"Inauspicious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quickly as white as the pure element could make it. So heavy was the fall of snow, that it was soon impossible to see a dozen yards, and of course the whole of the plain of the island was concealed. At this most inauspicious moment, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Carthaginians, triumphs with more splendour than had ever yet been seen; thirteen generals of the enemy, and one hundred and twenty elephants, being exhibited in the procession, [Y. R. 503. B. C. 249.] Claudius Pulcher, consul, obstinately persisting, notwithstanding the omens were inauspicious, engages the enemy's fleet, and is beaten; drowns the sacred chickens which would not feed: recalled by the senate, and ordered to nominate a dictator; he appoints Claudius Glicia, one of the lowest of ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... Fauchelevent, "you have arrived at a very auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for whatever the incredulous may pretend, the tales related by the bards in their immortal songs, of ghosts, and fairies, and dire enchantment, are not vain and fabulous.—You have heard of the inauspicious fame and the bad eminence of Rodogune. She withdrew from the fields of Clwyd within the memory of the elder of shepherds. Various were the conjectures occasioned by her disappearance. Some imagined, that for ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... Fortunately, the unbounded confidence all had in their military chief inspired hope and infused energy among the people. He had never been defeated in battle. If any one could wrest victory now out of the inauspicious and chaotic conditions that threatened disaster, they believed it to be ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... school meetings, delegated by the last session of the legislature, greatly added. The new condition of affairs had been fully canvassed and the women had determined on making the best of their first opportunity and winning a decisive victory if possible. The night of the meeting proved inauspicious, but notwithstanding the severe storm of snow and sleet that was falling the newly constituted citizens were out in force. At the hour of opening the meeting the City Hall was packed to suffocation, 500 of the audience, at least, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... influence on events. The Moon, the planets, and the constellations in their conjunctions and configurations, were believed to reveal to those who could understand the significance of their aspects, the destiny of individuals and the occurrence of future events. The inauspicious influences of the heavenly bodies are described by Milton as contributing to the general disarrangement of the happy condition of things ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... beach were covered with them. They appeared to be of a loving disposition, and lay huddled together, fast asleep, like so many pigs; but even pigs would have been ashamed of their dirt, and of the foul smell which came from them. Each herd was watched by the patient but inauspicious eyes of the turkey-buzzard. This disgusting bird, with its bald scarlet head, formed to wallow in putridity, is very common on the west coast, and their attendance on the seals shows on what they rely for their food. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... was fought at Molwitz; and never did the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able general; but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... discolored, sometimes by cascades of damp, and sometimes by the outlines of picture-frames since removed, how the paper flapped loose at the corners, and a great flake of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The room itself was a cheerless one to return to at this inauspicious hour. A flattened sofa would, later in the evening, become a bed; one of the tables concealed a washing apparatus; his clothes and boots were disagreeably mixed with books which bore the gilt of college arms; and, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... then approved of)—"Placuit." This is placed at the end, in consequence of the inauspicious reception which had been given to it on the two first representations. See the account given ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... of the matter, was up first on that inauspicious day, and took the journal to an arbour in the garden. He found his father's manifesto in one column; and in another a leading article. 'No one that we are aware of,' ran the article, 'had consulted Mr. Naseby ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and first home of the apple, is unknown. If tradition is to be believed, it was the inauspicious fruit to which may be traced all the miseries of mankind. In pictures of the temptation in the garden of Eden, our mother Eve is generally represented as holding ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... world, such things cannot be done. Haven't you heard the saying of a man of old to the effect that great men take action suitable to the times. 'He who presses,' he adds, 'towards what is auspicious and avoids what is inauspicious is a perfect man.' From what your worship says, not only you couldn't, by any display of zeal, repay your obligation to His Majesty, but, what is more, your own life you will find it difficult to preserve. There are still three more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... unhappily his father had also come to the end of his resources. Injudicious speculation and the mismanagement of an agent, combined with the necessity of placing a large quantity of real estate in the market at an inauspicious time, were the causes which led to the bankruptcy of the elder Gourlay, who was stripped of his great possessions and left with a bare subsistence. The son's prospects of inheriting a fortune were thus at an end, and at thirty-seven years ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... considerable circuit to avoid them. Though they have no notion that their god must always be conferring benefits, without sometimes forgetting them, or suffering evil to befall them, they seem to regard this less than the attempts of some more inauspicious being to hurt them. They tell us, that Etee is an evil spirit, who sometimes does them mischief; and to whom, as well as to their god, they make offerings. But the mischiefs they apprehend from any superior invisible beings, are confined ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... now turn to the events preceding the inauspicious occurrence the fruits of which proved so disastrous to the French church ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... (be inactive) 683; let slip through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos[Fr], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient &c. 647. unpunctual &c. (late) 133; too late for; premature &c. (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty- twenty hindsight. Adv. inopportunely &c. adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... were entirely frustrated. He had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese prophet, by a premature attack on the army under Gen. Harrison, at an inauspicious moment, precipitated him into a ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... come at an inauspicious moment, and the first words of Sir Philip, though kind and friendly, were not at all harmonious with the feeling of love in his young ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... disposition hostile to Great Britain, and the remaining soreness of wounded pride experienced by England in the loss of her colonies, combined with the stirring events then occurring in Europe, made the moment apparently inauspicious for a mission like that of Mr. Jay. It required, on the part of the minister, the exercise of the most ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... paramour? For fear of that I will still stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again; here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh; eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conductor, come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... 1557, an inauspicious day in the history of France, the roar of cannon was still heard at six in the evening in the plains of St. Quentin; where the French army had just been destroyed by the united troops of England and Spain, commanded by the famous ...
— Widger's Quotations from Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas, Pere • David Widger
... At that inauspicious moment a spark fell from the pipe! Next moment the door was burst open, the window blown out, Hockins was laid fiat on his back, while Ebony went head-over-heels ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... ground and allayed his thirst, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When Bayu together with Indra and Suryya united as allies for the success of the sons of Kunti, and the beasts of prey (by their inauspicious presence) were putting us in fear, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When the wonderful warrior Drona, displaying various modes of fight in the field, did not slay any of the superior Pandavas, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... adds: "It was at this inauspicious juncture, only a few hours after independence had been proclaimed in the ranks of his opponents, that the bearer of the pacific commission, Lord Howe, arrived off Sandy Hook. He had cause to regret most bitterly both the delay ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... formerly to be built at Cambridge shall bee called Harvard Colledge." It appears that before this time there had been a school; but the name of college was not assumed until the above date. The teacher of this school was Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, who has left an unenviable reputation, and made an inauspicious beginning of that institution which was to attain to such distinction. He finally got into serious trouble, in consequence of his brutal conduct and for one act in particular, which led to his leaving the school ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... many years have gone on since that tragedy of poor Katherine's death, and this is the second appointed Vicar since that inauspicious time. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... city the multitudinous tread of the iron-shod horses awoke strange echoes, while the splashing rain-drops and lowering clouds did not serve to raise the spirits. It was an inauspicious beginning of active service, and typical of the many long and weary weeks of wet discomfort that the Sixth of Michigan was destined to experience before the summer solstice had fairly passed. The points of interest,—the public buildings, the white house, the massive Greek ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... circumstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a disappointment to her. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... establishment to a legionary corps of two thousand and forty men, and had detached the secretary of war, General Knox, to that state, with directions to concert measures with its government for the safety of the arsenal at Springfield. So inauspicious was the aspect of affairs, as to inspire serious fears that the torch of civil discord, about to be lighted up in Massachusetts, would communicate its flame to all New England, and perhaps to the union. Colonel Lee, a member of congress, drew the following picture ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... been once or twice endangered by the suspicions to which the conduct of his horse gave rise, and his liberty as often threatened by the peace-officers, who were disposed to apprehend him as a notorious highwayman, the former owner of the horse, he was obliged to part with the inauspicious animal for a trifle, and to purchase one less beautiful, but not ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of the year 1791, though marked by no circumstances particularly favourable, beamed far less inauspicious than ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... nurse their favourite Peace, And banish dire Immanity and War. Strong Nature's bent, continual increase, Still counteracts Humanity's fond wish, The perpetuity of Peace, and Love; Alas! progressive Increase cannot last. Soon mourns the encumber'd land it's human load: Too soon arrives the inauspicious hour; The Natal Hour of the unhappy Man, Who all his life goes mourning up and down That there is neither bough, nor mud, nor straw That he may take to make himself a hut; No, not in all his native land a twig ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... knew—married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she was joyless, no less was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite facade of the London Safe Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the stone steps into the ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... such would have been an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples. To have stopped that marriage—chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village—seen himself surrounded again by long, sulky visages,—I verily believe, though ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the transactions which he had conducted—with reference to the thanksgiving of the Christians for the safety of the Emperor after the fire, had been one of the most esteemed friends of Titianus and Julia. The prefect discussed with the Patriarch the inauspicious effects that the death of the young fellow might be expected to have on the Emperor, and as a result, on the government, although the favorite had had no qualities of mind to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Under these inauspicious circumstances the primary elections for members of the legislative assembly were held in most, if not all, of the precincts at the time and the places and by the persons designated and appointed by the governor according ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... crater and apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper, pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed that the smoking of a first cigarette, for all its seeming ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... and I saved ourselves on this island, where we for a long time lived in peace and quiet, and thought it would never be interrupted. Destiny, which no one escapes, had determined it otherwise. Oluf came from Britain. They called him the Holy, and Andfind instantly found that his voyage would be inauspicious to the giants. When he heard how Oluf's ship rushed through the waves, he went down to the strand and blew the sea against him with all his strength. The waves swelled up like mountains, but Oluf was still more mighty than he. His ship flew unchecked through ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... spoon dropped from the Lady Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings, mingled with pleasant apologies for ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... owls, and in fearsome loneliness, there trudged in broken boots and in wet and windy rags an old man, stooping low under a sack of emeralds. It were easy to see had you been travelling late on that inauspicious night, that the burden of the sack was far too great for the poor old man that bore it. And had you flashed a lantern in his face there was a look there of hopelessness and fatigue that would have told you ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... book and commenced the marriage ceremony, under circumstances so novel and so inauspicious. The responses of the bride were only expressed by inclinations of the head and body; while those of the bridegroom were spoken boldly and distinctly, with a tone resembling levity, if not scorn. When it was concluded, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... continuing to express our surprise and admiration of the fruit trees (the pear and plum) which lined each side of the road. We had determined upon dining at Moelk the next day. The early morning was somewhat inauspicious; but as the day advanced, it grew bright and cheerful. Some delightful glimpses of the Danube, to the left, from the more elevated parts of the road, accompanied us the whole way; till we caught the first view, beneath a bright blue sky, of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... The sailors killed as many of these harmless and not unamiable creatures as they were able to skin during the time necessary for me to take the requisite angles; and we then left the poor affrighted multitude to recover from the effect of our inauspicious visit." ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... ceremonies who have laid down that no feast need be prepared for the bride's ladies, and in my opinion they are right: for the husband and wife at the beginning of their intercourse to be separated, and for the bride alone to be feasted like an ordinary guest, appears to be an inauspicious opening. I have thus pointed out two ill-omened customs ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... been somewhat inauspicious: we had scarcely made the few necessary arrangements at the hotel, and seated ourselves quietly before the caffe au lait, when two gens-d'armes, in military costume, stalked without ceremony into the room, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... period—issues involving the structure of the Government and the stability of our Federal system. These questions might have to be ultimately met and disposed of, but it was requisite that they should be met with caution and deliberate consideration. The times and condition of the country were inauspicious for considerate statesmanship. The matters in dispute, the consequences and results of the war, were yet in embryo. There could be no union of sentiment on Senator Sumner's plan, nor any other at that period, in the free States, in Congress, or even in the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Such was the inauspicious manner in which Pitt entered on his second administration. The whole history of that administration was of a piece with the commencement. Almost every month brought some new disaster or disgrace. To the war with France was soon added a war with Spain. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this beginning of mine the inauspicious door opened and young John Mayrant came in. It was all right about his left eye; ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... What wild mistake is this! Take hence, with speed, Your robe of mourning, and your dogs of death. Quick from my sight, you inauspicious monsters; Nor dare, henceforth, to shock ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... befell Mr. Grenville on his departure from England was inauspicious and discouraging. The weather was unusually severe. On the night of Christmas Eve, the thermometer was 14 deg. below freezing point; and for many weeks afterwards the snow lay so thickly on the ground that the service of the ordinary ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political turbulence in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... man, what sort of dreams have you?" I have so much faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein returning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious inland landing. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and somewhat inauspicious meeting with him in childhood, Helen had never, close at hand, seen Richard Calmady walk thus far. She stared, fascinated by that cruel spectacle. For the instant transformation of the apparently tall, and ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... from you, there is no joy; away from you, the world is a wilderness in which I feel alone, and have no one in whom I can confide. You have taken from me more than my soul; you are the only thought of my life. When I feel weary with the burden of affairs, when I dread some inauspicious result, when men oppose me, when I am ready to curse life itself, I place my hand upon my heart, your image beats there; I gaze on it, and love is for me absolute bliss, and everything smiles except when I ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... alas! Apollo himself unjust, then spoke unjust things, when at the tripod of Themis he commanded the unhallowed, inauspicious murder ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... not being followed up, was productive of no result. Karaiskakes fell, and General Church embarked the troops in order to execute the movement that ought to have taken place a month before. The moment was more inauspicious than we were aware of; for the Turkish commander had that very night been joined by a large body of cavalry and a number of infantry from Negropont and elsewhere. This, however, would not have proved decisive, had not General Church, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... 28th of October, 1844, we left Bath determined to examine the once far-famed Abbey of Fonthill, and to see if its scenery was really as fine as report had represented. The morning was cold and inauspicious, but when we reached Warminster the sun burst out through the mists that had obscured him, and the remainder of the day was as genial and mild as if had been May. We procured the aid of a clownish bumpkin to carry our carpet ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... very day that these events occurred, the South Carolina commissioners, R.W. Barnwell, J.H. Adams, and James L. Orr, arrived in Washington to treat for the surrender of the forts and other public property. It proved to be a very inauspicious ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... week or two. She has mended most rapidly. My health too has been better since you took away that Montero cap. I have left off cayenned eggs and such bolsters to discomfort. There was death in that cap. I mischievously wished that by some inauspicious jolt the whole contents might be shaken, and the coach set on fire. For you said they had that property. How the old Gentleman, who joined you at Grantham, would have clappt his hands to his knees, and not knowing but it was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... superstition which is so common amongst sailors and Englishmen of the lower orders, had attached a great degree of importance to it; many circumstances which had hitherto been unexplained to me now flashed upon my mind; poor Mr. Smith had been very ill at the time Mr. Walker had related this inauspicious dream, and at that period an extraordinary degree of despondency had crept over him, so much so that some of the men imagined he had become deranged. When also we were working our way down the eastern coast of Shark Bay in the boats ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... herself, though conscious, of looking her best in her bright muslin dress and her gayly feathered new hat, was at this inauspicious moment Miss Milroy under a cloud. Although Allan's note had assured her, in Allan's strongest language, that the one great object of reconciling the governess's arrival with the celebration of the picnic was an object achieved, the doubt still remained whether ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... who feel no abhorrence at a public execution, but rather a self-applauding superiority, and a sense of gratified indignation, are surely excited to the most inauspicious emotions. The first reflection of such a one is the sense of his own internal and actual worth, as preferable to that of the victim, whom circumstances have led to destruction. The meanest wretch is impressed with a sense of his own comparative merit. He is one of those on whom ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... machine-guns; so much so that on entering the village, for the first second I thought that the Turks were opening up on us. No native will molest a stork; to do so is considered to the last degree inauspicious. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... kind friend AEolus, who is accustomed to spread and strengthen the bold muscles of the strong-featured Scot, has generally blown away that inauspicious bashfulness, which hangs a much longer time, commonly, on the faces of the southern students; such a one (if he fall not too egregiously into the contrary extreme, so as to become insufferable) may still be the more eligible person for a tutor, as he may teach a young gentleman, betimes, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... actually driven off. They wore, and again began with their long guns; but, these producing no visible effect, both of the British ships hauled out of the fight at 4.30. "Having lost the use of main-sail, jib, and main-stay, appearances looked a little inauspicious," writes Captain Hilyar. But the damages were soon repaired, and his two ships stood back for the crippled foe. Both stationed themselves on her port-quarter, the Phoebe at anchor, with a spring, firing her broadside, while the Cherub kept under way, using ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... skill would hardly give more satisfaction to the reader than the skill of the photographer does to the anxious mother desirous to possess an absolute duplicate of her beloved child. The likeness is indeed true, but it is a dull, dead, unfeeling, inauspicious likeness. The face is indeed there, and those looking at it will know at once whose image it is, but the owner of the face will not be proud of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... scene, and learn'd its various lore; And, with religion's pole-star for his guide, Serenely voyaged life's tempestuous tide. Yet in Ernestus' mind his skilful sense Observ'd no dawn of future excellence; He found no early graces to adorn Of springing life the inauspicious morn; No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow; But virtue's native influence was in him, A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim. Yet Harfagar with kind ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... had, perhaps, from the date of the erection itself, been devoted to shrubs and flowers. Some of the former had grown there almost to the dignity of trees; and two dark little yews stood at each side of the porch, like swart and inauspicious dwarfs, guarding the entrance of an enchanted castle. Not that my domicile in any respect deserved the comparison: it had no reputation as a haunted house; if it ever had any ghosts, nobody remembered them. Its history was not known to me: it may have ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... sight, on the contrary, two more small sails were run up at the extremities of the masts. Unfortunately, it was the time of the finest and longest days of the year, and the moon, in all her brilliancy, succeeded to this inauspicious daylight. The balancelle, which was pursuing the little bark before the wind, had then still half an hour of twilight, and a whole night almost as ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... greeting of the general's daughter. I had heard nothing—no rustle, no footsteps. I had felt only a moment before a sort of premonition of evil; I had the sense of an inauspicious presence—just that much warning and no more; and then came the sound of the voice and the jar as of a terrible fall from a great height—a fall, let us say, from the highest of the clouds floating in gentle procession over the fields in the faint westerly air ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... seemed to have deserted him—it required an effort to leave the club. He took up the newspapers, and threw them aside, one after another. Not one of the unfortunate writers and reporters could please him on that inauspicious day. It was only while he was lighting his second cigar that he remembered Mrs. Farnaby's unread letter to him. By this time, he was more than weary of his own affairs. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... protested: "I do not say that you have not the power; but would not that power be, at such a time as this, most unwisely and indiscreetly exercised. That is the point. Of all the times when an attempt was ever made to carry this measure, is not this the most inauspicious? Is it not a time when the measure is most likely to produce danger and mischief to the Country at large? So it ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... conclusion of peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is force that should achieve the result that the population, at present still hostile, should ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday, smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he is posted, for he was the manager of a ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... her fretfully not to be impatient, and hinted that she and he might be acting the part of dupes, and was for pursuing his inauspicious cross-examination in spite of his blundering, and the 'Where am I now?' which pulled him up. My father, either talking to my aunt Dorothy, to Janet, or to me, on ephemeral topics, scarcely noticed him, except when he was questioned, and looked secure of success ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her loss—drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in Charon's boat for good!—Really, if I had the industry I could write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!... Ah, well;—in this way I affect levity over my troubles; but in plain truth my life will not be ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some years an institution, for which the general state of things had already prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant, set by so inauspicious a hand, could have attained to so vigorous a growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and convulsions. The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the power of the commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually to decline; and both the king and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... other hand, Kunti's son, Yudhishthira, (seeing) and reflecting on dreadful ill omens, became alarmed. Terrified by the blaze of the points of the horizon, jackals stationing themselves on the right of that hermitage, set up frightful and inauspicious yells. And ugly Vartikas as of dreadful sight, having one wing, one eye, and one leg, were seen to vomit blood, facing the sun. And the wind began to blow dryly, and violently, attracting grits. And to the right all the beasts and birds began to cry. And in the rear the black crows ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... bread and cheese for Yule. It is common also to have a table covered in the house from morning till night with bread and drink upon it, that every one who calls may take a portion, and it is considered particularly inauspicious if any one comes into a house and leaves it without doing so. However many be the callers during the day, all must ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... guide had time enough to observe all these particulars, for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present master of the mansion at length made his appearance. Prepared as he was to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person, the ugliness of Anthony Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had anticipated. He was of middle stature, built strongly, but so clumsily as to border on deformity, and to give all his motions ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... reaffirmed the decision to "cut loose" from the old parties. But such a vast undertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National Labor Union met as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. From the first the stars were inauspicious. Charges were made that political aspirants sought to control the convention in order to influence nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties. A "greenback" platform was adopted as a matter of course and the new party was christened the National ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... mind that," she said with the freedom of a friend. "I have really no place to ask anybody in to. What I meant was that the place you chose was so horrid—I suppose I ought not to say horrid—I mean gloomy and inauspicious in its associations... But isn't it funny to begin like this, when I don't know you yet?" She looked him up and down curiously, though Jude did not look ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... could not have picked out a moment more inauspicious for tackling First Selectman Aaron Sproul on business not immediately connected with ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... matter was laid before the council, all voices concurred in approving the resolution; and the parliament expressed the same complaisance. And thus was concluded, seemingly with universal consent, the inauspicious marriage with Catharine, a princess of virtue, but who was never able, either by the graces of her person or humor, to make herself agreeable to the king. The report, however, of her natural incapacity to have children, seems to have been ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... authoritative in Shag's manner, and, being a business man, Harry Bartlett knew better than to make an inauspicious approach. It would be as bad as slicing his golf ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... not savage, to Persians or anyone else," cried Vixen, wondering what inauspicious star had led the footsteps of an oriental wander to so dreary a ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... a rather inauspicious time, Mr. Gryce," said the latter, glancing at the card which he held in his hand. "What may your business be? Something to do with politics, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... heights of office barren heights, which command, indeed, a vast and extensive prospect, but attract so many clouds and vapors, that most often all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. Pitt's situation, however inauspicious for his real being, was favorable to his fame. He heaped period on period; persuaded himself and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences was eloquence; and that eloquence implied wisdom. His father's struggles for freedom, and his own attempts, gave ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... inauspicious commencement of our acquaintance with the natives of Otaheite. Their determined hostility and perseverance in an unequal combat could only have arisen from one of two motives—either from an opinion that a ship of such magnitude, as they ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. Anne, too, a vain, ambitious, and light-minded woman, was probably greedy of this kind of homage from her princely lover; and the very consciousness of the dubious, inauspicious, or disgraceful circumstances attending their union, might secretly augment the anxiety of the royal pair to dazzle and impose by the magnificence of their public appearance. Only once before, since the Norman conquest, had a king of England stooped from his dignity to elevate a private ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the term of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... was inauspicious for the revolutionary cause, but auspicious for the English. The financial embarrassments arising from the depreciation of the paper-money engaged the anxious deliberations of Congress,[34] and Washington's army was by no means ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... inauspicious moment Philip, yielding to a tickling in the throat which he couldn't overcome, coughed. It was not a loud cough, but ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... Hilda, fearing some inauspicious act or word, bustled forward her bevy of young folks to offer their babel of congratulations. As she presented them one by one, Ruth mustered a wan smile, let them take her cold, limp hand. But her mind was not on them. All the while she was thinking: "This is my ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... broken biscuit, accompanied by a small tin case of a precious unguent, which, she told me, would cure all fractures, and internal complaints. She further directed me to leave the house with my face towards the door, by way of propitiating a happy return from a journey undertaken under such inauspicious circumstances. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair and symmetrical in person, and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... time [1849] there appears upon the scene that vigorous and masterful spirit, whose arrival to take up the government of India had been greeted by events so inauspicious. No doubt from the beginning the Governor-General was desirous to let it be understood that although new to India he was, and meant to be, master;... Lord Dalhousie was by no means averse to frank dissent, provided in the manner it was never forgotten that he was Governor-General. Like his great ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the greatest of the world's social, political, and religious reformations have generally been of insignificant and lowly aspect, and apparently under the most inauspicious circumstances for producing any great effect upon mankind. The Babe of the lowly manger becomes the Spiritual King of millions of human hearts and souls, and the "Wood Hut" becomes the gateway through which Holy Ministers of Light, from their world of Truth and Beauty, send the ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... I had that which could have procured him freedom No! since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me To serve the emperor at the empire's cost, I have been taught far other trains of thinking Of the empire and the Diet of the empire. From the emperor, doubtless, I received this staff, But now I hold it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... one is to be looked up to like a father, No one is to be depended on as a mother. Have I not a connexion with the hairs (of my father)? Did I not dwell in the womb (of my mother)? O Heaven, who gave me birth! How was it at so inauspicious a time? ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her child, was ready to give it up sooner than see ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... annoyed by the inauspicious manner in which Sir Samuel was greeted, and not less so by the exposure which I made of their politics and principles. The editor of the Morning Chronicle, and other papers in London, gave, however, a flaming account of the public entry of Sir Samuel Romilly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... Malcolm III., who died in 1094, and not only his dynasty but his system ended with that century. Edgar, Alexander I., and David I., all sons of Malcolm III., were educated in England among the victorious Normans, and in the first third of the twelfth century, devoted themselves with the inauspicious aid of Norman allies, to the introduction of Saxon settlers and the feudal system, first into the lowlands, and subsequently into Moray-shire. This innovation on their ancient system, and confiscation of their lands, was stoutly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... she had helped to bring him to this greater dimension. There was a thrill in the thought. There would have been a positive and enduring joy, had he not gone from her to another. Truly, that was an inauspicious beginning for Illumination—but miracles happened. This thought fascinated her now: Had she seen clearly and made the great sacrifice of withholding herself—that he might rise to prophecy—there would have been gladness in that! She ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort |
