip and thigh Your Satyrs, amorous bestial sots, Your careless company Who wanton in the thymy ways In which these woods abound, And kiss with soft empurpled mouths, Luxuriantly crowned. My soul is filled with prophecy; Dimly I see a bark Which runs by some low wooded isle; The night is warm and dark, And from a promontory rings A sudden bitter cry, It smites the lonely helmsman's ears And tingles in the sky. 'Oh! Traveller, tell in ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... your Excellency as a friend; and assure you he is a Prince who has talent, but who will be the slave of his passions (SE FERA DOMINER PAR SES PASSIONS,"—not a felicitous prophecy, Herr General); "and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For me, I think all Princes are cast in the same mould; there is only a more ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... officers, announced that he was endowed with prophetic powers, and that he was commissioned by God to tell Vespasian that he would become emperor, and that he would be succeeded by his son Titus. The prophecy was one that required no more penetration than for any person, in the present day, to predict that the most rising man in a great political party would one day become prime minister. The emperor was hated, and it was morally ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... impressive as the Mansion, the house to be built in Amberson Addition by the Major. The orchestra was certainly not that local one which had suffered the loss of a bass viol; the musicians came, according to the prophecy and next morning's paper, from afar; and at midnight the bride was still being toasted in champagne, though she had departed upon her wedding journey at ten. Four days later the pair had returned to town, which promptness seemed fairly to demonstrate that Wilbur had indeed taken Isabel ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... prophecy, by entering the parlour with a breathless "Oh, I've got such news!" checking herself on encountering Mrs. Mills. Mrs. Mills asked, with reserve, concerning the health of Miss Radford's mother, and mentioned (not apparently for the first time) that the lady, in her opinion, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... speaks[10] several times of the great national centre at Jerusalem as "the most beautiful and renowned temple which is honored by the whole East and West." The Egyptian Jews, according to Josephus, claimed that the prophecy of Isaiah had been accomplished, "that there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt" (Is. xix. 19). But the altar, it has recently been suggested,[11] was rather a "Bamah" (a high place) than a temple. It served as a temporary sanctuary while the Jerusalem temple ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... passed since I took you into my life. At that time I was told that I was doing a rash thing, a dangerous thing—that before your twenty-fifth birthday the bad blood would out; that you would, in short, have shot a man. And the prophecy has come true. By an irony of chance it has happened on the very last day. And by another irony you picked your victim from among the ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... 17). After the Exile there is a tendency to protect the divine transcendence by the introduction of mediating angelic agency, and to separate all evil from God by ascribing its origin to Satan, the enemy of God and man. In the prophecy of Zechariah (iii. 1-2) he stands as the adversary of Joshua, the high priest, and is rebuked by Yahweh for desiring that Jerusalem should be further punished. In the book of Job he presents himself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... England he left behind him the Earl of Surrey and Sir Hugh Cressingham as guardians of the kingdom, and he carried off from Scone the stone of destiny on which the Scottish kings had been crowned, and concerning which there had been an old prophecy to the effect that wherever that stone was Scottish kings should rule. The stone was placed, where it still remains, under the coronation-chair of the English kings in Westminster Abbey, and there were those long afterwards who deemed the prophecy fulfilled ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... extreme readiness of reply, when suddenly called upon; but we cannot help suspecting that some confusion has arisen between the Robert Wilson, the writer of the two dramas above-named (as well as of "The Cobbler's Prophecy," 1594, a production of a similar character), and the Robert Wilson who is mentioned in "Henslowe's Diary," and whom Meres, as late as 1598, calls "our worthy Wilson," adding that he was "for learning and extemporal ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... each containing a leading phase of the drama of creation. "Before the eye of the seer," he says, "scene after scene is unfolded, until at length, in the seven of them, the course of creation, in its main momenta, has been fully represented." The revelation has every characteristic of prophecy by vision,—prophecy by eye-witnessing; and may be perhaps best understood by regarding it simply as an exhibition of the actual phenomena of creation presented to the mental eye of the prophet under the ordinary laws of perspective, and truthfully described by him ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... "My prophecy exactly," he exclaimed, laying it down. "It is as I said. He cannot form the ministry without you. His letter is abject. He gives himself away. It is an ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her flaxen head, while she announced a prophecy, with an air of deep wisdom which positively frightened ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... we must go further than this in order to understand the full strength and comfort of the text. The assertion of the impotence of death to end all is based upon something deeper than the prophecy of immortality in the human heart. It has a stronger foundation than the outreachings of human knowledge and moral effort towards a higher state in which completion may be attained. It has a more secure ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke
... Faith and prophecy seemed justified by the growing strength of the British people. The weakness and dissensions which characterized the reign of Henry the Third enabled Llewelyn ap Jorwerth to preserve a practical independence till the close of his life, when a fresh ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... would be bound to learn, but which might be reported to him in a distorted form. After this he thanks him for the confirmation of amity; and then, with some heat and no less truth, calls his attention to the uncertainty of the prophecy concerning his rule over the world, enlightening him by the way as to some matters of our holy faith. In conclusion, with reference to the acknowledgment of subjection which he had supposed us to make, the letter states ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... Bill's prophecy as to the wind proved a true one, and in the half hour while they were at their luncheon so good a breeze had sprang up that when they left Rabbit Island both ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... for these girds and gibes at Democracy, of which we have given a specimen. Khalid's irony bites so deep at times as to get at the very bone of truth. And here is the marrow of it. We translate the following prophecy with which he closes his Chapter "In Prison," and with it, too, we ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... a private parlor of the Phoenix Hotel the two men who were, perhaps, most deeply interested of all in it, were weary of their speculations after they had gone, for the thousandth time, over every detail of possible prophecy and speculation. The Colonel sat beside a table upon which stood a "long" glass from which protruded, and in which nestled fragrant mint-leaves. At the bottom of the glass there lingered, yet, the ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... make a prophecy concerning this young fella," observed the broken-hearted Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, as he watched old Nurse Beaton performing the baby's elaborate ablutions and toilet, "I should say that he will not grow up fond of snakes—not ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... prophecy, but history; it refers to the past, not to the future; it describes not a Day of Judgment to come, but one that has already ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... is of the same opinion. On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest practician, and Burke, the ablest theorist, of political liberty, express the same judgment. Pitt, after 1789, declares that the French have overleaped freedom. After 1790, Burke, in a work which is a prophecy as well as a masterpiece, points to military dictatorship as the termination of the Revolution, "the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth." Nothing is of any effect. With the exception of the small powerless group around Malouet and Mounier, the warnings ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
