"Foretell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no less a personage than the Right Rev. Charles Walmesley, D.D., a Roman Catholic prelate, whose false prophecies under the name of Pastorini were intended to bring about the events they pretended to foretell—the destruction of the Irish Protestants in 1825. Just previous to this year every bush and bramble in Ireland had this remarkable ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... Bolingbroke, on the day that Cato was produced, he indicates the signs of the time, as they appeared to a Tory statesman: 'The prospect before us,' he writes, 'is dark and melancholy. What will happen no man is able to foretell.' ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... looked upon Jack as a young tree shooting out into blossoms before its time; the redundancy of which, though it was a little unseasonably, seemed to foretell an uncommon fruitfulness. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... things that at the moment did not exercise my mind—nor have I since been at any pains to unravel the mystery of it; but there he was, and for the moment that fact was all-sufficing. What complications would come of his presence Heaven alone could foretell. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... formed a particular order, like that of the Levites of Israel and of the Chaldeans of Assyria. They did not constitute a hereditary caste like the Brahmins of India, but they were chosen from among the people. They claimed to foretell future events. They worshiped fire and the stars, and believed in two principles of good and evil, of which light and darkness ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I ought not to forget the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen tomorrow, or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite unconscious of what was passing at ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... man, Kelly.... If I give you Valerie's address, would you write and give her her freedom—for her own sake?—the freedom to try life in that well-ordered world we speak of?... Because she is very young. Life is all before her. Who can foretell what friends she may be destined to make; what opportunities she may have. I care a great deal for you, Kelly; but I love Valerie.... And, there are other men in the world after all;—but there is only one Valerie.... And—how truly do ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... customs were as extraordinary as those of any nation with which history has made us acquainted. The augurs pretended to foretell future events from the flight of birds and the chirping and feeding of fowls, and also from other appearances. "Augurium" and "auspicium" were generally used promiscuously. Auspicium was properly the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... of the most intelligent men in France, struck by the arrested increase of their own population and by the telling statistics from Further Britain, foretold the coming preponderance of the English race. They did not foretell, what none could then foresee, the still more sudden growth of Prussia, or that the three most important countries of the globe would, by the end of the century, be those that chiefly belonged to the conquests of the Reformation. ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... come off? Would it be strange? Would it not be stranger if it were not so? How can a being, standing on one little ball, spinning forever around and around among millions of other balls larger and smaller, breathlessly the same endless waltz,—how can he trace out their paths, and foretell their conjunctions? How can a puny creature fastened down to one world, able to lift himself but a few paltry feet above, to dig but a few paltry feet below its surface, utterly unable to divine what shall happen to himself in the next moment,—how can he thrust out his hand into inconceivable ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... flew at them with such fury, tearing their capes and hose, that in their fright they fancied he was mad. But the Bargello, like an experienced person, told them: "It is the nature of good dogs to divine and foretell the mischance coming on their masters. Two of you take sticks and beat the dog off; while the others strap Benvenuto on this chair; then carry him to the place you wot of." It was, as I have said, the night after Corpus Domini, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... weather. Light, moisture-laden air meets cold, dry air, and the sudden cooling forces it to release its moisture, which falls as rain, or floats about as clouds. If only we are able to detect the presence of warm air-strata above us, we ought to be in a position to foretell the weather. ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... that Colonel Tassara is with his regiment. He was in the thickest of the fight at Angostura. He was wounded, but he hopes to recover soon, and we have not told Felicia. He writes me that it was really a lost battle, and that the fall of Santa Anna is surely coming, but that nobody can foretell what course he will take, cruel or otherwise, when he and his army return to fight with General Scott, on the road from the sea to this city. Go and read your letters, and then ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... innumerable fabulous Tales, some of which have a kind of Analogy with the Universal Deluge. These Barbarians believe that there are certain Spirits in the Air, between Heaven and Earth, who have a power to foretell future Events, and others who play the part of Physicians, curing all sorts of Distempers. Upon which account, it happens, that these Savages are very Superstitious, and consult their Oracles with a great deal of exactness. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... out in any of those countries who can foretell the extent to which it may be carried or the desolation which it may spread? Exempt as we are from these causes, our internal tranquillity is secure; and distant as we are from the troubled scene, and faithful to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... I am a Prophet new inspir'd, And thus expiring, do foretell of him, His rash fierce blaze of Ryot cannot last, For violent fires soone burne out themselues, Small showres last long, but sodaine stormes are short, He tyres betimes, that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding, food doth choake the feeder: Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to hide 'Neath an impervious shroud? Look thro' the depths Of my unshrinking eye, deep, deep within. What see ye there? what gives suspicion birth? As longs the laborer for the setting sun, Watching the lengthening shadows that foretell The time of rest, yet day by day returns To the same task again, so I endure Wearisome nights and months of burdening woe. I would not alway live this loathed life Whose days are vanity. Soon shall I sleep Low in the dust, and when the morning comes And thro' its curtaining ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... foretell the future,' he said, 'but I think I may venture to promise that Molly will ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room, lord it among the ladies like a ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... no abiding thing in what we know. We change from weaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below. We can never foretell which of our seemingly assured fundamentals the next change will not affect. What folly, then, to dream of mapping out our minds in however general terms, of providing for the endless mysteries of the future a terminology ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... his cutlass was forced from him, and it became a hand-to-hand struggle, of which, from the difference in numbers, it was not difficult to foretell the result. Yet Kinraid made desperate efforts to free himself; he wasted no breath in words, but fought, as the men said, 'like ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... questions, I asked if he knew any person to be in love with that lady. He said he did, but he knew not the person; for, during the two days he had been in her company, he perceived one standing near her, and his head leaning on her shoulder, which he said did foretell that the man should marry her, and die before her, according to his observation. This was in the year 1655. I desired him to describe the person, which he did, so that I could conjecture, by the description, of such a one, who was of that ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... to foretell a death, but whose death, depended on the direction of the bird's head whilst crowing. As soon as the crowing was heard someone went to ascertain the position of the cock's head, and when it was seen that his head was turned from their own house towards someone else's abode, the dwellers ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... opposed all the projects upon which the Prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz back into our camp again, to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual. The Chevalier (the king of England, as some of us held him) went from Dunkirk to the French army to make the campaign against us. The Duke of Burgundy had the command this year, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... my wish and thine complete, By turns we languish and we burn, Let sighing gales our sighs repeat, Our murmurs, murmuring brooks return. 7 Let me, when Nature calls to rest, And blushing skies the morn foretell, Sink on the down of Stella's breast, And ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... then believe That I would trust you, rascal? You amend My broken fortunes, or redeem them lost? You, who to-day, from the most happy state, Have thrown me upon marriage.—Did not I Foretell it ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... rue de Ponthieu, where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of a bachelor's establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often talked of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard could foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... present the most effectual means of destroying it, but would vanish all hope of its peaceable reconstruction. Besides, in the fraternal conflict a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between the States impossible. In the meantime, who can foretell what would be the sufferings and privations of the people ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... harm in the trade, gal; but such is not Roswell's ar'nd in the West Ingees. It's a great secret, the reason of his call there; and I will venture to foretell that, should he make it, and should it turn out successful, you will marry ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Medici were recalled, and the populace entreated Savonarola to return and protect them in their hour of peril. They had heard him foretell the coming of one who should punish the wicked and purge Italy of her sins. Now their belief in the Prior's utterances was confirmed. They hastened to greet him as the saviour ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... up to receive the crown of wild olive leaves which was the victor's prize, every one noticed his likeness to the royal family; and his sister Cas-san'dra, who was able to foretell future events, said that he was the son of Priam and Hecuba, and that he would ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... and understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows, write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the Reader? Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The destiny of the Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let us not hope to change the Fates by ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... oil. But let a purblind mortal dare the task The embryo future of itself to ask, The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, Or name the shuddering night that toppled down Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, When earth's blind prisoners ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his head. "And I have used mine ears! The wheel and the pulley are rare begetters of groans, as thou did'st foretell, Fool! 'Twas a good thought to drag me hither—it needed but this. Now am I steel, without and—within. O, 'tis ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... rain-clouds sweep up and open their sluice-gates. Is the albatross hindered in his flight by the rain which pelts violently down on his back and wings? Well, yes, he must certainly be delayed, but he can foretell the weather with certainty enough to keep clear, and he is swift enough on the wing to make his escape when overtaken by rain. And he can always descend, fold his pinions, and rest ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... permitted, I will not venture to foretell the effects of them; the ministry may soon be convinced, that such sufferers will find compassion, and that it is safer not to bear hard upon them, than to allow them ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... letter he exhorted Pearce to see what time the overseers "turn out of a morning—for I have strong suspicions that this, with some of them, is at a late hour, the consequences of which to the Negroes is not difficult to foretell. All these Overseers as you will perceive by their agreements, which I here with send, are on standing wages; and this with men who are not actuated by the principles of honor or honesty, and not ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... and right among his people, that good though he may be this hero is even better! Thy glory is widespread, Beowulf my friend, among thine own and many other nations, for thou hast fulfilled all things by patience and prudence. I will surely perform what I promised thee, as we agreed before; and I foretell of thee that thou wilt be long a help and ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... of Christ, upon which she set up as a public teacher, and declared she had an immediate revelation for all she delivered, and was arrived to a state of absolute perfection. It is also said she pretended to foretell future events, to discern the secrets of the heart, and to have the power of healing diseases; and if any person who had made application to her was not healed, she attributed it to his want of faith. She asserted that those who refused ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... "the tall dark man" which the amateur crystal-gazer really wants. He doesn't want the future. There is so little to foretell in most of our lives. Nobody is going to pay two guineas to be told that he will be off his drive next Saturday and have a stomach-ache on the following Monday. He wants something a little more romantic ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... deserve that praise, I need no inspiration to foretell. You have already left no room for prophecy: Your early undertakings have been such, in the service of your king and country, when you offered yourself to the most dangerous employment, that of the sea; when you chose to abandon those delights, to which your youth and fortune did invite ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... But, having lived really as a fisherman ever since his daughter's birth, he knew nothing of his aristocratic descent. I think this is the most remarkable thing in the book. There are certain flings at the New England character (the scene is laid beside the waters of your Bay) which seem to foretell a not very remote migration on the part of Mr. Jones, though they may come from his partner; nothing very bad, only such hits as this: "He was simple, humble, affectionate, three qualities rare anywhere, but perhaps more rare in that part of the world than anywhere else." For the rest the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... quivering of the earth foretell the internal action of pent-up gas. To avoid danger from this source people have to escape from their houses to the [5] open space. A conical cloud, hanging like a horoscope in the air, foreshadows a cyclone. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... prophets.... Yet did he bid his servants to inquire out for him some woman that was a necromancer, and called up the souls of the dead, that so he might know whether his affairs would succeed to his mind; for this sort of necromantic women that bring up the souls of the dead, do by them foretell future events." Josephus, Book 6, ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... structure of the tragedy and divide it into acts. But in our own history we are like players in the middle of the piece, and though we may be able to say 'This is the third act or the fourth act', we cannot say 'This is the last act or the last but one'. We cannot foretell the future; the work of art we are studying is incomplete, and therefore we cannot possibly apprehend it as an artistic whole, however vivid may be our experience of isolated scenes and situations. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... was secretly glad when he heard of the damage. He was indeed afraid of his chief mate, as the sea-pilot had ventured to foretell, and afraid of him for the very reason the sea-pilot had ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... Monsieur de Farandal before him. Was this because of a sort of instinctive modesty, or was it perhaps from one of those secret intuitions of the feminine heart which enable them to foretell that of which ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... palliated and excused it is easy to foretell. We shall undoubtedly be told that all this happened some years ago; that the American soldiers, thus used as material suffered no permanent injury from the experiments to which they were subjected; that the investigators were ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... does its beauteous ray Aught of hope or joy foretell? (Antistrophe) Trav'ler, yes; it brings the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... the study of statistics could answer such a question as the following:—Seven hundred thousand men being employed, there are, in a given year, one thousand deaths from accident. Assuming the conditions to remain unaltered, within what limits could one foretell the number of deaths by accident ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... counsel. They waited for my words as for the showers; and opened their mouths as for the latter rain. I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners." And everything seemed to foretell a continuance of my happy lot. My prejudices and my convictions, my tastes and my affections, my habits and my inclinations, my interests and my family, all joined to bind me to the cause of Christ by the strongest ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... oppose their pride. Ye proud, however, if you do not turn about and become better, then will the sword and the pestilence fall upon you; with famine and war will Italy be turned upside down. I foretell you this because I am sure of it: if I were not, I would not mention it. Open your eyes as Balaam opened his eyes when the angel said to him: "Had it not been for thine ass, I would have slain thee." So I say to you, ye captives: Had it not been ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... going to become of me? What will be my fate? To have to be so uncertain as to the future, to have to be unable to foretell what is going to happen, distresses me deeply. Even to look back at the past is horrible, for it contains sorrow that breaks my very heart at the thought of it. Yes, a whole century in tears could I spend because of the wicked people who ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... coming you appear, (For I foretell that millenary year) The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more, But earth unbidden shall produce her store; The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile, And Heaven's indulgence bless ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... the baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus practically sagacious. She fell many degrees; she wanted something to cling to; so she clung to the man who struck her low. Love, then, was earthly; its depth could be probed by science! A man lived who could measure it from end to end; foretell its term; handle the young cherub as were he a shot owl! We who have flown into cousinship with the empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts, our base birth as a child of Time is made bare to us!—our wings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... duck-pond, the swans and the water-plants might have been copied bodily from James I.'s time. The paroquet and the flying bird, and the immense leaves and blossoms, are direct from the wall-hangings, while the figures only too surely foretell the coming dark days of needlecraft, when a Scripture picture and a coarsely worked sampler were part of every girl's liberal education. The work in this picture is extremely good, and it is excruciatingly funny without intending to be so. The pretty little equipage ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... father greeted him, the alacrity with which he accepted and leaned on the strong arm offered him, proved that the daily walks had been solitary and doubtless sad ones. I think Mr. Shaw understood the real meaning of that little act of respect, and felt better for the hopeful change it seemed to foretell. But he took it quietly, and leaving his face to speak for him, merely said, "Thanky, Tom; yes, mother will enjoy her dinner twice as much ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... dying in the pride of its purple! He had spoken of returning to Paris, leaving the Church and going to the point of schism. Well, his luggage now lay there packed, he was going off and he would write that book, he would be the great schismatic who was awaited! Did not everything foretell approaching schism amidst that great movement of men's minds, weary of old mummified dogmas and yet hungering for the divine? Even Leo XIII must be conscious of it, for his whole policy, his whole effort towards Christian unity, his assumed affection for ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sky again through another window. And from its shape the knights in Camorak's hall would prophesy the battles and sieges of the next season of war. They say of the hall of Camorak at Arn that there hath been none like it in any land, and foretell ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... woodcraft meant. [Footnote: Denny's Journal, 374.] The officers were men of courage, as in the end most of them showed by dying bravely on the field of battle; but they were utterly untrained themselves, and had no time in which to train their men. Under such conditions it did not need keen vision to foretell disaster. Harmar had learned a bitter lesson the preceding year; he knew well what Indians could do, and what raw troops could not; and he insisted with emphasis that the only possible outcome to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... have been misunderstood. I will explain. There are two kinds of prophecy. One is the gift to foretell things that are but a little way off, the other is the gift to foretell things that are whole ages and centuries away. Which is the mightier gift, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the contrary, is to make the law of nature supernatural, which is an impossibility. Yea, they that do so make it a predictor, a prophet; a prophet about divine things to come; yea, a prophet able to foretell what shall be, and that without a revelation; which is a strain that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all the astronomical phenomena which are anticipated during the year, that we are apt to forget how in early times this was impossible. It has only been by slow degrees that astronomy has been rendered so perfect as to enable us to foretell, with accuracy, the occurrence of the more delicate phenomena. The prediction of those transits by Kepler, some years before they occurred, was justly regarded at the time as ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... fisherman, without which he could not pursue his hazardous occupation. Bedclothes are also largely supplied from the same source. Leave all these to be supplied by the fisherman from his scanty earnings, and it requires no prophet to foretell the result. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... earth are supposed to be descended. At times, it is said, the Norns clothed themselves with swan plumage to visit the earth, or sported like mermaids along the coast and in various lakes and rivers, appearing to mortals, from time to time, to foretell the future or ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... many quarters to-day, Christianity be thought of as being mainly a means of social improvement, or if its principles of action be applied to life without that basis of them all, in the Cross which takes away the world's iniquity, then it needs no prophet to foretell that such a Christianity will only have superficial effects, and that, in losing sight of this central thought, it will have cast away all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... before his magazine went to press, he sought counsel and vision from at least one of three of the highest sources; and upon this guidance, as authoritative as anything could be in times of war when no human vision can actually foretell what the next day will bring forth, he acted. The result, as one now looks back upon it, was truly amazing; an uncanny timeliness would often color material on publication day. Of course, much of this was due to the close government co-operation, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... left of the hall, and the floor is of the same cold stone flags, which in damp weather become wet and slimy. These flags, in fact, act as a barometer, and foretell rain with great accuracy, as it were perspiring with latent moisture at its approach. The chimney was originally constructed for a wood fire upon the hearth, and of enormous size, so that several ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... man—is time-binding because it makes past achievements live in the present and present activities in time-to-come. It is an energy that initiates; it is an energy that creates; it is an energy that can understand the past and foretell the future—it is both historian and prophet; it is an energy that loads abstract time—the vehicle of events—with an ever-increasing burden of intellectual achievements, of spiritual wealth, destined for the civilization of posterity. And what ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... as fast as his legs could carry him to his tryst. The shadows of night were already on the forest when he entered it; and the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees, and their dismal sighing, that seemed to foretell a storm, all combined to disturb his fancy and raise strange spectres in his imagination. The shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, caused him an unprecedented shock, and the great rush of blood to his head made him stagger and clutch ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... of course impossible to foretell the general feeling among the members of the council in regard to the demands of the Turquoise people. The Shkuy Chayan and the Koshare Naua had declared themselves favourable to their pretensions, but on the other hand the Hishtanyi Chayan—and his word had greater weight than their speeches—had ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... were drawn up under command of the principal chief, in single line. At the head of this line was placed a kind of chaplet, or crown, the possession of which by any woman was supposed to confer the power of necromancy or magic, rendering her able to heal diseases and to foretell events. The line having been formed, all of the young maidens of the tribe were drawn up in a body at the further extremity and any of them who aspired to the possession of the chaplet was at liberty, having first uncovered her back and breast as far as her waist, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... we really lack are the bagpipes and some of those second-sight men and Scotch ghosts, who foretell what is going to happen. It's strange some of them didn't tell Nabby Crombie he ought to take his cannon with him when ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... yield a placid sky, to bid the trees Assume the lively verdure of their leaves: The vine to bud, and, joyful, in its shoots, Foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits: The ripen'd corn to sing, while all around Full riv'lets glide; and flowers deck ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... theaters is devoted to the arranging of scenes behind a blank curtain is here filled by the songs and recitations of the guardian spirits. Once in the play the chorus appears in black, in keeping with the dark scenes they come forth to foretell. But at the end the bright robes are resumed, while the play closes with a burst of triumph from ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... doubt come when clashing objects will break the ties of common interest which now preserve the Union. But no man may foretell the period of dissolution.... The many restraining causes are out of sight of foreign observation. The Lilliputian threads binding the man mountain are invisible; and it seems wondrous that each limb does not ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... only a proper care for you in forbidding it. Perhaps I am less courageous than he, in thinking more of the present benefit you would derive from the voyage and the change of scene, than of the perils and discomforts which might await you, for aught we can foretell now, at the end of it. Peter certainly showed judgment in telegraphing ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... to prophesy fifty years earlier that a second Emperor should some day sit upon the throne of France? Who would have ventured to foretell that this capricious people, loathing as they did in 1815 the name of Buonaparte, should one day choose by universal suffrage another of that ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... laughed at him) and to make veiled, half-timid allusions to Julien's latest amour. The vicomte was very vexed at this, but he did not dare say anything for fear of giving rise to a scandal; and the priest continued to call down vengeance on their heads, and to foretell the downfall of God's enemies in every sermon. At last, Julien wrote a decided, though respectful, letter to the archbishop, and the Abbe Tolbiac, finding himself threatened with disgrace, ceased his denunciations. He began to take long solitary ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... descent from the common ancestor, Nemedh, arrived to contest their supremacy. These last—the fourth immigration—are depicted to us as accomplished soothsayers and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell storms; cure diseases; work in metals; foretell future events; forge magical weapons; and raise the dead to life; they are called the Tuatha de Danans, and by their supernatural power, as well as by virtue of "the Lia Fail," or fabled "stone of destiny," they subdued their Belgic kinsmen, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... aesthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by which art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to foretell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other elements of production which will, most probably, have ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... Divisions and four French Divisions will be at Marseilles ready to sail out here: "about the middle of November would be the time when everything would be ready." There are altogether too many ifs and ands and pots and pans about Millerand's question. When a man starts going West who can foretell how long it will take him to arrive ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... pleased with the old lady. "This is sagacious," said he, "and shows an eye for detail. I recognize in your picture the foxy sex. But, at this moment, who can foretell which way the wind will blow? You are not aware, perhaps, that Zoe and Fanny have had a quarrel. They don't speak. Now, in women, you know, vices are controlled by vices— see Pope. The conspiracy you dread ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... hearts charged with love begin to exchange confidences, it is impossible to foretell what revelations will be forthcoming. And the chances are that had Beard been allowed sufficient time, he would have unburdened himself of the heavy load that was pressing on his heart. But unfortunately for Britz, the hour for exercising the prisoners confined on the tier had ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... one at present can foretell the outcome of the European War. If the Allies meet with reverses and victory shall crown the arms of the Germans and Austrians, German militarism will undoubtedly dominate the European Continent and ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... star expect Which at his birth appear'd,[8] to let us see Day, for his sake, could with the night agree; 130 A prince, on whom such diff'rent lights did smile, Born the divided world to reconcile! Whatever Heaven, or high extracted blood Could promise, or foretell, he will make good; Reform these nations, and improve them more, Than this fair park, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... wise man and prophet, warned us that it would be a hard winter, and the plainsmen agreed that it was a humdinger. I asked the wise old Indian how he could foretell the winter. "By food on shrub and tree," he said, "heap plenty; the heavy coat of the animals; the bear and squirrel storing heap much for eat, and the bear he get ready go sleep early." And so ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... gods, to eat natron, to make white bread, to set up poles on the temples and stelae inside them, to make the priest to purify the temples, to remove from his office the priest who is unclean, &c. After many breaks in the text we come to the passage in which Apuur seems to foretell the coming of the king who is to restore order and prosperity to the land. He is to make cool that which is hot. He is to be the "shepherd of mankind," having no evil in his heart. When his herds are few [and scattered], he will devote his time to bringing them together, their hearts being ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... them? Death! instead of that immediate assistance they stand so much in need of? For that woman who, like myself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone now on her everlasting journey, after having confounded their enemies' plots. In vain did she foretell that great evils still threatened those who are akin to me through my sister's blood. The unseen hand by which I am led, drives that woman away from me, even as though it were a whirlwind that swept her on. In vain she entreated and implored at the moment ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the whole affair was the friendship of the young man for Tiburcio. The latter was the practical hunter, which actual experience only can produce. He could foretell the coming of a norther twenty-four hours in advance. Just which course deer would graze he could predict by the quarter of the wind. In woodcraft he was a trustworthy though unquoted authority. His young patron often showed him his watch and explained how it ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... One of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new, or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under distress, on what conditions the gods ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... that this mass of literature is so saturated with the conception of a people chosen not for its own but for universal salvation, that the more material prophecies—evoked moreover in the bitterness of exile, as Belgian poets are now moved to foretell restoration and glory—are practically swamped. At the worst, we may say there are two conflicting currents of thought, as there are in the bosom of every nation, one primarily self-regarding, and the other setting towards the larger life of humanity. It may help us to understand the ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... dreams! In both of them, with much the same attitude and tone, Love—sick and doubtful Love—would fain inquire of what lies below the surface of sleep, and below the water; stream or dream being forced to speak by Love's powerful "control"; and the poet would have it foretell the fortune, issue, and event of his wasting passion. Such artifices, indeed, were not unknown in the old Provencal poetry of which Dante had learned something. Only, in Rossetti at least, they are redeemed ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... tragedy of Nations! Who may see The outcome, or foretell the end? Hark men and weeping women, misery That none may mend. Ruin in peaceful marts, Dazed commerce, stricken arts. God, to the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... me with what she knew. I mean, not about our robbery—that's a trifle—but about the past. That crystal of hers seems to be—a sort of Town Topics. But I must say she didn't foretell any horrors for the future—not for me personally. If she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding your feet'—and I'm ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... land you can take care of," he avowed, "an' you shall have a hired man of your own. I can foretell his ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... occupation, and yet finding myself continually in the midst of fighting, and now there was every probability of my having to engage in a desperate battle, the termination of which it was impossible to foretell. As I reached the deck I could see a number of dark phantom-looking objects gliding slowly over the water towards us almost noiselessly, the only sound heard being that produced by their oars as they dipped into the water. The pirates, ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... signifies one and the same event of things; for when thou sawest the fat kine, which is an animal made for the plough and for labor, devoured by the worser kine, and the ears of corn eaten up by the smaller ears, they foretell a famine, and want of the fruits of the earth for the same number of years, and equal with those when Egypt was in a happy state; and this so far, that the plenty of these years will be spent in the same number of years of scarcity, and that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of classes which obtains in the trenches. Surely, it is argued, men who have stood together at the danger point and gone over the top together at the moment of assault will never be other than brothers in the more peaceful pursuits which will follow. Yet it is not easy to foretell what will happen when the tremendous restraint of military service is withdrawn, when Britain no longer has her back to the wall, and when the overwhelming loyalty which leaps forth at the hour of crisis falls back into its ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... the future place of these islands in the government of the world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and influences very different from those which made England what she is are in the ascendant, and the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the prophet was an Egyptian, and could foretell the future. Whereupon someone observed that if he could not foretell the future he would not ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... but it was not difficult to foresee the day when the valet who dictated to her cook would become too much for the proud spirit of the lady of the house, with whom it had ever been dangerous to make too free—or to foretell what would ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... foretell devilry and wickedness," said the Pathfinder, who had all the provincial horror of the holy symbol in question which then pervaded the country, and which became so incorporated with its prejudices, by confounding men with things, as to have ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... or in that of the English tongue, will be determined only by the slow settling of opinion, which no critic can foretell, and the operation of which no criticism seems able to explain. I venture to believe, however, that the verdict will not be in accord with much of the present prevalent criticism. The service that he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... fine; For hurt you're sure to be; when people pall Of reading you, they'll crush and fold you small. If my prophetic soul be not at fault From indignation at your rude revolt, Your doom, methinks, is easy to foretell: While you've your gloss on, Rome will like you well: Then, when you're thumbed and soiled by vulgar hands, You'll feed the moths, or go to distant lands. Ah, then you'll mind your monitor too late, While he looks on and chuckles ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... heat of the calamity, having ventured to stay upon the prospect of getting great estates; and indeed their gain was but too great for a time, through the madness and folly of the people: but now they were silent; many of them went to their long home, not able to foretell their own fate, or to calculate their own nativities. Some have been critical enough to say[251] that every one of them died. I dare not affirm that; but this I must own, that I never heard of one of them that ever appeared ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... have fought again many a time over our wine) formed the dismal burthen of the first despatch from Mr. Wolfe which reached England and plunged us all in gloom. What more might one expect of a commander so rash? What disasters might one not foretell? Was ever scheme so wild as to bring three great bodies of men, across broad rivers, in the face of murderous batteries, merely on the chance of inducing an enemy, strongly entrenched and guarded, to leave his position and come out and engage us? 'Twas the talk of the town. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Dalton. He still continued in the same condition, not much changed physically, but in a state of mental torpor, the duration of which no one was able to foretell. Two short stages were required to take him to Dalton Hall. For this a litter was procured, and he was carried all the way. Edith went, with her maid and housekeeper, in a carriage, Dudleigh on horseback, and the other servants, with the luggage, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... was out of keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and sometimes foretell characters. ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... appearance of the present day. This is Wagner's second answer to the question, What is the meaning of music in our times? "Help me," he cries to all who have ears to hear, "help me to discover that culture of which my music, as the rediscovered language of correct feeling, seems to foretell the existence. Bear in mind that the soul of music now wishes to acquire a body, that, by means of you all, it would find its way to visibleness in movements, deeds, institutions, and customs!" There are some men who understand ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the experiment your power ceases?—you cannot foretell whether the unimprisoned creature will take its course to an inferno of suffering or a heaven of delight?—is this what ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... question was, it is impossible for the present writer to understand, unless the approach of Lee powerfully affected his imagination, and he supposed the thicket around Chancellorsville to be the best ground to receive that assault which the bold advance of his opponent appeared to foretell. Whatever his motive, General Hooker withdrew his lines from the open country, fell back to the vicinity of Chancellorsville, and began to erect elaborate defences, behind which to ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... on the day of the wedding, and the eve of the inauguration, she did foretell, in the hearing of a score, that Mr. Rothsay would never take his seat ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... were three imaginary arts. The first pretended to judge of the influence of the stars on human affairs, and to foretell events by their positions and aspects; the second aimed to transmute the baser metals into gold, and to find a universal remedy for diseases; while the third dealt with the discovery of secret or ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... studying or imagining what another man's knowledge might be, and by thus doing darkens knowledge, and wrongs the spirit of the Authors who did write and speak those things which he takes upon him to interpret. Secondly, he takes upon him to foretell what shall befall a man after he is dead, and what that world is beyond the Sun and beyond the Moon, etc. And if any man tell him there is no reason for what you say, he answers, you must not judge of heavenly and spiritual things by reason, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... nations resembled that of individuals, it would not be difficult to foretell the consequences of this state of things; but communities may be said to have no lives, and are ever to be found occupying their places, and using the means assigned to them by Providence, whether free or enslaved, prosperous or the reverse. No one can foretell the ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... grotto had been arranged for her inside a small summer house at one end of the lawn, on which the light would shine only faintly, thereby according her the eerie environment so necessary to one whose business it is to foretell the future. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... out on raids. These natives have a method of casting lots with the teeth of a crocodile or of a wild boar. During the ceremony they invoke their gods and their ancestors, and inquire of them as to the result of their wars and their journeys. By knots or loops which they make with cords, they foretell what will happen to them; and they resort to these practices for everything which they have to undertake. The Indians along the coast are accustomed to set out every year on their plundering expeditions in the season of the bonancas, which come ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... cried, "you know that nobody could foretell the coming of the plague. We were as well off as hundreds of other settlers this dry summer ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the fighting men, Finn had with him his five Druids, the best that ever came into the west, Cainnelsciath, of the Shining Shield, one of them was, that used to bring down knowledge from the clouds in the sky before Finn, and that could foretell battles. And he had his five wonderful physicians, four of them belonging to Ireland, and one that came over the sea from the east. And he had his five high poets and his twelve musicians, that had among them Daighre, son of Morna, and Suanach, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... wretched prison,) for I will sweep the King's Bench and all other prisons of these heretics!" Upon Mr. Philpot's second examination, it was intimated to him, that Dr. Story had said that the Lord Chancellor had commanded that he should be made way with. It is easy to foretell the result of this inquiry; he was committed to Bonner's coal-house, where he joined company with a zealous minister of Essex, who had been induced to sign a bill of recantation; but afterward, stung by his conscience, he asked the bishop to let him see the instrument ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of the night, What its signs of promise are: Traveler! o'er yon mountain's height See that glory-beaming star! Watchman! doth its beauteous ray Aught of hope or joy foretell? Traveler! yes, it brings the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Scot," he told Martin. "Of course he is superstitious, as well as a constitutional croaker. He claims to be a seventh son, or something like that, and to be able to foretell death. When he speaks of a 'feyed' man, he means one over whom he sees hovering the shadow of death. He didn't say ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... "Could we foretell the events of a month," said John Effingham, "with what different feelings from the present would life be chequered! When we left London, the twenty days since, our eyes and minds were filled with the movements, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... away their favorite Commander. A telegram of the Associated Press stated a few days later that a list of eighty had been prepared for dismissal. What evil genius averted this benefit to the country, the War Department best knows. It required no vision of the night, nor gift of soothsaying, to foretell the trouble that would result from allowing officers in important positions to remain in the army, who were under the strongest obligations to the General removed, devotedly attached to him, and completely identified with, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... but low And mournful answer notes of woe; And the proud march which victors tread Sinks in the wailing for the dead. O, well for me, if mine alone That dirge's deep prophetic tone! If, as my tuneful fathers said, This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed, Can thus its master's fate foretell, Then welcome be ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... which was a terrible misfortune to him. But your father told him in Swedish, which language the knave knew, that it had been better to prophesy his own destiny. To which he replied, a man could as little foretell his own fate as see the back of his own head, which every one can see but himself. However, if the Duke wished, he would tell him his fortune, and if it did not come out true, let all the world hold him as a liar ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... rim is set in motion by the hand, and as it revolves horizontally from east to west round its axis, the marble is caused by a jerk of the finger and thumb to fly off in a contrary movement. The public therefore conclude that no calculation can foretell where the marble will fall, and I believe they are right, inasmuch as the bank plays a certain and sure game, however deep, runs no risk of loss, and consequently has no necessity for superfluously cheating or deluding the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... omens in a revolution which cost her bodily discomfort and the misery of a mind perplexed amid alien conditions. She was prepared for evil; for months she had brooded over every sign which seemed to foretell its approach; the egoism of the unconscious had made it plain to her that the world must suffer in a state of things which so grievously affected herself. Maternal solicitude kept her restlessly ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... in His kingdom [198:1]. The authority of the elders, recorded in the work of Papias, is quoted to support a literal interpretation of these words, as implying a material recompense of the believers. Irenaeus then cites those prophecies of Isaiah which foretell the reign of peace on God's Holy Mountain (xi. 6 sq, lxv. 25 sq). This leads him to the predictions which announce the future triumphs of Israel and the glories of the New Jerusalem, all of which are interpreted literally as referring to a reign of Christ on earth. Creation thus renovated, he ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... door. Eatables and betel-nut are then placed on the top of the cairn. Early next morning the relatives and friends go to the cairn with fresh food and water, and look about for new foot-prints, the idea being that from these foot-prints they can foretell future events. This they do until the third night after the cremation. During these three nights the front door of the house formerly occupied by the deceased is never closed, it being thought that the spirit may wish ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... the priest, "your humble position stands in the way of his proud hopes. Mother, these are your sins! Woman, your sorrows and your anguish foretell that you shall know the peace of God. Your son Joseph is so noble that his tenderness has never been lessened by the injustice your maternal preferences have done him. Love him now; give him all your heart during your remaining ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... certain toy houses that foretell the weather by means of a man-doll and a woman-doll—the man going in as the woman comes out, and vice versa. In this case both man and woman stepped out, the man half a minute behind; so that the woman was almost at the street-corner while he hesitated ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... great number of moons; and they said he was as old, or older, than the oldest trees; as old as the hills almost, and could remember back to the days of godlike men, who had arts then forgotten. He was a wise and good man, and could foretell as far into the future as he could remember into the past; and he continued to live on, till his people were afraid that he would live forever, and so disturb the whole order of nature; and they thought it time that so good a man, and so great a warrior and ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... steamboat! May his own grandmother disown him! And may the suffrages of his fellow-citizens pursue him like avenging furies, till he is driven howling into Congress. For oh! my dear, dear friends—my beloved fellow-citizens, who can foretell the agonies, or the sorrows, or the blights, and the anguish, and the despair, and the black eyes, and the bloody noses, that would follows upon the dispersion of our ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... power; but none of them resembles the one which haunts me. One might say that man, ever since he has thought, has had a foreboding and a fear of a new being, stronger than himself, his successor in this world, and that, feeling him near, and not being able to foretell the nature of the unseen one, he has, in his terror, created the whole race of hidden beings, vague phantoms born ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... Fort, bringing with them tales of death and devastation, some of which were exaggerated, but too many true in all their hideous details. Men had been shot and scalped in the fields, houses were burning, women and children were captives for a fate that no one could foretell. Red ruin was already stalking ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler |
