"Unpropitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fetters. This lackey takes a healthy enough view of the matter, for all his cynicisms. You must not take it too tragically. You have passed through your heart crisis—it comes to most of us—only with you it has happened late, and under unpropitious circumstances. That has tended to make it more severe than is usually the case. But now, let it be past and over, though naturally it will take some little time for your mind to regain its normal balance. What I regret most in the affair is, that it precludes the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... at the time of their birth, with an era of propitious fortune; while those extremely vicious correspond, at the time of their existence, with an era of calamity. When those who coexist with propitious fortune come into life, the world is in order; when those who coexist with unpropitious fortune come into life, the world is in danger. Yao, Shun, Yue, Ch'eng T'ang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, Chou Kung, Chao Kung, Confucius, Mencius, T'ung Hu, Han Hsin, Chou Tzu, Ch'eng Tzu, Chu Tzu and Chang Tzu were ordained to see ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Phoenix, at a place known as "Devine's." I was hearing a good deal about Phoenix; for even then, its gardens, its orchards and its climate were becoming famous, but the season of the year was unpropitious to form a favorable opinion of that thriving place, even if my opinions of Arizona, with its parched-up soil and insufferable heat, had not ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... unsolved till the mystery of God contained in them shall have been fulfilled. One thing, however, they clearly reveal to us: that the future triumph of God's kingdom is certain, and that all the great movements in the history of the nations, however unpropitious they may seem at the time, are parts of the mighty plan of divine providence which shall end in making the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... cantons they appeared closer; to the cities, especially Zurich, less restrictive. This conflict of opinion had contributed not a little to the duration and violence of the old Zurich War, in the preceding century. Now it revived again, and that at a most unpropitious moment. In the Buergerrecht, stipulations were certainly made in regard to the Emperor and Empire, as well as the Confederates, so that the obligations under which the two cities had come toward them, seemed to be ratified on the face of it; but this same Buergerrecht spoke also ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... of heart, or intellectually distinguished in any walk of life? I should be glad to know his name. A sorry crew! Not because they drink water, but because the state of mind which makes them dread alcohol is unpropitious to the hatching of any generous idea. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I like that phrase. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I am inclined to think that the Aramaic text has not been tampered with at this point. What do you ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... witches themselves have been said to borrow their shapes when on their mysterious expeditions. I was once told, that Lord Cochrane was accompanied by a favourite black cat in a cruise through the northern seas. The weather had been most unpropitious; no day had passed without some untoward circumstance, and the sailors were not slow in attributing the whole to the influence of the black cat on board. This came to Lord Cochrane's ears, and knowing that any attempt to reason ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Giovanni replied, that he considered it the duty of a good and wise citizen to avoid altering the institutions to which a city is accustomed; there being nothing so injurious to the people as such a change; for many are necessarily offended, and where there are several discontented, some unpropitious event may be constantly apprehended. He said it appeared to him that their resolution would have two exceedingly pernicious effects; the one conferring honors on those who, having never possessed them, esteemed ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and children spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening with us, hearing sister M. read from the books which have already been written in their language. We, however, soon found that we had arrived in a most unpropitious time; for almost every man in the vicinity was in ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... naive enough to expect anything; but he had given himself away for nothing in this case. He had been frank with himself—let alone with me—in the wild hope of arriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironically unpropitious. He made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectly stunned by a blow on the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... destination was invariably some wild spot, unfrequented—possibly even unknown—alike by painter and tourist. And there—if undisturbed—he would remain, diligently working all day in the open air during favourable weather; and, when the elements were unpropitious for work, taking long walks over solitary heaths and desolate mountain sides, or along the lonely shore. And when the first snows of winter came, reminding him that it was time to turn his face homeward once more, he ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... unpropitious circumstances the impetuous Gauls were met on the banks of the river Allia, ten miles from Rome, on the very day on which the Fabii had been destroyed by the Etruscans the century before (July 16, 390). The result was that terror ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... accomplished in diplomacy—could have acquitted himself better under the same circumstances. Most people, indeed, cannot be addressed on such a business without surveying you with looks as austere and unpropitious as ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... neither was the enemy beaten. He knew that also. And he knew he must bide his time. Twice he had closed with the enemy, and twice he had come away the worse. Nothing was to be gained by this method. He must bide his time, wait for an encounter, dodge it if the moment proved unpropitious, but refrain from close attack. He must wait ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... time in gaining the plank runway that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He reflected that both the hour and the circumstances were unpropitious; for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... satellites of Jupiter and Saturn in proportion to their magnitude, they could be descried by any human observer. The patient, persevering, reverent temper of Herschel took no account, however, of any discouraging or unpropitious circumstances. What he did was to substitute for telescopes of the ordinary construction the new and gigantic forty-foot tube already described; and, thus, with unremitting vigilance and intense zeal, he arrived at the discovery (between January 4, 1787, and ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... had slept at Perigny, about a league from the capital of Burgundy, so as to make the last stage of his journey thither in leisurely state. Unpropitious weather on Saturday, January 22d, the appointed day, made postponement of the ducal parade necessary, out of consideration for the precious hangings and costly ecclesiastical robes that were to grace the ceremonies of reception and ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... it to be borne By Agamemnon, symbol of his right To empire over Argos and her isles) 130 On that he lean'd, and rapid, thus began.[7] Friends, Grecian Heroes, ministers of Mars! Ye see me here entangled in the snares Of unpropitious Jove. He promised once, And with a nod confirm'd it, that with spoils 135 Of Ilium laden, we should hence return; But now, devising ill, he sends me shamed, And with diminished numbers, home to Greece. So stands ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... juncture the Mgussa's familiar motioned the Kamraviona and several officers to draw around him, when, in a very low tone, he gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away. His revelations seemed unpropitious, for we immediately repaired to our boats and returned to our quarters. Here we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not till matters had grown desperate that he decided to do this. Wayland was not in the habit of getting into debt, and an insistent tailor and florist made his life miserable. With masculine obtuseness he chose the most unpropitious moment. Miss Sarah, after a hard day, had dropped into an easy-chair for a little rest after dinner. Wayland had forgotten the absence of the cook, and in the lamplight his ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... sorry, after Gwen drove away, that he had not pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything, by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and perceived that what was done couldn't be undone. Then he drove as fast as he could ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Resting-place in the Himalayas The Head of Affairs An Unpropitious Moment Kismut Crossing the Sutlej A Halting-place in Cashmere Latticed Window, Sirinugger Sacred Tank, Islamabad Painting VERSUS Poetry Love-lighted Eyes Vernagh Cashmerian Temple Sculpture Patrun Roadside Monument, Thibet Road to Moulwee ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... fireless garrets, with the noise of squalid children, in the turbulence of domestic contentions, and in the deep gloom of uncheered despair. This is its most frequent birthplace, and amid scenes like these unpropitious, repulsive, wretched surroundings, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they have at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shining lights of their times; have become the companions of kings, the guides and teachers of ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... might have been a bedizened citizen's wife craning her neck over a gutter swollen by the rain. But the hour was not unpropitious for the indulgence of some discreditable whim. Earlier, he might have been detected; later, he might find himself cut out. Tempted by a glance which is encouraging without being inviting, to have followed a young and pretty woman for an hour, ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... gave Yoshisada fair words indeed: "I profoundly praise your loyal services. My wish is to pacify the country by the assistance of your family, but heaven has not yet vouchsafed its aid. Our troops are worn out and the hour is unpropitious. Therefore, I make peace for the moment and bide my time. Do you repair to Echizen and use your best endeavours to promote the cause of the restoration. Lest you be called a rebel after my return to Kyoto, I order the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... their unpropitious journey—the exposure to cold and rain—that he had hurried on the invalids, till he had accomplished his own purposes. One had already gone; the other was fast following. Speculators have consciences and affections, and ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... was always the low indignant mutter of a triumphant people at those who had dared to set themselves above the popular clamour and ask for sanity. The intolerable longing that had become her constant companion would be fed by every device of unpropitious Circumstance. Again and again she would experience this impulse to go to him, and some night the blood would not recede from ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the most unpropitious, frequently contribute, in the course of Providence, to promote the most important and most happy issues. While the brethren at Nain continued with unwearied diligence to make known the salvation of Christ among the Esquimaux, they observed with grief, that their deep-rooted ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... lightning seen in the sky appeared to pass from cloud to cloud above, instead of descending to the ground. On the other hand, thunder sounding as if it came from the southward, and lightning striking down to the earth, were both unpropitious omens. As to birds, some were of good omen, as vultures, eagles and woodpeckers. Others were evil, as ravens and owls. Various inferences were drawn too from the manner in which the birds that appeared in the air, were seen to fly, and from the sound of their note at the time when ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to presume this, and yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to West Roxbury on April 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving northeast snowstorm,—an unpropitious beginning, of which he has given a graphic account in "The ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... smarting under a sense of injury which was annoyingly indefinite. It was true that Jack Meredith had come at a very unpropitious moment; but it was equally clear that the intrusion could only have been the result of accident. It was really a case of the third person who is no company, with aggravated symptoms. Durnovo had vaguely felt in the presence of either a subtle possibility of sympathy between ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... you,' said Bertie, dropping his companion's arm, and standing before her on the path. In their walk they had come exactly to the spot where Eleanor had been provoked into slapping Mr Slope's face. Could it be possible that the place was peculiarly unpropitious to her comfort? Could it be possible that she should her have to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rudeness. Great allowance, however, ought to be made for the Princess's occasional bluntness when it is remembered that she was then in her sixty-fourth year, suffering from rheumatism and a painful affection of one of her eyes, a condition altogether very unpropitious in which to commence the career of arms in the capacity of field-marshal to a youthful Queen. Notwithstanding all this, however, she exerted herself to enliven everybody, to console, to inspire fortitude and a spirit ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... particular contribution to human society. Environment is not ignored by the man who wrote "Of Genius," for he insists that each man's bent may be greatly developed by favorable circumstances and proper education, and, conversely, that it may be entirely frustrated by unpropitious circumstances or wilful neglect. But in no way can a man's inborn talent for one thing be converted to ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... day was Friday, and Barny, of course, would not sail any more than any other sailor who could help it on this unpropitious day. On Saturday, however, he came, running in a great hurry down to the shore, and, jumping aboard, he gave orders to make all sail, and taking the helm of the hooker, he turned her head to the sea, and ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... for examination to furnish a muster-roll of young men for the war. These being so taken by the Athenians, and carried to the officers, and the multitude of names appearing, the diviners thought it unpropitious, and were in apprehension lest this should be the only destined fullfilment of the prophecy, that "the Athenians shall take all the Syracusans." Yet, indeed, this was said to be accomplished by the Athenians at another time, when Callippus the Athenian, having slain Dion, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... waited a favourable opportunity to carry out his purpose, and in vain. The two sisters seemed to be inseparable in this time of trouble, and try as he might he could not get the interview for which he so ardently longed. The fates were unpropitious, and one after another his artifices were defeated until at last he was obliged to fall back upon the assistance of his friend, and ask him, as a last resource, to help him ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... be added. The fair I particularly mention, because on the day on which the circumstances I am about to describe occurred, a fair was held in the town, and upon the green in question. The month was December—the day stormy and unpropitious. There had been a deep snow and hard frost for nearly three weeks before; but now the aspect of the white earth contrasted wildly with the large masses of black clouds which hung motionless in the air, and cast a dark and gloomy spirit not only over the appearance of inanimate nature, but ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... appeared inappropriate, being the day on which God created heaven and earth, whose continuance depends on Israel's existence. Were it not for God's covenant with Israel, there would be neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth. Monday showed itself equally unpropitious for Haman's devices, for it was the day on which God effected the separation between the celestial and the terrestrial waters, symbolic of the separation between Israel and the heathen. Tuesday, the day on which the vegetable world was created, refused to give its ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the birth of Kunti's sons and also of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra the daughter of the king of the Madras privately addressed Pandu, saying, 'O slayer of foes, I have no complaint even if thou beest unpropitious to me. I have, O sinless one, also no complaint that though by birth I am superior to Kunti yet I am inferior to her in station. I do not grieve, O thou of Kuru's race, that Gandhari hath obtained a hundred sons. This, however, is my great grief that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the elegant Mr. Chatterly the task of expressing the desire of the company to see the unknown artist, in a neat occasional copy of verses. The poor gentleman's muse, however, proved unpropitious; for he was able to proceed no farther than two lines in half an hour, which, coupled with its variations, we insert from the blotted manuscript, as Dr. Johnson has printed the alterations in Pope's version of ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Phidias considers improvement in music of sufficient consequence to encourage your visits to that dangerous woman," answered Philothea: "It was an unpropitious day for Athens when she came here to invest vice with all the allurements of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... extraordinary alternations of climate we had experienced for two months, was a circumstance quite unheard-of before in Pau, and we looked on ourselves as singularly unlucky in having, by chance, chosen a season so unpropitious. A few simple persons, who ventured to remark that the winter of last year was very similar, were told that they must have been mistaken; and some who recollected high winds were considered romancers. We looked at the strong ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount AEtna. The imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already illustrious for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of Thrace, the other a leader notoriously ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and fascinated the readers of a ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... When he finds her, she is living at ease in a large house, but day by day her riches wane and her house contracts. She explains to her visitor that her condition at any given hour affects the whole lives of all children born at that time, and that he had come into the world at a most unpropitious moment; and she advises him to take his niece Militsa (who had been born at a lucky time) to live in his house, and to call all he might acquire her property. This advice he follows, and all goes well with him. One day, as he is gazing at a splendid ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... her from making it in eighteen days less, for she was then in sight of the harbour's mouth, when an unpropitious gale of wind blew her off. Otherwise she would have reached us one day sooner than the 'Lady Juliana'. It is a curious circumstance, that these two ships had sailed together from the river Thames, one bound to Port Jackson, and the other bound to Jamaica. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... unpropitious morning for a journey—muggy, damp, and drizzly. The horses in the stages that were going out, and had come through the city, were smoking so, that the outside passengers were invisible. The newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelled mouldy; the wet ran off the hats of the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... are terrible moments in human experience, moments when even the Christian is so haunted by the demon of unbelief, when the dire enemy of God and man takes advantage of some unpropitious circumstance, some painful affliction, to taunt the soul, already almost crushed, and to inquire, with fiendish malignity, "Where is now thy God?" that if not wholly overcome, he, at least, escapes alone with ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May—a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his two winter ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any given part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative was strengthened by the discovery ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... This was a somewhat unpropitious commencement, and in 1774 the Court are found writing to Madras, to which Balambangan was subordinate, complaining of the "imprudent management and profuse conduct" of ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... replied, "but we'll be whipped in this wordy battle. And even a small defeat were an unpropitious ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... and unpropitious corner on which they stood, with the shriek of the "elevated" and the tumult of trams and waggons contending hideously ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... however, to take up its passengers after it had passed Duncansby Head, on the north of Scotland. But the elements on the North Sea were unpropitious. Sheerness left behind, the trio of vessels had not passed the coast of Norfolk before they were driven into Yarmouth Harbor, and there for days they lay held in by adverse winds. On July 2nd they again started northward, when they were compelled to ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... cry at this very unpropitious aspect of affairs. 'O papa, papa, forgive me and him! We care so much for one another, papa—O, so much! And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow of an engagement between us till he is a gentleman as good as you. We are not in a hurry, dear papa; we don't want in the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... once he stopped to snatch a pick from the hand of an astonished Chinaman at work in a ditch, as he still kept on his way, a quarter of a mile beyond the shaft. Here he stopped before a jagged hole in the hillside. Bared to the sky and air, the very openness of its abandonment, its unpropitious position, and distance from the strike in Mulrady's shaft had no doubt preserved its integrity from wayfarer ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... in accordance with these commands [143] and set out against Amalek, to conquer whom required not only skillful strategy, but also adeptness in the art of magic. For Amalek was a great magician and knew that propitious and the unpropitious hour of each individual, and in this way regulated his attacks against Israel; he attacked that one at night, whose death had been predicted for a night, and him whose death had been preordained for a day did he attack ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... not much above a week after the calculations, in all the glory of the purple of Manor Cross, the new Popenjoy was born. For it was a Popenjoy. The Fates, who had for some time past been unpropitious to the house of Brotherton, now smiled; and Fortune, who had been good to the Dean throughout, remained true to him also in this. The family had a new heir, a real Popenjoy; and the old Marchioness when the baby was ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... was unpropitious for jokes. Even the East Ender, who had worked an edging of red and white wool into his pony's mane and hung rosettes of red, white, and blue at its ears, was too busy perspiring and hating his hundred thousand neighbours ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... be. Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable hour. How was the awaking to be managed? Fright, tears, passion, what change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief! Honora would never ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Stanhope was to winter in Castile. But he stood alone in the council of war; and, indeed it is not easy to understand how the Allies could have maintained themselves, through so unpropitious a season, in the midst of so hostile a population. Charles, whose personal safety was the first object of the generals, was sent with an escort of cavalry to Catalonia in November; and in December the army commenced ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... steeps of the sierra, with its splintered sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman. And all communication between the parts of the long- extended territory might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable quebradas,—those hideous rents ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... found the soldiers so cheerful and orderly, that he was highly gratified, and exchanged personal tokens of friendship and hospitality with Xenophon. But when sacrifices came to be offered, for beginning the march homeward, the signs were so unpropitious, for three successive days, that Kleander could not bring himself to brave such auguries at the outset of his career. Accordingly, he told the generals, that the gods plainly forbade him, and reserved it for them, to conduct the army into Greece; that he should therefore sail back ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... The weather was too unpropitious to admit of our seeing much of the environs of the town. Like all English travellers, we walked about as much as we could, peeped into the churches, made purchases of things we wanted and things we did not want, and got some of our gold converted into French ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... despotic hand of authority tears asunder hearts united by the softest ties, and sacrifices the prospect of felicity to ridiculous and unmeaning prejudices. Let us, my Matilda, pity those whose fate is thus unpropitious, but let us not voluntarily subject ourselves to their misfortune. No voice is raised to forbid our union. Heaven and earth command us ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Unpropitious as first appearances were, we found no want of real hospitality and kindness among the Tempiese, and I have seldom spent a few days more pleasantly in a provincial town. Daylight, indeed, failed to improve the internal aspect of the place, but rather disclosed the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... tell when his customer is in a tearing hurry. It is an unpropitious time to make suggestions. The clerk must see things from the customer's point of view. It is permissible to suggest something else in place of the thing he has asked for but it is not good manners to ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Noah had a singular influence over her young master, who was in the habit of consulting her with regard to his affairs, and nothing could have been more unpropitious to the success of grandpa's suit than the knowing she disapproved. Beside this, Guy had only the previous week lost a small amount loaned under similar circumstances. Standing silent for a moment, while he buried and reburied his ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... there was no time to lose. Yet the moment was most unpropitious, for a Seneca chief had lately been murdered by three scoundrel soldiers of the fort of Montreal; and, while they were undergoing their trial, it became known that three other Frenchmen had treacherously put to ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Street, saw a cart at Fox's door, with copper and an old chest of drawers, loading. His success at Faro had awakened a host of creditors; but, unless his bank had swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it could not have yielded a half-penny apiece for each. Epsom too had been unpropitious; and one creditor had actually seized and carried off Fox's goods, which did not seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after this, whom should Walpole find sauntering by his own door but Fox, who came up and talked to him at the coach window, on the Marriage ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... of Dasht-bi-Dowlat, or "The Unpropitious Plain," lies between Mastung and Quetta. The name, however, only applies after the harvest has been gathered, for next to Mastung this is one of the most fertile spots in Baluchistan. Dasht-bi-Dowlat is mainly cultivated by wandering tribes. The inhabitants of Mastung were enthusiastic ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... Brissot and the Philosophers is declining fast—the clubs are unpropitious, and no party long survives this formidable omen; so that, like Macbeth, they will have waded from one crime to another, only to obtain a short-lived dominion, at the expence of eternal infamy, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... The times were unpropitious to the buttered-toast question, and it had quite slipped out of my mind. I have never traced the string of associations which reminded me of it, on one certain morning. Once more I made bold to ask if I could have buttered toast. "Impossible," said the waiter, curtly. I was piqued. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... The time was unpropitious for the continuation of great wealth based upon rural or small-town land. Many influences conspired to make this land a variable property, while these same influences, or a part of them, fixed upon city land an enhancing and graduating permanency of value. The growth of the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... by publishing a collection of them. He transmitted the manuscript to Mr. Strahan, the printer, who after keeping it for some time, wrote a letter to him, discouraging the publication[285]. Such at first was the unpropitious state of one of the most successful theological books that has ever appeared. Mr. Strahan, however, had sent one of the sermons to Dr. Johnson for his opinion; and after his unfavourable letter to Dr. Blair had been sent off, he received from Johnson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... slain—probably in sacrifice. "He has gone, he has gone to the bosom of the earth," the mourners cried, "he will make plenty to overflow for the land of the dead, for its lamentations for the day of his fall, in the unpropitious month of his year." There was also lamentation for the cessation of the growth of vegetation, and one of these hymns, after addressing him as the shepherd and husband of Istar, "lord of the underworld," and "lord of the shepherd's seat," goes on to liken him to a germ ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... unpropitious moment, for the colonel was in a cold fury, and the object of his wrath was Crewe, who sat with folded arms and tense face, looking down at ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... having bequeathed his Dominions by Will to the Duke of Anjou..... The French King's Apology for accepting the Will ..... The States-general owns Philip as King of Spain..... Anew Ministry and a new Parliament..... The Commons unpropitious to the Court—-The Lords are more condescending..... An intercepted Letter from the Earl of Melfort to his Brother..... Succession of the Crown settled upon the Princess Sophia, Elect ress Dowager of Hanover, and the Protestant Heirs of her Body..... The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... most unpropitious moment that Hamilton came briskly into the room. He stopped short in the doorway, at sight of the three men of the committee, who turned to ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... outlines of womanhood appear amidst girlhood's innocent slimness, and woman shoots forth at first all embarrassment, still retaining much of the child, and ever and unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very unpropitious for some girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly, sallow and frail, like plants before their due season. For those, however, who, like Miette, are healthy and live in the open air, it is a time of delightful gracefulness which once ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the blessing of the Almighty in the city of Oviedo, the capital of the Asturias, although at an unpropitious season, for the bray of war is at the gate, and there is the cry of the captains and the shouting. Castile is at the present time in the hands of the Carlists, who have captured and plundered Valladolid, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... was no alarming interlude, like a herald of evil, to shake the nerves of the company—nothing more unpropitious than the contretemps to an unlucky lady of being overcome by the heat and seized with a fainting-fit, which caused her over-zealous supporters to remove her luxuriant powdered wig in order to give her greater air and coolness, so that she was fain, the moment she recovered, to hide her diminished ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... bears and boars in the forest, with a couple of hundred peasants as beaters, had been arranged by the Natchalnik for his guest's amusement; but their plans were frustrated by the unpropitious state of the weather; and as soon as it became favourable, we find Mr Paton again in motion, ascending the eastern branch of the Morava to Alexinate, the quarantine station on the Bulgarian frontier, where the British govermnent has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... up with a lazy and listless apathy, which belied the general expression of his dark and rugged features. He seemed a very tall man, but was scarce better clad than the younger. He had on a loose Lowland greatcoat, and ragged tartan trews or pantaloons. All around looked singularly wild and unpropitious. Beneath the brow of the incumbent rock was a charcoal fire, on which there was a still working, with bellows, pincers, hammers, a movable anvil, and other smith's tools; three guns, with two or three sacks and barrels, were disposed against the wall of rock, under shelter of the superincumbent ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... chilly November night that little Dino found himself in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where some young ladies were holding a little sale for the benefit of a Home for Orphan Children in their neighborhood. The day being so unpropitious, visitors had been few and sales very slow. The young people, with rueful faces, were talking in the twilight of their disappointed hopes, and wondering if the evening would bring customers for the little articles they had spent all their leisure summer ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... a generation after Shakespeare's death, common opinion both in Stratford and London recognized that in the actor and dramatist a great man had passed away, that he had been in a worldly sense highly successful, though starting from unpropitious beginnings, that he wrote with great swiftness and ease, and that in his personal relations he was gentle, kindly, genial, and witty. That the bailiff's son who returned to his native town as a prosperous gentleman, is to be identified with the actor and shareholder ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... left and some had not even one. Therefore, that same night—I think it was the 21st of January although I had lost count of dates—the Government, whom I accompanied, departed and proceeded to the Kloof Oshoek, between Dullstroom and Lydenburg. The weather was very unpropitious, rain falling in torrents, and as may be understood, we were in a sad plight. We were protected by nothing except our mackintoshes, and greatly envied a member of the party who was the proud possessor of a ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... 14th.—The weather being unpropitious, and finding ourselves very snug in our present quarters, we passed the day enjoying the comfort of ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... evening. Stayed at home all day. Indeed, the weather—sleety, rainy, stormy—forms no tempting prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I made a day of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... before departing, Mungo Park rowed away on November 17th, 1805, with the survivors of his company of forty, namely, four white men and five Negroes, including Amady, for crew. From the very outset the voyage proved unpropitious. Almost every village they passed on the river bank came out against them in canoes, armed with bows and arrows, pikes and assegais. Each member of the crew kept fifteen muskets in action; to kill and kill was the only chance of forcing a passage through. There was no Isaaco to try ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... important features of the Park. It is worthy to rank as a feat of engineering skill with, any of the great works of modern times. The Commissioners decided to put its powers to the test yesterday afternoon, but owing to the unpropitious weather of the forenoon the trial was postponed. Nevertheless, Commissioners Stranahan, Fiske, and Haynes, with Mr. Martin, engineer in charge, and Mr. John Y. Culyer, his assistant, were at the well. During the last ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... the worse, and when I considered that for some days past we had been entirely dependent for our supply of water upon the little puddles that had been left on the plains by the rain, and which two or three more days would completely dry up. Under circumstances so unpropitious, I had many misgivings, and the contemplation of our future prospect became a subject ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... How he accosts the man of many years. But him the Goddess answer'd azure-eyed, Telemachus! Thou wilt, in part, thyself Fit speech devise, and heav'n will give the rest; For thou wast neither born, nor hast been train'd To manhood, under unpropitious Pow'rs. So saying, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps attending, soon arrived Among the multitude. There Nestor sat, And Nestor's sons, while, busily the feast 40 Tending, his num'rous followers roasted, some, The ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... over sacrificing and consulting the flame or the entrails; for no reversal or respite of their sufferings had followed their most assiduous acts of deprecation. Moreover the omens were generally considered by the priests to have been unpropitious or adverse. A sheep had been discovered to have, instead of a liver, something very like a gizzard; a sow had chewed and swallowed the flowers with which it had been embellished for the sacrifice; and a calf, after receiving the fatal blow, instead ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene—the luxurious furnishings, the condition of the two men—with the rapidity and minuteness of a sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... from a photographer in Paris, at the time of his first visit there, thinking it might be a help in the prosecution of his scheme, and now he was always trying to get some photographs of the scenes among which he camped. They were generally very poor and feeble, the weather being so often unpropitious, and the process (paper process) so imperfect and tedious. Still, it was the means of giving pleasure to our relations and friends by acquainting them with our surroundings. Here is a passage from one of my father's letters ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... caught by that piece of intelligence. "Can you? Are you sure?" she asked; and at that moment, unpropitious for her, Deleah ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Constitution as it is, firmly believing that no good reason exists for its change, and that an honest adherence to its wise provisions is our surest guarantee for real or supposed grievances, and that the present of all times is the most unpropitious moment to attempt any change or modification. Party politics in all their embittered madness rule the hour, but calm times and cool heads will be required whenever the American people desire to enter upon so hazardous ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the house for something after starting on a journey is unpropitious. To have it brought ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... of beef well-nigh stove in my ribs; the corner of a box bored a hole in the nape of my neck—yet I went off like one of the famed seven sleepers, and my friend, although stretched out beside me in similarly unpropitious circumstances, began to snore in less than five minutes after he ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... able to accomplish those ends which through many risks and difficulties they aimed at. But, above all, this is most wonderful; that by preternatural interposition both of them had notice given of their approaching death by an unpropitious form, which visibly appeared to them. Although there are people who utterly deny any such thing, and say that no man in his right senses ever yet saw any supernatural phantom or apparition, but that children only, and silly women, or men disordered by sickness, in some ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... haymaking is finished at last, and by-and-by, when the leaves have fallen and the hunting commences, a good run drives away for the time at least the memory of so unpropitious a season. Then Mr. George some mild morning forms one of a little group of well-mounted farmers waiting at a quiet corner while the hounds draw a great wood. Two of them are men long past middle age, whose once tawny beards are grizzled, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... were unpropitious to my day on the river, as matters required me in South Africa, from which place I propose to send you the famous speech you want. I quite see the importance, if true, of his utterance, but I can hardly think Kruger would have said it. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... on the kind things he had expected her to say. He had plainly lost ground with her since their talk on the Madison campus, and he wanted to justify himself, to convince her of his rectitude, and of her failure to understand his part in the convention, but the time and place were unpropitious. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... grandeur. "No man," says Shelley, "can say, 'I will compose poetry.'" If he cannot say this of himself to-day, still less can he say it of himself to-morrow. He cannot tell whether the illusions of youth will forsake him wholly; whether the joy of creation will cease to thrill; what unpropitious blight he may encounter in an enemy or a creditor, or harbour in an uncongenial mate. Milton, no doubt, entirely meant what he said when he told Diodati: "I am letting my wings grow and preparing to ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... this heroic sacrifice, the gods were unpropitious. They chaffed the poet in polished Yiddish throughout the first two acts. There was only a sprinkling of audience (most of it paper) in the dimly-lit hall, for the fame of the great writer had not spread from Berlin, Mogadore, Constantinople ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... were running by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy attempt at ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... not very full and the weather has been so unpropitious that I have not been able to make use of my Horses above twice since my arrival. I hope your everlasting negotiation with the Father of your Intended is near a conclusion in some manner; if you do not hurry a little, you will ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... flowers suitable to their tastes, and no great distance to travel to them, they will fill their hives both with honey and wax, in about a month or five weeks, and, if the season has proved fair and pleasant, in less time; but the bee-keeper must expect four out of every five seasons to be unpropitious to his little charge, and, therefore, he must be on the watch to assist them with food ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... Kant may also be mentioned as among those whose thinking, even when mistaken, might have done much to aid in the development of a truer theory had not the theologic atmosphere of their times been so unpropitious; but a few years after Leibnitz's death came in France a thinker in natural science of much less influence than any of these, who made ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... very respectable attire, so far as the obscurity would allow him to judge, but half muffled up in a cloak, and armed with a stout bludgeon. Much as he had just now been wishing for some guide, he yet could not congratulate himself on so unpropitious a rencontre. The stranger's dress and unceremonious greeting were not more suspicious than the abruptness of his appearance: for Bertram felt convinced that he must have way-laid him. Assuming however as much composure as he could, he demanded in ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the occasion at Apricot Villa. Jemima Curlydown thought that she also should be allowed to see Sydney, and was in favour of an immediate marriage with this object. But Bagwax felt that the boisterous ocean might be unpropitious to the delights of a honeymoon; and Mr. Curlydown reminded his daughter of all the furniture which would thus be lost. Bagwax went as a gay bachelor, and spent six happy months in the bright colony. He did not effect ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... people, in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of God."[D] This expedition left the shores of England, December 19, 1606, and, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by unpropitious winds, which kept them in sight of home for more than "six weeks," reached the capes of Virginia. The southern cape was christened "Henry," and the northern, "Charles," after the King's sons. This was on the 26th day of April, 1607. Accompanying this expedition was Rev. Robert ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... husbands have, in genuine ignorance of the cruelty they were committing, raped their wives on their wedding night. Judging by what one knows of wedding-days, it could hardly be supposed that there could be a more unpropitious moment for the consummation of marriage. And when to the fatigue and strain of the day is added—as is still quite often the case—blank though uneasy ignorance as to what marriage involves, or the thunderbolt of knowledge (sic) launched by the bride's mother the night before, or the morning ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... design; she wanted to move the king to mildness. But the moment was unpropitious ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... is severed at the first blow, the goddess is favourable; if not, she is unpropitious: all their labour is thrown away, and the ceremony must be repeated upon some more fitting occasion. But if the sign be favourable, the axe is tied carefully in a white cloth and turned towards the west, all the spectators prostrating themselves before it. It is then ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... political system of Germany was inverted. The king of England abandoned the interest of that house which he had in the former war so warmly espoused, and took into his bosom a prince whom he had formerly considered as his inveterate enemy. The unpropitious beginning of this war against France being imputed to the misconduct of the administration, excited such a ferment among the people, as seemed to threaten a dangerous insurrection. Every part of the kingdom resounded with the voice of dissatisfaction, which did not even respect the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... confounded, fears for the future struggling with mortification for the past, the Landgrave was sitting, late at night, in the long gallery where he usually held his councils. He was reflecting with anxiety on the peculiarly unpropitious moment at which his new enemy had come upon the stage; the very crisis of the struggle between the Swedish and imperial interest in Klosterheim, which would ultimately determine his own place and value in the estimate of his new allies. He was not of a character to be easily duped by mystery. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... there is commonly the last great outpour of rain, and as October advances there is the cooling freshness of the approaching cold weather, with enough of heat in the day-time to tell us it has not quite let go its grasp. December and January are our coldest months. In England, after an unpropitious summer, the remark is often made, "We have had no summer!" and in the same manner in India, when the temperature has been high in the cold season, and we have not had the expected bracing, we say, "We have had no winter!" Yet as in our own country, so in India; we have our marked ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... deal harshly with thee, O Hotep; for thou hast struggled desperately against an unwilling soil and unpropitious seasons. But thou knowest all my affairs are in the hands of Zaphnath, without whom I do nothing. Therefore go thou before him and do ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... He generally managed to find someone to assume the duty for him; but one day everyone seemed engaged on some pursuit or other, so with every anticipation of a dull evening he went down to hall. He began to read Shelley but the surroundings were unpropitious. All about him sat huddled fragments of humanity scratching half-baked ideas with crossed nibs into dog-eared notebooks. There was a general air of unrest. Gordon tried Sinister Street; some of the episodes in Lepard Street were more in harmony with his feelings, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... supply of drinkable, though very brackish water. The sandstone hills before us and to the northward, were covered with low shrubs and the broad-leaved tea-tree, with wiry and stiff grasses, and looked very unpropitious. The rock was composed of quartz pebbles of different colours, imbedded in a red ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... enjoying to the full the keen, fresh odors of the Spring,—odors that even in London cannot altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. It had been raining, but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly as it ever CAN shine on the English capital, sending sparkles of gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little crocuses, that had lately tumbled ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... received by the Regent with a most unpropitious aspect. "In asking the pardon of the criminal," said he, "you display more zeal for the house of Van Horn, than for the service of the king." The noble deputies enforced the petition by every argument in their power. They supplicated the Regent to consider that the infamous punishment in question ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having fallen on an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the happy times so responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world prepared to dance to their music. However, he must toil and be satisfied if he can make ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson |
