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Presage   Listen
verb
Presage  v. t.  (past & past part. presaged; pres. part. presaging)  
1.
To have a presentiment of; to feel beforehand; to foreknow.
2.
To foretell; to predict; to foreshow; to indicate. "My dreams presage some joyful news at hand."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books



... took up again their line of retreat toward White Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, several hundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hot and sultry night, dark, with presage of a storm, through a ruined country, by the light of their own burning stores, the blue column wound slowly on by the single road toward White Oak Swamp and its single bridge. The grey brigades lit their small camp-fires, gathered up the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... general. The Thebans willingly decreed this, but when all was ready and the general was about to march, the sun was eclipsed and darkness fell upon the city. Pelopidas, seeing that all men were disheartened at this, thought that it was useless to force frightened men full of presage of evil, to march with him, nor did he like to risk the lives of six thousand citizens, but he offered his own services to the Thessalians, and took with him three hundred horsemen, volunteers and men of other states. With this force he started, though forbidden by the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... the temple. None stayed or hindered them, yet although they reached the chambers of Aziel in safety, their hearts, which should have been light, were still heavy with the presage of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... your immortal weal! In vain for Constance is your zeal; She—died at 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 ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... and moral daring to the field of theological and political speculation, it is easy today to select, among the writings of the earliest colonists, certain radical utterances which seem to presage the very temper of the late eighteenth century. Pastor John Robinson's farewell address to the Pilgrims at Leyden in 1620 contained the famous words: "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... strange silence, the feeling of mystery and power he seemed to create, all that was incomprehensible about him were emphasized in the light of his slow, sure, and ruthless action. If he dominated the others, surely he did more for Gale—colored his thoughts—presage the wild and terrible future of that flight. If Rojas embodied all the hatred and passion of the peon—scourged slave for a thousand years—then Yaqui embodied all the darkness, the cruelty, the white, sun-heated blood, the ferocity, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... that place many of their Christian captives were recovered. At this time, in the middle of the night, a strange thing happened, almost prophetic of the misfortune to those Moros, and apparently a presage of their fall and destruction. There was an earthquake, so sudden and so terrible that it was plainly felt upon the sea; and a rumbling which sounded as if some aperture of hell were opening. All our soldiers were thoroughly terrified at so frightful rumblings ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... 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

... round heads of two or three swimmers from the bathing cove appeared like corks upon the surface of the water. Half lost in the hazy horizon, a dim fairy island hung between sky and ocean; while overhead flew the milk-white birds, whose presence inland is said to presage stormy weather. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... in his breast and 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 to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... the Lord Of this faire mansion, master of my seruants, Queene ore my selfe: and euen now, but now, This house, these seruants, and this same my selfe Are yours, my Lord, I giue them with this ring, Which when you part from, loose, or giue away, Let it presage the ruine of your loue, And be my vantage to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain,— Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... their own Disgrace. True Valour's slow, deliberate, and cool, Considers well the End, the Way, the Means, And weighs each Circumstance attending them. Imaginary Dangers it detects, And guards itself against all real Evils. But here Tenesco comes with Speed important; His Looks and Face presage us something new. ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... same red light and black shadow, much of the same Vulcanic power over words, as with blast and forge and hammer, which startle us in the two battle-pieces. The lines "Annus Memorabilis," dated Jan. 6th, 1861, read like prophecy in 1865. "Wood and Coal" (November, 1863) gives a presage of the fire which the flame of the conflict would kindle. "The Burial of the Dane" shows the true human sympathy of the writer, in its simple, pathetic narrative; and the story of the "Old Cove" had a wider circulation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... Scotland, I rejoice to say, can claim them all as her own. For if the Tweed has been immortalized by the grave of Scott, the Clyde can boast the birthplace of Campbell, and the mountains of the Dee first inspired the muse of Byron. I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling—I hail it as a presage, that as Ayrshire has raised a graceful monument to Burns, and Edinburgh has erected a noble structure to the Author of Waverley, so Glasgow will ere long raise a worthy tribute to the bard whose name ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... small number of as great spirits among us, as his was who when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped his own regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... this second hearing presage? A like vain waiting and disclosure of death-dealing accident? Notwithstanding her attitude of high resolution, the question challenged Damaris in sardonic fashion from beneath the black canopy of the great bed. Her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... all the gayest young nobles, who were in attendance on the prince. Including the crew, the Blanche Nef was expected to carry full three hundred persons across the Channel. All were in high spirits, in that reckless state of mirth which the grave Scots deem as the absolute presage of a fearful catastrophe, as well as often its cause; and the young Etheling, with open-hearted, imprudent good-nature, presented the crew with three casks of wine to drink to his health and the success of the voyage. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... that evening in a sky that glowed like molten copper and was streaked with long tatters of smoky-looking cloud, which seemed to presage both a windy and a dark night, to my great anxiety; for the ship was now navigating a comparatively restricted area of landlocked sea, the chart of which was dotted—much too thickly for my peace of mind—with dangers ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... of this generation. Unto us are committed those oracles which declare, "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth." And already do I see, in the silent kindling of unnumbered minds, in our Sabbath-schools and other institutions, the presage of unexampled good to the nations. Who, then, of the rising race, is so dead to generous feeling, so deaf to the voice of Providence, so blind to the beauty of moral excellence, that he will not now aspire to some course of worthy action? Let this motto, then, stand out ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... 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, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... became alarmed at the murmurings of the whites, which seemed to presage a coming storm. A number of them sought to arm themselves, but ascertained, upon inquiring at the stores, that no white merchant would sell a negro firearms. Since all the dealers in this sort of merchandise were white men, the negroes had to be satisfied with oiling ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... flag-officer, who should have no other care. The innate tact, courtesy, and thoughtful consideration which distinguished Nelson, when in normal conditions, removed all other misunderstandings. "The delicacy you have always shown to senior officers," wrote St. Vincent to him, "is a sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give umbrage to Admiral Dickson, who seems disposed to judge favourably of the intentions of us all: it is, in truth, the most difficult card we have to play." "Happy should I be," he said at another ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... glories and my own. Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates, (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore, Not all my brothers gasping on the shore, As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread: I see thee trembling, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... in his song no tremor of misgiving! All of his heart he pours into his lay,— "Love, love, love, and pure delight of living: Winter is forgotten: here's a happy day!" Fair in your face I read the flowery presage, Snowy on your brow and rosy on your mouth: Sweet in your voice I hear the season's message,— Love, love, love, ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... such an important part began to blow on the eastern horizon of New England." From the ocean-bordered shores were faint streaks of light that ere long began to deepen into hues of a sanguine color that seemed to presage a tempest. At first the sound was like the faint lisping murmur of pines along the shore or the sobbing surf as it retreated from the charge it made; but ere long it broke forth in loud, angry tones like the wailing of branches on a stormy ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... evil presage, To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... dispirited, we seated ourselves on the margin of the hill, hard by the very mile-stone where Whittington of yore heard the Bow bells ring out the presage of his future greatness. Alas! no bell rung in invitation to us, as we looked disconsolately upon the distant city. Old London seemed to wrap itself up unsociably in its mantle of brown smoke, and to offer no encouragement to such a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... 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. You have ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... strong enough to ruffle the surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war—alike elemental and human—and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and resources ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... later, the two friends crossed the bridge to D—— to visit the Baileys. When they reached the end of the bridge they paused a moment to rest. The day was one of those warm, bright spring days which deceitfully presage an immediate summer. On the river-shore crawfishes were lazily creeping over the gravel. The air rang with the blue jay's chatter, a robin showed his tawny breast among the withered grasses, and a flicker on a dead stump bobbed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... angle-worm chasers and will get across a pool and grab a bait before any other denizen of the place can possibly get to it. Their agility is the more surprising when one remembers that the grown hornpout is but a sluggish chap and that they are not built on lines that presage swiftness. You may catch the big horn pouts at any season, but these little chaps are peculiar to the dog days. I have an idea they hibernate in the mud at bottom until warm weather calls them forth, and that by next spring, so voracious is their appetite ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... 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 ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... in vain, for every morning the surgeons, making their rounds, found seven or eight dead. Some died in fevers, some in deadly chill; so that heat or cold might be the presage of death. ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... balanced against each other so exactly, that 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 terms with McElvina, that she resolved ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... him without so much as a backward glance to presage future favour. So may a lady, if she plays her game well, take ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... of youth ran strong in him. He had imagination. He could dream. The good things he was tasting were a presage only of the better things to come, and that is a wholesome point of view. He was proud—as who would not be?—to step straight into the tracks of such a father; and with that thought came another—just as good for him, and for India, that made him feel as though he were a robber yet, a thief in ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... 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 in the list ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... women, Jean made his final adieus and strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a sturdy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... of the Deities, who still with grace preuents our ill presage, This groue was hallow'd to no Hiadres, but chast Diana, who with violent rage Discending from her towre of Christalline, To keepe the place still sacred and diuine: against her rites, brought with her thereupon white Poplar ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... of his appearance, so unusual to him, gave her a presage of misfortune. She followed him into the ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... only imitating therein, his betters. Next reflect upon the opposite reputation of his accusers, and I venture to say malingers, though in truth there is but one, not sustained by the other. Men are murmuring at your sentence, and holding your justice for naught, a sure presage of troublous times; and be assured, that a commonwealth not founded in righteousness cannot stand, for on it rests not ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... streets of Galway-town, When night had let her dusky curtains down, And in a doorway, tall and fair and slight, Framed by an inner beam of golden light, Beheld a maiden of madonna face, Pensive and sad, yet with a nameless grace, Presage, I thought, of the unfolding years, That hide some things that are too ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard

... 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

... superstitious fear, fancying they heard and saw him ride past with his train, all mounted on snorting steeds, and accompanied by baying hounds. And the passing of the Wild Hunt, known as Woden's Hunt, the Raging Host, Gabriel's Hounds, or Asgardreia, was also considered a presage of such misfortune as pestilence ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... explore the event of momentous wars, is to oblige a prisoner, taken by any means whatsoever from the nation with whom they are at variance, to fight with a picked man of their own, each with his own country's arms; and, according as the victory falls, they presage success to the one or to ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... display, ostentation, parade, pomp, splurge. Show, exhibit, display, expose, manifest, evince. Shrink, flinch, wince, blench, quail. Shun, avoid, eschew. Shy, bashful, diffident, modest, coy, timid, shrinking. Sign, omen, auspice, portent, prognostic, augury, foretoken, adumbration, presage, indication. Simple, innocent, artless, unsophisticated, naive. Skilful, skilled, expert, adept, apt, proficient, adroit, dexterous, deft, clever, ingenious. Skin, hide, pelt, fell. Sleepy, drowsy, slumberous, somnolent, sluggish, torpid, dull, lethargic. Slovenly, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... 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 "A Retrospect of ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... him." Then after a silent pause, "It is then he," resumed his Majesty, "who is the victim of the fatality! I have always been oppressed by a feeling that the events of the ball were a sinister omen, but it is very evident now that it was he whom the presage indicated." ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... set forth in the sharp, fresh morning, the Callow shone with radiant brown and silver, and no presage moved within it of the snow that would hurtle upon it from ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... to admire it, when all on a sudden he felt himself raised up in the air by divine power, so that he had reached the top of the tree, and that from thence he easily made the tallest branches bend quite to the ground. The Holy Spirit pointed out to him that this was a presage of the favorable issue of his application to the Apostolic throne. This filled him with joy, and his recital of it to his brethren renovated ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... When, a few days afterwards, the unfortunate Prince addressed his council for the first time, he said, with mournful truth, these words. "For me it will be no new thing if I am unfortunate: my whole life, even from my cradle, has been a constant series of misfortunes." This sentiment of ill-presage was re-echoed in the address ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Midgard serpent; the third Hela (Death). The gods were not long ignorant that these monsters continued to be bred up in Joetunheim, and, having had recourse to divination, became aware of all the evils they would have to suffer from them; their being sprung from such a mother was a bad presage, and from such a sire, one still worse. All-father therefore deemed it advisable to send one of the gods to bring them to him. When they came he threw the serpent into that deep ocean by which the earth is engirdled. But the monster has grown to such an enormous size that, holding his tail ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... myself and (I can answer for it) with every one of my colleagues, will have their just weight. But at present these considerations all operate one way; at present there is nothing from which we can presage a favourable disposition to change in the French councils. There is the greatest reason to rely on powerful co-operation from our allies; there are the strongest marks of a disposition in the interior of France to active ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are incessantly ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... me poore Dame, O you amase me Vncle, Is this the wondrous fortune you presage? What man ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... yielded an income of six or eight thousand livres a year, and constituted the general's entire fortune. Roland's departure on this adventurous expedition deeply afflicted the poor widow. The death of the father seemed to presage that of the son, and Madame de Montrevel, a sweet, gentle Creole, was far from possessing the stern virtues of a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... are about to befall a City or Country, signs are seen to presage, and seers arise ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... looking after a royal alliance for Louis. He often expressed regret at the precipitate marriages of his sisters. It should be recollected that we were now in the year which saw the Consulship for life established, and which, consequently, gave presage of the Empire. Napoleon said truly to the companions of his exile that "Louis' marriage was the result of Josephine's intrigues," but I cannot understand how he never mentioned the intention he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... "Pride cometh before a fall, 'tis said. Then, in sooth, by the rule of contraries, a fall should presage humility's reward. What says my ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... 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 ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... very sultry, and if our travellers had not been ignorant of the signs of the Pampas they might have known that the day was heavy with the presage ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... while his quivering lip the summons gave, Grew black, as tho' the shadows of the grave Compast him round and ere he could repeat His message thro', fell lifeless at her feet! Shuddering she went—a soul-felt pang of fear A presage that her own dark doom was near, Roused every feeling and brought Reason back Once more to writhe her last upon the rack. All round seemed tranquil even the foe had ceased As if aware of that demoniac feast His fiery bolts; and tho' the heavens looked red, 'Twas but some distant conflagration's spread. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... of the adventurous meadow lark fell like the dropping of a silver stream into the pool below. Brave little heart, roused from slumber perchance by domestic care, perchance by the first burdening presage of the long fall flight waiting her sturdy careless brood, perchance stirred by the first thrill of the Event approaching from the east. For already in the east the long round tops of the prairie undulations are shining gray ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... Lope," she answered; "the expression of my grief I know is painful to thee, but a dismal foreboding obtrudes itself upon my mind, which I strive in vain to banish. Alas! it is fraught with a most fearful, but indefinite anticipation; a woeful presage ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... is Miracle. I venture not to soar to yonder regions Whence the glad tidings hither float; And yet, from childhood up familiar with the note, To Life it now renews the old allegiance. Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss Upon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy; And, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell slowly, And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss. A sweet, uncomprehended yearning Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free, And while a thousand tears were burning, I felt a world arise for me. These chants, to youth and all its sports appealing, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... pressed; but reflecting, that it might be difficult, notwithstanding all his vigilance, to elude discovery or escape pursuit, he determined, upon farther consideration, to enter voluntarily into his majesty's service, and to take his future fortune in the royal navy. Perhaps he had some presage in his own mind, that by his activity and exertions he might rise considerably above his present situation. Accordingly, he went to a rendezvous at Wapping, and entered with an officer of the Eagle man of war, a ship of sixty guns, at that time commanded by Captain ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... not the ravished glory thine; Nor think the flag shall scathless wave Whereon thou bidd'st its presage shine,— Land of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... glory in his pure Scottish descent is an innovation; it is an innovation ominous of revolution; it betrays a spirit of disintegration. If at the moment it flatters Scottish pride, Scotchmen and Irishmen would do well to recollect that it is a certain presage of a time when some Englishman will rise to power and obtain popular support on the ground of his staunch English sympathies and of his ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... of students and lovers of either art this may perhaps appear no great discovery; but that it should at length have dawned even upon the race of commentators is a sign which in itself might be taken as a presage of new light to come in an epoch of miracle yet to be. Unhappily it is as yet but a partial revelation that has been vouchsafed to them. To the recognition of the apocalyptic fact that a workman can only be known by his work, and that without examination of his method and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... other appliances. By it we are led to share vicariously in past human experience, thus widening and enriching the experience of the present. We are enabled, symbolically and imaginatively, to anticipate situations. In countless ways, language condenses meanings that record social outcomes and presage social outlooks. So significant is it of a liberal share in what is worth while in life that unlettered and ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... sixty-fourth anniversary of the birth of General U. S. Grant, at the Metropolitan church in Washington on the 27th of April, 1886. The text given me was "Grant and the New South." As this brief speech expressed my appreciation of the character of General Grant soon after his death, and my presage of the new ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... implied, of the projected sweeping of the English into the sea. This was a hugged delusion until 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 make ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... or fool, Thou Stoic of the modern school; Columbus-like, his aim Points forward with a true presage, And nations of a later age May rise to ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... eighty-gun ship Tonnant, in which, after some delay, occasioned by the general difficulty of procuring men, he joined the Channel fleet. Anxious to take part in the important naval operations to be expected, he wished to sail with Nelson, whose reputation gave a just presage that the most decisive blow would be struck where he commanded; but after he had been appointed to a station, his sense of naval obedience forbade any attempt to change it. With that care for the improvement of his young officers which was always a prominent ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... 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, was ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... the full brow turned blank, The right-hand, raised but now as if it cursed, Dropt, a mere snowball, (till the people sank Their voices, though a louder laughter burst From the royal window)—thou couldst proudly thank God and the prince for promise and presage, And laugh the laugh back, I think verily, Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage To read a wrong into a prophecy, And measure a true great man's heritage Against a mere great-duke's posterity. I think thy soul said then, "I do not need A princedom and its quarries, after ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... Badakhshan; his respect for Christians; subjugates Kutchluk Khan; his campaigns in Tangut; Rubruquis' account of; made king of the Tartars; his system of conquests; and Prester John; divining by twigs—presage of victory; defeats and slays Prester John; his death and burial-place; his aim at conquest of the world; his funeral; his army; defeats the Merkits; relations between Prester John's and his families; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... baptism on the day after her birth, in the church of St. Saturninus, and with it the name of Mary, a happy presage, as one of her biographers remarks, of her life-long, most tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin, as well as of the singular favours which that generous Mother reserved for her well-loved child. It was her happiness to be surrounded from earliest infancy with none but ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... but always sensible. To secure for him his eight months, without let or hindrance from the full enmity of Cleigh; to give him his boyhood dream, whether he found his pearls or not. Her throat became stuffed with the presage of tears. The ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... depths. On the uproar of the passions follows a delicious calm that descends like a heavenly vision (meno mosso, E flat major). But this does not last, and before long there comes, in the train of the first theme, an outburst of passion with mighty upheavings and fearful lulls that presage new eruptions. Thus the ballade rises and falls on the sea of passion till a mad, reckless rush (presto con fuoco) brings it to a conclusion. Schumann tells us a rather interesting fact in his notice of the "Deuxieme Ballade" (in F major), Op. 38. He heard Chopin play it ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... now a-gathering, but our horizon is covered over with blackness, and great drops are a-falling, that presage a terrible overflowing deluge of error, and apostacy from the truth and profession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be at hand, if the Lord wonderfully prevent it not. And behold (O wonderful!) the generality of professors are sleeping in security, apprehending no danger. Satan ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew, The big drops mingled with the milk he drew Gave the sad presage of his future years— The child of misery, baptized in ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... his senses; these blazing stars, sudden fiery exhalations; these rivers of blood, sudden red waters? Is he a world to himself only therefore, that he hath enough in himself, not only to destroy and execute himself, but to presage that execution upon himself; to assist the sickness, to antedate the sickness, to make the sickness the more irremediable by sad apprehensions, and, as if he would make a fire the more vehement by sprinkling water upon ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circumference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3609. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 81, again ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... knock Upon his chamber door. He threw the lock, And a boy page brought robes of ermine fur And Tarsic silk,—black, white, and lavender,— For his array, and with them a kind message, Which the good knight received with no ill presage: "Will brave Sir Gawayne spare an idle hour For quiet converse in my lady's bower?" The boy led on, and Gawayne followed him Through crooked corridors and archways dim, Along low galleries echoing from afar, And down a winding stair; then "Here we are!" The page cried ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... now suddenly brought sharply into view by the flare of cannon, weary, glad of the General's thoughtfulness, without a suspicion that her present companion had suggested it, taking the rest that came to her and enjoying it as simply as a child would do, yet radiant at moments in the presage of national success, or pale with a glow of sublime faith at the efficacy of the sacrifice that was being offered up for her country. She seemed in harmony with the nature about her and the earnestness, perhaps tragedy, of her surroundings. Katie could not have been ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... for the king and queen regent, began to be tumultuous. Reports were whispered about, like certain sounds which announce, as they whistle from wave to wave, the coming storm—and when they pass athwart a multitude, presage ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... with the breeze it wantons round the brow 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 day by day the favorite plant His hand has sown, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... himself in order that he may impress his correspondents with the idea that he is a master of the horrible jargon which all bright young fellows at that time innocently supposed to constitute eloquence. Thus, in February, 1800, he writes thus to his friend Bingham: "In my melancholy moments I presage the most dire calamities. I already see in my imagination the time when the banner of civil war shall be unfurled; when Discord's hydra form shall set up her hideous yell, and from her hundred mouths shall howl destruction through our empire; and when ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... light of presage, unknown star, Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are, What message trembles in thee from so far? Cry wellaway. ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... the springs, and paws the earth With ceaseless hoof: low droop his ears, wherefrom Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry, And rigidly repels the handler's touch. These earlier signs they give that presage doom. But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow, Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath, At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams Black blood; a rough tongue ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... four in Theology, and has under its management the Provincial Protestant Normal School. Its buildings, like itself, have been growing by a process of accretion, and the latest, that in which we are now assembled, [the Peter Redpath Museum], is far in advance of all the others, and a presage of the college buildings of the future. We have five chairs endowed by private benefactors, fourteen endowed scholarships and exhibitions, besides others of a temporary nature, and eight endowed gold medals. More than this, we have sent out about 1,200 ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... and hasty warning us away troubled us much; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue; that for our ship, it was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case; so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger of their lives. ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon

... Ploughman Emperor, Poetry, See Odes Poetry, classic, See Odes Police, Politeness, Political intrigue, Pope, comparison with the, Population, Population, non-Chinese, Posterity, importance of, Posthumous names, Posthumous titles, Powers, great, Prayer, Precedence, Premiers, See Ministers Presage, See Astrology Presents from Emperor, Priestly caste, no, Princesses, Principalities, (see Fiefs), Prisons, Prisoners of war, Proclaiming the law, Proclaiming the moon, Proclamation, Progress in China, Promontory, Shan Tung, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... they are a North-West Passage Unto the glowing India of the soul; And as the good ships sent upon that message Have not exactly ascertained the Pole (Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),[mc] Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal; For if the Pole's not open, but all frost (A chance still), 't is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts and feelings in that direction toward which a change is to be made. And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass across the field of events. This was specially the case with Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... recurring to him a haunting presage of the unprofitableness of the life, after which men have not "any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." Where he speaks of resignation, after showing how the less impetuous and self-concentred natures ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... setting sun descended on a blue stratus cloud which appeared along the edge of all other parts of the horizon, and eagerly watching any indication of a change, I drew even from this a presage of rain. Thermometer at sunrise, 88 deg.; at noon, 104 deg.; at 4 P.M., 106; at 9, 88 deg.;—with ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... Damascus and the lands about Ruled Hidraort, a wizard grave and sage, Acquainted well with all the damned rout Of Pluto's reign, even from his tender age; Yet of this war he could not figure out The wished ending, or success presage, For neither stars above, nor powers of hell, Nor skill, nor art, nor ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... those unattained, and unattainable pinnacles that are known as the Bleaks of Eerie, an eagle was looking East with a hopeful presage ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany

... the wings of Fame, Thine eclat sounding with thy name, Well pleased, I heard, ere 'twas my lot To see thee in thy humble cot. That genius smiled upon thy birth, And application called it forth; That times and tides thou could'st presage, And traverse the Celestial stage, Where shining globes their circles run, In swift rotation round the sun; Could'st tell how planets in their way, From order ne'er were known to stray. Sun, moon and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... the spirits by any influence of its own. All know the story of Caesar's accidentally stumbling in the act of landing on the African coast; and the presence of mind with which he converted the direful presage into a favorable one by exclaiming, "Africa, I embrace thee." Such omens, it is true, were often conceived as warnings of the future, given by a friendly or a hostile deity; but this very superstition grew out of a pre-existing tendency; the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... 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. It was ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... in this attire, but my mother did not wish her to wear any jewels. She believes that wearing them at such a time is a presage of misfortune, and said: 'She who wears jewels on her wedding day, will weep bitter tears all the rest of her life.' Poor Barbara needed no more, for she had already wept so much that her eyes were ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... instructed by his mother in the importance of seeking divine influence, his mind was prepared to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and he had a deep conflict to pass through, which he confided to his mother, and which he seemed to think was the presage to suffering. In performing some gymnastic exercises he received a fall on the head, which after some time was followed by a paralytic affection of the whole body, so that he became entirely helpless, and his speech was taken away. ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... desire for spreading the gospel among the blacks and among the savage tribes on our borders has been rapidly increasing during the last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with the more satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing presage of the spread of the gospel, but also furnishes agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the benign tendency of that spirit which God has been pleased to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... days according to some authorities, and eight according to others. It seized her one night at Odos whilst she was watching a comet, which it was averred had appeared to notify the death of Pope Paul III. "It was perhaps to presage her own," naively remarks Brantome, who adds that while she was looking at the comet her mouth suddenly became partially paralysed, whereupon her doctor, M. d'Escuranis, led her away and made her go to bed. Her ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... mighty spirit, to whom you vow Faith of kin genius unrebukably, Scourges my sloth, and from your side dismissed Henceforth this sad and most, most lonely soul Must, marching fatally through pain and mist, The God-bid levy of its powers enrol; When I presage that none shall hear the voice From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance, That sullen envy bade the churlish choice Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance; O God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... storm presage, They whisper peace, and tempests rise, And clouds obscure the brightest skies, And winds, and waves ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie

... said nastily. (When people presage a remark by saying that they only say it because they love you, you may lay long odds that it's going to be disagreeable!) "It certainly sounds a gruesome prospect. Not even a choice between bankruptcy and mania, but ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... fear, that gives a check to my soft pursuit, and tells me that thy unhappy engagement in this League, this accursed association, will one day undo us both, and part for ever thee and thy unlucky Sylvia; yes, yes, my dear lord, my soul does presage an unfortunate event from this dire engagement; nor can your false reasoning, your fancied advantages, reconcile it to my honest, good-natur'd heart; and surely the design is inconsistent with love, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... ours refuses, collected in that box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan—certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however you may be distressed, at the mournful presage with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... blue with the presage of showers; blue, too, with the presage of fate. An interminable morning. My tasks had become utterly distasteful. And in the afternoon, so when I sat down to make out invoices, I wrote automatically the names of the familiar customers, my mind now exalted ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... pool, and mingled incongruously with it, the face of Starr Wiley, distorted as he had last seen it, with the bruised lips twisted into a mocking leer. Would the lightly expressed wish of Gentleman Geoff's Billie prove a presage of victory in the great game ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... sound, poured out in a tumult of joy; and, understanding that their young master was returned, raised such a peal of acclamation, as astonished the commodore and his lady, and inspired Julia with such an interesting presage, that her heart began to throb with violence. Running out in the hurry and perturbation of her hope, she was so much overwhelmed at sight of her brother, that she actually fainted in his arms. But from this trance she soon awaked; and Peregrine, having testified his pleasure ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... breath of sorrow My ardent spirit chill, The dark—dark presage of the morrow, The sense ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... an automaton, his bright eye and full-rounded head presage higher things. Occasionally his mind breaks through the mist of instinct and reaches ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... renown, And then seek Zeus, but not with loosened zone For dalliance; entreat him to restore Me, Achilles, to the earth, to the black earth, The nourisher of men, not these pale shades, Whose shapes have learned the presage of thy doom; They flit between me and the wind-swept plain Of Troy, the banners over Ilion's walls, The zenith of my prowess, and my fate. Give me again the breath of life, not death. Would I could tarry in the timbered tent, As when I wept Patroclus, when, by night, Old Priam crept, kissing my ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard

... years! To break the sceptre of tyrannic Rage; From Woe's wan cheek to wipe the bitter tears; Ye years, again roll round! Hark! from afar what desolating sound, While echoes load the sighing gales, With dire presage the throbbing heart assails! Murder, deep-roused, with all the whirlwind's haste, And roar of tempest, from her cavern springs, Her tangled serpents girds around her waist, Smiles ghastly fierce, and shakes her ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... or the Indian country. The force of those bodies was not "brutal," it was physical power obeying mental; and unless mental power can command physical, there is no way in which mental power can enforce its decrees in government. There are now facing us tremendous moral issues, which presage tremendous struggles; and a very notable example of the dangers that would attend woman suffrage is suggested by them. If women had the power to create a numerical majority when there was a majority of the law's natural and only defenders against them, they might soon precipitate ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... quaking flesh unto the hook: The rout they follow with confused voice, Crying, they're glad, say, they could ne'er abide him, Enquire what man he was, what kind of face, What beard he had, what nose, what lips? Protest They ever did presage he'd come to this; They never thought him wise, nor valiant; ask After his garments, when he dies, what death; And not a beast of all the herd demands, What was his crime, or who were his accusers, Under what proof or testimony he fell? There came, says one, a huge long-worded letter ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... 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 was going to ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... was destined to a swift and sudden fulfilment. The red glare was scarcely out of the west when the wind began to howl and whistle through our rigging with a presage of the tempest that was to come. What was of worse omen still, the long streamer on the main-mast, which hitherto had spread due eastward, now suddenly flapped to south- east, showing that the gale was coming upon us ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... delightful reveries that took possession of my fancy, I got up by times, and, flying to the place of rendezvous, had in a little time the pleasure of seeing Miss Williams approach with a smile on her countenance, which I interpreted into a good omen. Neither was I mistaken in my presage. She presented me with a letter from the idol of my soul, which, after having kissed it devoutly, I opened with the utmost eagerness, and was blessed with her ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... occasions they form in an instant, and from a small speck increase to a prodigious size. This is particularly observable at the summit of Lebanon; and mariners have usually found that the appearance of a cloud on this peak is an infallible presage of a westerly wind, one of the "fathers of rain" in the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... right, Your noble Palamon had been the knight; And conquering Theseus from his side had sent Your generous lord, to guide the Theban government. Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see A Palamon in him, in you an Emily. Already have the Fates your path prepared, 40 And sure presage your future sway declared: When westward, like the sun, you took your way, And from benighted Britain bore the day, Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore, The ready Nereids heard, and swam before, To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian gale But just inspired, and gently swell'd the sail; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... limits. Knowledge has been diffused with a 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 ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... is your zeal; She—died at 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 ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... presage of evil seemed to be forming itself in his mind. He would have given anything to have thought ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... at Cambridge, and now that he was just ready to step into a "living"—right in the line of promotion of which his beauty and intellect tokened a sure presage—he balked. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... therefore, it would not be an omen of ill presage, a dreadful phenomenon in the land, if our great men should take it in their heads ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... the Africans for the ground it 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

... quarter of the year, this is almost always a certain presage of a wedding, when all parties are agreed, and the parson in readiness; and then you must be sure to have money in readiness too, or your intended marriage may happen to prove a miscarriage. But those who are able to pay ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... without first invoking God's blessing upon it; and seizing her by the hand he fell upon his knees and with the voice of one born to be obeyed commanded silence and began his prayer. The dance was immediately suspended, and a solemnity and horror, as if the presage of approaching doom, fell upon the startled assemblage. Above the agonizing sobs of the lately impenitent revellers was heard, as was that of the ancient prophet above the din of the worshippers of Baal, the voice of the man of God in earnest appeals to the throne ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... been accompanied by a presage or prognostic, has been observed by Lord Bacon. "The shepherds of the people should understand the prognostics of state tempests; hollow blasts of wind seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the sea, often precede a storm." Such were the prognostics ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... space of time for a woman's memory? I do not know whether you recall our last meeting? Pardon, I meant to say the last but one, since we met last night. Do you concede that the manner in which we parted then did not presage the manner in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... 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 in Greek 'the ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... take care of; tend'ency; attend' (-ance, -ant); contend'; distend'; extend'; intend' (literally, to stretch to), to purpose, to design; portend' (literally, to stretch forward), to presage, to betoken; pretend' (literally, to stretch forth), to affect, feel; subtend', to extend under; ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... himself is evidently reserved on the subject in his letter to his sister, though he was accustomed to make her his confidant in his ecclesiastical proceedings; he only speaks of his heart having burnt within him in presage of what was to happen. The digging commenced, and in due time two skeletons were discovered, of great size, perfect, and disposed in an orderly way; the head of each, however, separated from the body, and a quantity of blood about. That ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... interview, which no one can read without passion, or think of without delight—that exquisite scene, in which the wife and mother pours out all her tenderness, her joy, her sadness, her pride, her terror, the memory of the past, and the presage of future sorrow, in an irresistible torrent of confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of his impending doom, he replies, that "not the future misery of his countrymen, not that of Hecuba herself, and the royal Priam—not that of all his valiant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... insensibly made her as wicked as herself. The day after the death of the younger not finding her at home, I asked her elder sister what was become of her; but she, instead of answering, affected to weep bitterly; from whence I formed a fatal presage. I pressed her to inform me of what she knew respecting her sister 'Father,' replied she, sobbing, 'I can tell you no more than that my sister put on yesterday her richest dress, with her valuable ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... As in all Malay countries, this bird is the object of curious superstitions. Its raucous cry, which may be faintly characterized as hideous, is said to mark the hours and, in the night-time, to presage death or ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... white-winged gulls swept screaming over our heads, scaring away the gaudy, noisy parrots that had been our feathered companions for so long. The next morning the sun shot up for us, a golden ball of cheering presage, from out the glittering bosom of the Pacific. What a shout we raised! Weeks of toil and fever were forgotten, scars and bruises healed—or were felt no longer—when the glorious heave of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... to the fashion of that age, by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities, refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favorable inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by the augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman power would never recede. [22] During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But though Terminus had resisted the Majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the authority of the emperor Hadrian. [23] The resignation ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... Pericles, observing the pilot of his own galley to be frightened and confused, took his cloak and placed it before his eyes, asking him at the same time if he found any thing alarming, or of evil presage, in what he then did? and upon his answering in the negative: "Where then is the difference," said Pericles, "between this covering and the other, except that something of greater extent than my cloak deprives us of the light of the sun?" Nor can it be doubted that Alexander when, on a like occasion, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... under the command of General Wayne is a happy presage to our military operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio. From the advices which have been forwarded, the advance which he has made must have damped the ardor of the savages and weakened their obstinacy in waging war against the United States. And ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... throughout our country. Such an anticipation was not to be thought delusive, because the opposition made to the Society at its commencement still continued. On the contrary, this very opposition, properly considered, affords the fullest proof of the wisdom of our object, and the fairest presage of ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown



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