"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was to prevent this man who smoothed out his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew the ravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing the whish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visit did not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for he knew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms; yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which had never disturbed ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... for that he beheld a thing he had never in all his life seen nor heard. But Mubarek laughed at him and said to him, "Fear not, O my lord; this whereat thou art affrighted is that which we seek; nay, it is a presage of good to-us. So take heart and be of good cheer." After this there came a great clearness and serenity and there breathed pure and fragrant breezes; then, presently, behold, there appeared the King of the Jinn in the semblance of a man comely of favour, there was none like unto ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... and ill-timed sympathy. I will tend upon you, watch over you, bear with you, with more than the love and tenderness of a brother. You shall see me only when you wish it. Your loneliness shall never be invaded. When you get better, as I presage you will, I will leave you to come back to England, and provide for the worst, by ensuring your sister a protector. I will then return to you alone, that your seclusion may not be endangered by the knowledge, even of Ellen, and you shall have me ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presage of what we have seen happen since, when the whole Court was infected with heresy, about the time of the Conference of Poissy. It was with great difficulty that I resisted and preserved myself from a change of religion at that time. Many ladies and lords belonging to Court strove to convert ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Grant to the command of the Union armies in the winter of 1863-64 gave presage of success from the start, for his eminent abilities had already been proved, and besides, he was a tower of strength to the Government, because he had the confidence of the people. They knew that henceforth systematic direction would ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| Dis'cord discord' | Pres'ent present' Col'lect collect' | Dis'count discount' | Prod'uce produce' Com'ment comment' | Ef'flux efflux' | Proj'ect project' Com'pact compact' | Es'cort escort' | Prot'est protest' Com'plot complot' | Es'say essay' ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Concerning these, they resolved that they must needs have been very bad indeed, since even the beasts themselves would not touch them; which caused an extream sorrow to their Relations, they taking it for an ill boding to their Family, and an infallible presage of some great misfortune hanging over their heads, for they persuaded themselves, that the Souls which inhabited those Bodies being dragg'd into Hell, would not fail to come and trouble them, and that being always accompanied with the Devils, their Tormentors, they ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... shown that he had reconsidered his predictions, and declared that he could not abide by his former alarming conclusions. And we should think very ill of any astronomer who would not rejoice for the sake of his fellow-creatures, if not for his own, to find the threatening presage invalidated in either or both of the ways just mentioned, even though he had committed himself to M. Babinet's ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... large sums were extorted by either party. In 1235 the church was struck by lightning and set on fire, but fortunately a tank of rainwater was close at hand, and the fire was soon extinguished. As the Abbot died eight days afterwards, the accident was looked upon as a presage of his coming death. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... her doom! so cried in presage then The bodeful bondslave of the king of men, And might not win her will. Too close the entangling dragnet woven of crime, The snare of ill new-born of elder ill, The curse of new time for an elder time, Had caught, and held her ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his free and gentle vow 30 T'appeare in greater light, and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my deare mistresse fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud Of her incensed lord: me thought the Spirit 35 (When he had utter'd his perplext presage) Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds; His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knockt his chin against his darkned breast, And struck a churlish silence through his pow'rs. 40 Terror of darknesse! O, thou King of flames! ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... in the beginning of June by what they regarded as a fearful sign from Heaven—a shower of what is commonly known as "red rain." In their eyes it was blood, and a presage of dreadful slaughter. The slaughter followed, whatever the shower might mean. The last year of ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... to poor Owen! that necessity of expression, and the visible presage of weakening health so surely fulfilled! And his Lucilla! It was a melancholy work to have brought home a missionary, and secularized a parish priest! 'Not a generous reflection,' thought Honora, 'at a rival's grave,' and she turned to the boy, who had stooped ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... children, before she again betook herself to her weary station, she heard the clatter of the horse's heels over the gateway. The restlessness of her little ones pained her: she imagined she saw, in their instinctive anxiety and fear, some presage of coming evil, whereby, before another night, they might be orphans; and all her efforts to remove the impression only tended to confirm it—thus strangely and fantastically prophetic, is the apprehensive heart. After again assuring them that their father was coming, she ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... fulfilled. I have derived monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, 'proceeded from the presage of fore-feeling of immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... continued to frequent had given him polite manners, to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomy was rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the scale would turn on neither side. She refused to give any decided answer, but requested a day or two for reflection; and the vicar, who recollected the adage, that, in an affair of the heart, "the woman who deliberates is lost," left her with a happy presage that his endeavours would be crowned with success. But Mrs Rainscourt would not permit her own heart to decide. It was a case in which she did not consider that a woman was likely to be a correct judge; and she had so long been on intimate ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he recognised his error, though he tried not to admit it. The extra subjects ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... other hand, it is desired to do a man honour, how gladly, in like manner, is his name seized on, if it in any way bears an honourable significance, or is capable of an honourable interpretation —men finding in that name a presage and prophecy of that which was actually in its bearer. A multitude of examples, many of them very beautiful, might be brought together in this kind. How often, for instance, and with what effect, the name of Stephen, the proto-martyr, that name signifying ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... his custom was, one hot and thunderous day, in the country lanes; it was very still, and through the soft haze that filled the air, the distant trees and fields lost their remoteness, and stood stiffly and quaintly as though painted. There seemed a presage of storm in the church-tower, which showed a ghostly white among the elms. A fitful breeze stirred at intervals. Hugh drew near the hamlet, and all of a sudden stepped into a stream of inconceivable sweetness and fragrance; ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... outside the grove pressed closer upon the ring of Willamette warriors, who were still standing or squatting idly around it. More than one weapon could be seen among them in defiance of the war-chief's prohibition; and the presage of a terrible storm darkened on those grim, wild faces. The more peaceably disposed bands began to draw themselves apart. An ominous silence crept through the crowd as ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... With good management, a favorable death rate, and very low expenses, some of them have provided protection at very low rates for many years. Others have failed with disappointment and disaster to the older members. Still others are struggling with difficulties that presage dissolution. Many now have some form of reserve accumulations, and some have so improved their methods that they closely resemble reserve companies. The assets of all the assessment companies are now $1.37 per $100 of insurance in force, while the legal reserve companies have $22.66. The assessment ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... his letters, written a year after it was made, he thus balances the difficulties of the question—"The fires of civil war," says he, "are raging in Germany. Shall I then cross the sea whither Wotton invites me? I, a German, a lover of firm land, who dread the confinement of an island, who presage its dangers, and must drag along with me my little wife and flock of children?" As Kepler seems to have entertained no doubt of his being well provided for in England, it is the more probable that the British Sovereign had made him a distinct offer through his ambassador. ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... several small temples and chapels, which had been vowed first by king Tatius, in the heat of the battle against Romulus, and which he afterwards consecrated and dedicated. In the very beginning of founding this work it is said that the gods exerted their divinity to presage the future greatness of this empire; for though the birds declared for the unhallowing of all the other temples, they did not admit of it with respect to that of Terminus. This omen and augury were taken to import that Terminus's not changing his residence, and being the only one ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Westbridge opened was a very beautiful day. The air was as soft as summer, but with a strange, pungent quality which the summer had lacked. There was a slightly smoky scent which exhilarated. It was a scent of death coming from bonfires of dead leaves and drying vegetation, and yet it seemed to presage life. When Maria and Evelyn went out to take the trolley for Westbridge, Maria wore a cluster of white chrysanthemums pinned to her blouse. The blouse itself was a very pretty one, worn with a black plaited skirt. It was a soft silk of an old-rose shade, and it was trimmed with creamy lace. Maria ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... 945, two male children were brought from Armenia to Constantinople for exhibition. They were well formed in every respect and united by their abdomens. After they had been for some time an object of great curiosity, they were removed by governmental order, being considered a presage of evil. They returned, however, at the commencement of the reign of Constantine VII, when one of them took sick and died. The surgeons undertook to preserve the other by separating him from the corpse of his brother, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... A presage gripped the man's heart, drawing powerfully at its strings with pain, yet with delicious hope and joy as ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Huntress, sister of Apollo, Who the dappled swift-foot deer O'er the wooded glade dost follow; Help with your two-fold power Athens in danger's hour! O wayfarer, thou wilt not have to tax The friends who watch for thee with false presage, For lo, an escort with the maids draws near. [Enter ANTIGONE and ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... within their own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of joy and gratulation and happy presage of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... pop over to London for a day or two with a steamer trunk, another trunk, a black box, a suit-case, and a small brown bag. Lady Underhill had evidently come prepared to stay; and the fact seemed to presage trouble. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the athlete on both cheeks. "I leave you to faithful guardians. Last night I dreamed of a garland of lilies, sure presage of a victory. So ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... learn to echo Rochefoucauld's words as he entered Mazarin's carriage,—'everything happens in France;' and, like Goethe, cast ourselves on the waves of accident with a more than Quixotic presage,—if not of actual adventure, at least of adventurous observation; for it is a realm where Fashion, the capricious tyrant of modern civilization, has her birth, where the 'vielle femme remplissait ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Japanese H[o]-w[o], the second of the incarnations of the spirits, is of wondrous form and mystic nature. The rare advent of this bird upon the earth is, like that of the kirin or unicorn, a presage of the advent of virtuous rulers and good government. It has the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the features of the dragon and fish. Its colors and streaming feathers are gorgeous with iridian sheen, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... reserve when amongst others, but I found that he had a strong foreboding of evil; he tossed and muttered in his sleep, and confessed to having had a wretched night of dreams, though he would not describe them otherwise than that he had seen the lady whose face he always looked on as a presage of evil. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... departure. "Our friend sleepeth." "They thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep." They understood it as the indication of the crisis-hour in sickness when the disease has spent itself, and is succeeded by a balmy slumber—the presage of returning health; but now He says unto them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." How gently He thus breaks the sad intelligence! And it is His method of dealing still. He prepares His people for their hours of trial. ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... no disaster took place subsequently it was believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian history, and were embodied in a great work which was compiled for the library of Sargon ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... patriot, the generous visions of manhood. They are full of the romance of boyish friendships, the echoes of the river and the cricket field, the ingenuous ambitions, the chivalry, the courage of youth and health, the brilliant charm of the opening world. These things are but the prelude to, the presage of, the energies of the larger stage; his young heroes are to learn the lessons of patriotism, of manliness, of activity, of generosity, that they may display them in a wider field. Thus he wrote in ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... threaten to burst out like burning lava long repressed, he rushed precipitately from the room. Basilio heard him descend the stairs with unsteady tread, stepping heavily, he heard a stifled cry, a cry that seemed to presage death, so solemn, deep, and sad that he arose from his chair pale and trembling, but he could hear the footsteps die away and the noisy closing of the door ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally, and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her. And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever yet arrive; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I know, too, the obstinacy of unbelief in those perverted minds which have no delight but in contemplating the supposed distress and predicting the immediate ruin of their country. These birds of evil presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the periods of our most abundant prosperity. Very early in my public life I had occasion to make ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... (4,5) [This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage 'tis!)] [W: presage 'tis] This emendation is ingenious, perhaps preferable to the present reading, yet since passage may be fairly enough explained, I have left it in the text. Passage is anything that passes, so we now say, a passage of an authour. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... a martyr, the tragedy shew'd, As he trod the last stage; as he trod the last stage. And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood, As his words do presage; as ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... Biargey all that had happened, and took to his bed again, a poor, old, helpless, miserable man; but his wife, who saw her presage beginning to come true, kept up her courage, rowed out fishing every day, and guided the household for yet ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... pleasant little eyes shone with unnatural anger, and there was a presage of wrathful words in her quivering lips. Mrs. Frump was desperately trying to keep back certain private opinions that she had long entertained, but proved unequal to the effort. She ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... its plain, heroic completeness is touched with a stately life that is a presage of immortality. It is evident, indeed, that Arnold wrote Balder Dead in his most fortunate hour, and that Merope is his one serious mistake in literature. For a genius thus peculiar and introspective drama—the presentation of character through action—is impossible; to a ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... been engaged, at a huge expense, to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence. So the celestial arch vanished in the echo of a horse-laugh. But Bressant and Cornelia, as they stood silently arm-in-arm, felt as if it were rather the presage of an emancipation of their own selves. From, or to what, they did not ask; nor did the old superstition, that such signs foretell ruin and disaster, recur to their ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... experiencing many dangers, he landed in Italy. Being full of uncertainty where to fix his colony, he was reduced to great distress; on which his wife, whose name was Aithrias, with the view of comforting him, embraced him, and bedewed his face with her tears. He immediately adopted the presage, and understood the spot where he then was to be the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... companion—the one act of violence which sullies a strangely gentle career; and outraged at the affront of a flogging, he fled with twelve guineas and a gold repeater watch. A vulgar theft this, and no presage of future greatness; yet it proves the fearless greed, the contempt of private property, which mark as with a stigma the temperament of the prig. His faculty did not rust long for lack of use, and at Drogheda, when he was but sixteen, he encountered ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... seemed rich with mystic presage. Pleadingly my hands went out to her, and trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I backed between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed beings. Everything about me called to her, everything in her urged compliance; and I knew, as did she, that something strange was happening. Yet ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... however, has never forgotten the cause of its birth or the teachings of its youth, as is clearly evidenced from year to year by the various undertakings and publications which a careful observer can clearly see are not put forward with any presage of success when viewed entirely from a business standpoint. This lesson is constantly taught to the employes of the Library Bureau, and they are positively instructed that, regardless of the promise of success in other directions, the ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... Of one beloved on earth; or when at night In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS And JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchance With power permitted to alleviate ill And fit the sufferer for the coming woe, Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart The balm of resignation, and inspires With heavenly hope. Even as a Child delights To visit ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then, go not far to dine: You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the welkin ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... grass within reach of them, I crept to the wall of the kraal so as to be quite out of earshot. The night was now pitch dark, dark as it only knows how to be in Africa. More, a thunderstorm was coming up of which that flash of sheet lightning had been a presage. The air was electric. From the vast bush-clad valley beneath us came a wild, moaning sound caused, I suppose, by wind among the trees, though here I felt none; far away a sudden spear of lightning stabbed ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... of our departure, presents were made to us as a token of gratitude, and of course the Indians, having at the first moment of their confederation, made such a successful and profitable expedition, accepted it as a good presage for the future. Their services being no longer required, they turned towards the north, and started for the settlement under the command of Roche, to follow up their original intentions of visiting the Shoshones. As for us, I ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... to seek shelter under a bluff in our front, along the base of which ran a small streamlet. The greater portion of the brigade was here huddled together in a jam, to avoid the shells flying overhead. The enemy must have had presage of our position, for they began throwing shells up in the air from their mortars and dropping them down upon us, but most fell beyond, while a great many exploded in the air. We could see the shells on their downward flight, and the men pushed still closer together ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... impressed when she learned that this was that Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed during the night. She had been with him among the hot desert sands, he had been the companion of her nightmare wanderings; for such a woman was not this a delightful presage of a new interest in her life? And never was a man's exterior a better exponent of his character; never were curious glances so well justified. The principal characteristic of his great, square-hewn head was the thick, luxuriant black hair which framed ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... under a firm persuasion of immortality! Themistocles might have lived at his ease; so might Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and among the ancients for instances, so might I myself. But, somehow or other there clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists most firmly, and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and greatest souls. Take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his life amidst toils and dangers? ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... moon, moved round the mansion in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and continued its revolution until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition appeared every night for a week, and was pronounced by certain wise sages as a presage of pestilence and death. A herdsman at the mansion was, shortly after the lady's death, persecuted by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed. One Thorer, who himself had predicted that the apparitions were come to give warning of approaching ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... turning into the sombre courtway of the old Palazzo Santonini and, so surely had she been attuned to the American note, she could presage Johnny's blunt disparagement. He would be astonished that they were living upon the third floor—with the lower apartment let. He would be amused at the servants toiling up the stairs from the kitchens to the dining hall. He would ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian pudding, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the idea prevailing in the western counties, are supposed to presage good luck, and are therefore most carefully preserved. Their presence is believed to be a sure omen of prosperity; while, on the other hand, their sudden departure from a hearth which has long echoed with their cry, betokens approaching ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... worship him.' I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the way—of the guard at the Gate, even—they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... mulling things over when the ship lowered its landing gear and rolled to a stop on the big field near Yucca Flats. Malone sighed and climbed slowly out of his seat. There was a car waiting for him at the airfield, though, and that seemed to presage a smooth time; Malone remembered calling Dr. O'Connor the night before, and congratulated himself on ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... if we may credit tradition, this mountain broke out again so furiously, that its cinders and liquid fire were carried as far as Constantinople; which prodigy was thought, by superstitious minds, to presage the destruction of the empire, that happened immediately after, by that inundation of Goths, which ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... says, all the whole Court is disturbed; it having been once concluded otherwise into the other hands formerly mentioned in yesterday's notes, but all of a sudden the King's choice was changed, and these are to be the men: the first of which is only for a puppet to give honour to the rest. He do presage that these men will make it their business to find faults in the management of the late Lord Treasurer, and in discouraging the bankers: but I am (whatever I in compliance do say to him) of another mind, and my heart is very glad of it, for I do expect they will do ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... zeal and rapidity never before dreamed of, and the spirit which prompted it has been worthily embodied in the enlarged and enlightened temper with which it has been communicated. In the midst of much error, there are many features prominent which presage the birth of a love of mankind more expansive and generous than any that has ever yet ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... was constantly verified by all our observations in these high latitudes,* that fair weather was always of an exceeding short duration, and that when it was remarkably fine it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm; for the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from the south-west as the night came on, and increasing its violence continually ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... How strange the stars have grown; The presage of extinction glows on their crests And they are beautied with impermanence; They shall be after the race of men And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions, Entangled in the ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... said was remembered to his injury. He had preached the doctrine of an "irrepressible conflict" between the forces of slavery and the forces of freedom, and timid men dreaded such a trial as his nomination would presage. The South had made continuous assault on this speech, and on the particular phrase which distinguished it, and had impressed many Northern men with the belief that Mr. Seward had gone too far. In short, he had been too ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... excellence, beauty, and truth where pessimists see only degradation, vice, and ugliness. The one hears the nightingale, the other the raven only. To one, the sunsetting forms a magic picture; to the other, it is but a presage of bad weather tomorrow. Some people seem to look at nature through a glass of red wine or in a Claude Lorraine mirror; to them the landscape has ever the bloom of summer or a spring-tide grace. To others, it is always cloudy, dreary, dull. The desolate ravine, the stony path, the blighted ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... too serious to be lightly spoken of,' said they, significantly; 'and this dispute is a sad presage of future events; and well will it be if the anger of the Most High is not provoked ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... was once more lifting his voice above the crowd of minor singers. The mighty verse swept Odo out to open seas of thought, and from his vision of that earlier Italy, hapless, bleeding, but alive and breast to breast with the foe, he drew the presage of his country's resurrection. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the town, so neatly built, so strategically situated, was "honoured with 5 Governors in Consultation; a happy presage I hope, [wrote George Washington to William Fairfax at Williamsburg] not only of the success of this Expedition, but for our little Town; for surely such honours must have arisen from the Commodious and pleasant situation of this place the best constitutional ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... As with all superstition, the sign is not merely the prediction of an event; it is felt that as the avoidance of the omen would be to escape its consequence, so the careless action, in becoming the presage of calamity, is likewise its cause. Here appear natural antinomies of human thought: on the one hand, the sense of the inevitableness of the designated fate; on the other hand, the consciousness of ability by altering conditions ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... and gloomy screen; the mournful twittering of the warbling birds bespoke anxiety and alarm; the hoarse rushing of the wind threatened destruction to the woods; the flowers of the fields began to droop; the sun withdrew his light from the world beneath, and all seemed to presage a day of grief and bitterness—save in the home where the fair Sol arose, like another Circe, from her couch, and sallied forth, seeming to temper by her enchanting presence the angry frowns of the elements without. In the house of Hachuel was a chamber, set apart for devotional purposes. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... eighth year passed The careful King bethought to teach his son All that a Prince should learn, for still he shunned The too vast presage of those miracles, The glories and the sufferings of a Buddh. So, in full council of his Ministers, "Who is the wisest man, great sirs," he asked, "To teach my Prince that which a Prince should know?" Whereto gave answer each with instant voice "King! Viswamitra is the ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... few feet from the unconscious stranger, was regarding him with the gentle speculative look which Bowers knew to presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary. His eyes, however, had the fondness of a doting parent who takes a secret pride in his offspring's ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... me; 'Foe to our rights; that leaves a pow'rful few 'The paths of emulation to pursue:... 'For emulation stoops to us no more: 'The hope of humble industry is o'er; 'The blameless hope, the cheering sweet presage 'Of future comforts for declining age. 'Can my sons share from this paternal hand 'The profits with the labours of the land? 'No; tho' indulgent Heaven its blessing deigns, 'Where's the small farm to suit my scanty means? 'Content, the Poet sings, with us resides; ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... dismal tidings when he frown'd: Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew, 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge: In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thund'ring sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around— And still they ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... impressions, it is strange and worth thinking on that the dominant suggestion of Nature through all her changes, whether her mood be stormy or sunny, melancholy or jubilant, is one of presage and promise. She seems to be ever holding out to us an immortal invitation to follow and endure, to endure and to enjoy. She seems to say that what she brings us is but an earnest of what she holds for us out there along the vanishing road. There is nothing, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... I pray God keep you, for I dimly fear, So dark a presage doth obscure my mind, That we ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... Holy Isle."— Lord Marmion started from the ground, As light as if he felt no wound; Though in the action burst the tide In torrents from his wounded side. "Then it was truth!" he said,—"I knew That the dark presage must be true.— I would the Fiend, to whom belongs The vengeance due to all her wrongs, Would spare me but a day! For wasting fire, and dying groan, And priests slain on the altar stone, Might bribe him for delay. It may not be!—this ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Or, "shouting in presage of their doom," as Heyne and Kennedy would take it, a meaning borne out by [Greek: proidosin]. Cf. Longus. Past. ii. 12: [Greek: oi kometai tarachthentes, epipedosin autois ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... what once was called a hunch, a premonition, the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred feet away. ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... impress him more and more with the conviction of his innocence, had much difficulty to support his assumed character; but not choosing his visit to the prison should be known at present, he restrained his feelings, and when the minister had finished took his leave, saying, he hoped his presage would be fulfilled. He then returned undiscovered to the palace, and entering his cabinet, resumed his usual habit; after which he issued orders for the release of the vizier, sending him a robe of honour and splendid attendants to escort him to court, at the same time condemning to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... tears with his. Some incidents in reference to him in that early period, and some interesting and useful conversations I had with him, then deeply impressed on my mind, and which the lapse of near half a century has not yet obliterated, afforded no doubtful presage of his future greatness and celebrity. On my going into the family, as far as I can judge, he might be in his twelfth or thirteenth year, a boy in the rector's class. However elevated above the other boys in genius, though generally ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the traitor doth presage his harm, See how he glories at his own decay, See how he triumphs at his proper loss; O ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... of the disease, that is, in the one corresponding with the completion of maturation, and the absorption and drying away of the pus in the simple distinct form of small pox. After some experience, we were enabled, from the appearance of the eruption at the outset, to presage the event, which in the above described kinds, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... violent in the quarter of the royal residence, the site of the ancient palace of the Moorish kings. Many looked upon this as an omen of some impending evil; but Fray Antonio Agapida, in that infallible spirit of divination which succeeds an event, plainly reads in it a presage that the empire of the Moors was about to be ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... rather more than forty-four years since we declared our independence, and thirty-seven since it was acknowledged. The talents and virtues which were displayed in that great struggle were a sure presage of all that has since followed. A people who were able to surmount in their infant state such great perils would be more competent as they rose into manhood to repel any which they might meet in their progress. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... When Oliver Cromwell was in election to be member for the town of Cambridge, as he engaged all his friends and interests to oppose it; so when it was carried but by one vote, he cried out with much passion, that, that single vote had ruined church and kingdom[1], such fatal events did he presage from the success of Oliver. Mr. Cleveland was no sooner forced from the College, by the prevalence of the Parliament's interest, but he betook himself to the camp, and particularly to Oxford the head quarters of it, as the most proper ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... I think it is the heat or some presage of woe to come, not to me only, but to all men. Look, nature herself is sick," and she led him to the broad balcony of the chamber and pointed to long lines of curious mist which in the bright moonlight they could see creeping toward Venice from the ocean, although what ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... close the ceremonies of the holy day. Still the declining sun glowed with unnatural intensity of hue; and the evening breeze swept over the town in unusually fitful and stormy gusts. The air seemed to be laden with mysterious melancholy, to sigh with a hidden presage of some awful calamity ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Not one of those who were hurrying to wish the travelers God-speed, nor any of the band who were leaving their homes, but felt the thrilling promise and the presage of that new country toward which the emigrants were about to ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... stood upon; and called Carthada,(572) or Carthage, a name that, in the Phoenician and Hebrew tongues, (which have a great affinity,) signifies the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... our way drinking a great deale of milke, which I drank to take away, my heartburne, wherewith I have of late been mightily troubled, but all the way home I did break abundance of wind behind, which did presage no good but a great deal of cold gotten. So home and supped and away went Michell and his wife, of whom I stole two or three salutes, and so to bed in some pain and in fear of more, which accordingly I met with, for ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... deepens the darkness which is in front. We can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap- door opens beneath us and we ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Severinus' presage was strangely fulfilled. Feva had handed over the city of Vienna to his brother Frederic,—"poor and impious," says Eugippius. Severinus, who knew him well, sent for him, and warned him that he himself ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... don't say that!" exclaimed Eric in a heart- broken voice; "you are not ill, you are not ailing, mother dear?" and he peered anxiously with a loving gaze into her eyes, to try and read some meaning there for the sorrowful presage that had escaped thus inadvertently from her lips, drawn forth by the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Ricketts has pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto, such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by Giorgione which Duerer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked. The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the Feast of Rose Wreaths ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... when the aged man arose And met Romara's wistful eye,— What accents shall the change disclose That marked his visage, fearfully?— From joy to grief and deepest dole, From radiant hope to dark presage Of future ills beyond control— Hath passed, the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... proved bound by other ties. Her dream so far had come true. She had found him; he loved her. The rest of it would as surely follow, and that before long. For dreams were serious things, and time had proved hers to have been not a presage of misfortune, but one of the beneficent visions that are sent, that we may enjoy by anticipation the good things that are in store ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... instant for this important information to sink in. Several slight, little sighs of relief escaped the students, especially from the girls' side of the great room. This speech did not presage anything very ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... some fool dispelled it by discovering the gun to be a "creuzot" which had been purchased in France by the Transvaal. But it mattered little where it had been purchased; it was a tangible reality, a presage of sanguinary import. It was a time for action; and maybe the picks and shovels did not rise to the occasion! Fort-making was the rage; the men worked with a will—the women acting as hod-carriers—to ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... unblighted Honor and believe the presage, Hold aloft their torches lighted, Gleaming through the realms benighted, As they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
