"Betoken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tongue of bird or brute, unbroken Silence may brood upon the lifeless plain, Nor any sign, far off or near, betoken ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... yonder comes the powerful King of Day Rejoicing in the East; the lessening cloud, The kindling azure, and the mountains brow Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad; lo, now apparent all He looks in boundless majesty abroad, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... manoeuvred the opposing forces, with advancing here and retreating there, groans when the white men felt the fight too keenly, low whoops to picture an Indian gain, little puffs of the breath to betoken flying bullets. The onlookers saw the battle as it had raged about the tepees. And the flickering lantern, as Squaw Charley moved it in a semicircle, told them that the firing began at daybreak ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... twitching nervously. Under her claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above the ground, and for the moment the cat could ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... apprehension than I ever heretofore have had of lighting on bad wine. Note and observe that this doth argue and portend I know not what of the west and occident of my time, and signifieth that the south and meridian of mine age is past. But what then, my gentle companion? That doth but betoken that I will hereafter drink so much the more. That is not, the devil hale it, the thing that I fear; nor is it there where my shoe pinches. The thing that I doubt most, and have greatest reason to dread and suspect is, that through some ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... drifting to and fro among the elms. White sea-gulls—birds of divination, you might say—a good symbol of the times, for now we plough the ocean. The barren sea! In the Greek poets you may find constant reference to it as that which could not be reaped or sowed. Ulysses, to betoken his madness, took his plough down to the shore and drew furrows in the sand—the sea that even Demeter, great goddess, could not sow nor bring to any fruition. Yet now the ocean is our wheat-field and ships are our barns. The sea-gull should be painted on the village tavern sign ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... door. 'Don't let her in,' he muttered. 'I don't trust her, I don't trust her. Let me die in peace.' Then, as Miss Thankful became conscious of a stir at the front door, and caught the sound of a key turning in the lock, which could only betoken the return of the nurse, he raised himself a little and she saw the wallet hanging out of his dressing gown. 'I have hidden it,' he whispered, with a nervous look toward the door: 'I was afraid she might come and take it from me, so I put it ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... the strong arm of a man whose sun-burned face and flowing beard, the loose robe which he wore, and the silk scarf which surrounded his tarboosh, with the pistol and dagger thrust into a shawl round his waist, seemed to betoken a native of the country; but the kindly eyes were those of an Englishman, as were the murmured words, "Poor lad! Poor lad!" which fell on his ear. His brow was deliciously cool, and his throat less parched; ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... episode of the Lavender Arms, I felt justified in doubting her happiness, and in this I saw an explanation of the mingled sorrow and pride with which Colin Camber regarded her. It might betoken recognition of his own ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... thinking that the love match between Miriam and her husband had not turned out in all respects well, and I fear that he derived from the thought a certain feeling of consolation. "He" was spoken about in a manner that did not betoken unfailing love and perfect confidence. Perhaps Miriam was at this moment thinking that she might have done better with her youth and her money! She was thinking of nothing of the kind. Her mind was one that dwelt ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... started the machinery that led to this royal dictate. He realized soon after his arrival how important a royal visit would be. He got in touch with the right people, and the net result was that on a certain night in December the red canopy and carpet that betoken the royal visit were spread before ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... beings whom he loved, and he only loved them because they were his—a portion of himself; and it was merely himself that he loved through them. In a certain sense, he was a devoted son. His education had rendered him punctilious, to the highest degree, in the observance of all those forms that betoken filial veneration. He always treated his august mother with the most profound reverence. He paid her the most courteous attentions,—opened the doors when she desired to pass, placed footstools for her feet, knelt ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... musical, indeed, so like a voice heard before, that Mrs. Cameron involuntarily went a step nearer to the stranger, and even thought of calling up a servant to light the gas. But that would perhaps be too great a civility, or at least betoken too great a curiosity, and so she forebore, while she began to question Marian of her own and Mrs. Hubbell's antecedents. Both were English, both had worked upon the Isle of Wight, and later in New York, at Madam ——'s; one had married, living now in New London, and the other Stood there as Marian ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... against the counter, and one could observe at a glance that he, at least, had a good opinion of himself. Presently Boer number two entered. He was small in stature, like the other man, but there was a note of uncertainty about him which seemed to betoken that his opinion of himself did not measure up in proportion to that of the other Boer. Number two looked about him a bit, and occasionally directed a furtive glance at number one, who, on the other hand, stolidly regarded the ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... sound of voices, and Lou Chada, his son, stood at the doorway. He still wore his evening clothes, but he no longer looked smart. His glossy black hair was dishevelled, and his handsome, olive face bore a hunted look. Panic was betoken by twitching mouth and fear-bright eyes. He stopped, glaring at ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... entertained nothing but fear of him, built no temples to his honour, offered no sacrifices to him, and designated the most noxious weeds by his name. The quivering, overheated atmosphere of summer was supposed to betoken his presence, for the people were then wont to remark that Loki was sowing his wild oats, and when the sun appeared to be drawing water ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Who is that they follow, [Sidenote: this they] And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken, The Coarse they follow, did with disperate hand, Fore do it owne life; 'twas some Estate.[5] [Sidenote: twas of some[5]] Couch[6] ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... air of health. Her dress was of the fashion of the previous century, plain, but as neat as everything around her—a spotless white apron seeming to bid defiance to the approach of anything that could soil its purity. The countenance of this old woman certainly did not betoken any of the refinement which is the result of education and good company; but it denoted benevolence, a kind nature, and feeling. We were saluted without surprise, and ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever he did in his life, and he greeted them all blithely though briefly, eluding every attempt to entangle him in conversation, and making very straight for the Widow Joyce's house, which was by these same observers considered to betoken a ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... hastened after Juggut Khan, through the darkness, across a dried-out moat and round the corner of a huge stone buttress. There they disappeared inside the wall, and a stone swung round and closed the gap behind the last of them. There was no alarm given, and not a sign or a sound of any kind to betoken that any one had seen them. Inside the walls the city roared like a flood-fed maelstrom, and outside all was darkness and the ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... tangled mass. About his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin. His arms and legs, withered and skinny, betokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn and scars and scratches betoken long years of ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... drawing to its close; over the sandhills yonder the sun was sinking in a great glory of scarlet and purple and gold. The air was warm still, and yet full of those myriad indescribable essences that betoken the falling of the dew; and mingling with, yet without dominating them, was the sweet penetrating odour ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... in 344 B.C. was thought to betoken the success of the expedition undertaken in that year by Timoleon of Corinth against Sicily. "The gods by an extraordinary prodigy announced his success and future greatness: a burning torch appeared in the heavens throughout the night and preceded the fleet of Timoleon ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... of the "butterfly" type, and their pale-coloured muslin gowns, broad hats, and fluttering scarfs made the description appropriate. Jack Pennington was just what he looked like, a college youth on his vacation; and his earnest face seemed to betoken a determination to have the most fun possible before he went back ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... St. Mdard, like the Centula MS., are similar, but betoken an advance in both taste and execution. The figures are still rude and deformed, but the artist shows a laudable desire, an ambition, in fact, to imitate the work of better artists than himself. Nevertheless, the calligraphy and borderwork are the best parts of his performance. In this MS. ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... enough for his needs," said he, nodding to the palmer. "These groans betoken a good degree of pain; though the young fellow is evidently a self-contained sort of nature, and does not let us know all he feels. It promises well, however; keep him in bed and quiet, and within a day or two ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... telephone wires and try to make you listen to their pathetic and scarcely discernible song, and as you sit on the seats at the Tavern, if you happen to have some bright colored object about you, especially red, they will flit to and fro eagerly seeking for the honey-laden flower that red ought to betoken. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... are extensive, readily accessible formations producing several kinds of clay and nearly all the color minerals used in the Pueblo potter's art. Yet at the greatest ruin on the upper Colorado Chiquito (in an arm of the valley of which river A' wat u i itself occurs), where the fallen walls betoken equal advancement in the status of the ancient builders and indicate by their vast extent many times the population of A' wat u i, the potsherds are coarse, irregular in curvature, badly decayed, and exceptionally scarce. In the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... was encamped the tribe of warriors who came from the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy Dams, and the Van Dams,—incontinent hard swearers, as their names betoken. They were terrible looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted gaberdines, of that curious colored cloth called thunder and lightning, and bore as a standard three devil's darning-needles, volant, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... plume was darksome omen ill, Let this defy it with an omen fair, A prophecy to spur you on your quest. My heart says it is better as it is; I joy me that you flung into the sea That purple plume my loving, longing gaze Has often followed in the tournament. Remember, purple doth betoken pain, And white betokens conquest, purity; Look, Kathanal, beloved, in my eyes! I know that you ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... and, above all, in that series of aggressions on the continent which he declared to be outside the treaty and beyond the province of Great Britain.[10] None of the compromises laboriously discussed in the winter of 1802 betoken any desire on the part of either government to retreat from its main position, though it does not follow that either sought to bring about a renewal of the war. Whitworth constantly reported that no formidable armaments were ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... bring fruits to picturesque wayside markets, bearing bamboo poles laden with golden papaya and purple mangosteen, or plaited baskets containing the conglomerate native cuisine. The elastic and gracefully-modelled figures of the Soendanese populace betoken a purer race than that of the steamy Batavian lowlands, where foreign elements deteriorate the native stock. The Hotel Victoria at Soekaboemi consists of detached white buildings round tree-filled courts, erected on the "pavilion system." Every two visitors occupy a tiny bungalow of two bedrooms, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... not a large audience, however, and as I looked round, eager to discover some of the living ideals of Italian loveliness, I was disappointed to find that but few of the Neapolitan ladies possessed any commanding grace or beauty, neither did their dress betoken much refinement of taste. As the theatre is the time and place for the fair sex to shine its brightest, I took this as a convincing proof that my previous strictures on Italian beauty were not unjust or uncharitable. The opera, which chanced to be "Lucia di Lammermoor," ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... when Balaam prophesied of the Star that should betoken the coming of Christ, all the great lords and all the other people of Ind and in the East desired greatly to see the Star of which he spake, and gave gifts to the keepers of the hill of Vaws, and moreover hired them with great rewards, that, if it so were, they saw by day or by ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... was awakened—and what an awakening it was! Not one of those peaceful comings-to that betoken the tranquil mind after a good rest, but a return to consciousness with every warlike tendency in his being aroused to the highest pitch. Jack had passed the ball with considerable momentum on to the mantel-piece, which sent it backward on the rebound to no less a ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... panting in the grasp of fierce disease. She has sent for the king, and together they look upon the suffering one. Full well he knows, that miserable man, what mean those moans and piteous signs of distress, and what they betoken. He gazes on the wan, anguished features of his wife as she bends over her child; his thoughts revert hurriedly to her surpassing beauty when first he saw her—a vision of the murdered Uriah flits before him—the three ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... and not too close together; the lower eyelid should droop, so as to show a fair amount of haw. NOSE—The nose should be large and black, with well developed nostrils. The teeth should be level. EXPRESSION—The expression should betoken benevolence, dignity, and intelligence. NECK—The neck should be lengthy, muscular, and slightly arched, with dewlap developed, and the shoulders broad and sloping, well up at the withers. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF BODY—The chest should be wide and deep, and the back level as far as the ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... representing persons at a distance coincided, within twelve hours, with their deaths, in a larger ratio than the laws of chance allow as possible. If it be so, the Maori might have some ground for his theory that such hallucinations betoken a decease. I do not believe that any such census can enable us to reach an affirmative conclusion which science will accept. In spite of all precautions taken, all warnings before, and 'allowances' made later, collectors of evidence ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... they became productive of beauty and order. As greater sensibility developed itself, emotion began to be expressed; first, probably at an adult period of life, by the sounds belonging to the corresponding feelings in the bodily constitution. Tears and cries betoken mental as well as physical anguish, and laughter denoted a mixed pleasurable feeling either in mind or body. There is a remarkable instance of this transference from the senses to the emotional feelings in the case of what is called sardonic laughter, in which a similar contortion of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... that this manhood is, after all, rather a quality of the spirit than of the body; that it is to be sought rather in the stout heart than in the strong arm; that big words and ready blows may, like a display of bunting, betoken no true loyalty, and be but the gaudy sign to a sorry inn? Dr. Watts, it may be remembered, declared the mind to be the standard of the man. As he was the author of a book on 'The Human Mind,' envious persons may meanly conceive that his statement was ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... man—seemingly a very old man, for he was bent and wrinkled, with thin white hair hanging down upon his shoulders. His face, of a highbred and strongly marked type, emphasised by age, had the hawk-like contour, that is supposed to betoken extreme acquisitiveness. His faded eyes were turned toward a woman, dressed in a homespun frock and a muslin cap, who sat bolt upright, in a straight-backed chair, at the other end of the piazza, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... had wondered—wondered at the multiform changes of each swell as it came in—transformations of tint, of shape, of motion, that seemed to betoken a life infinitely more subtle than the strange cold life of lizards and of fishes,—and sinister, and spectral. Then they all appeared to move in order,—according to one law or impulse;—each had its own voice, ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... thorough "law-work," from the agonizing throes of which the soul was with no brief travail born to newness of life; but the free invitation, the ready and glad acceptance, the prompt enrollment on the Lord's side. Did not these things betoken a superficial piety, springing up like seed in the thin soil of rocky places? It was a question for later years to answer, and perhaps we have not the whole of the answer yet. Certainly the work was not as in the days of Edwards and Brainerd, nor as in the days of Nettleton and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... observe the moon, the observer was astounded to see what he took to be some new animal in this lovely planet. Everybody was excited about the marvellous appearance. Something had occurred up above there which, without doubt, must betoken great changes of some sort. Who could tell but that all the dreadful wars that were then convulsing Europe had not been caused by it? The king, who patronised the sciences, hastened to the observatory to see the sight, and see it he did. There ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... forms In the realms of felicity, By Jove, to move storms, Fraught with force—electricity, They serve to betoken What mortals may tell; The weather is broken: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... been by England seen. All duly placed the telescope, And keen observers full of hope, An animal entirely new, In that fair planet, came to view. Abroad and fast the wonder flew;— Some change had taken place on high, Presaging earthly changes nigh; Perhaps, indeed, it might betoken The wars[30] that had already broken Out wildly o'er the Continent. The king to see the wonder went: (As patron of the sciences, No right to go more plain than his.) To him, in turn, distinct and clear, This lunar monster did appear.— A mouse, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... of tradition, Ginsburg—as a successful detective—should have been either an Irishman or of Irish descent. But in the second biggest police force in the world, wherein twenty per cent of the personnel wear names that betoken Jewish, Slavic or Latin forebears, tradition these times suffers ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... memory ever since. "You Americans," he said, "wear too much expression on your faces. You are living like an army with all its reserves engaged in action. The duller countenances of the British population betoken a better scheme of life. They suggest stores of reserved nervous force to fall back upon, if any occasion should arise that requires it. This inexcitability, this presence at all times of power not used, I regard," continued ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... lustrously black, and possessing, in the midst of haggardness, a radiance inexpressibly serene and potent, and something in the rest of his features, which it would be in vain to describe, but which served to betoken a mind of the highest order, were essential ingredients in the portrait. This, in the effects which immediately flowed from it, I count among the most extraordinary incidents of my life. This face, seen for a moment, continued for hours to occupy my fancy, to the exclusion ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... faith in the vast creative mind that bade us be; mysterious and strange as are its manifestations, harsh and indifferent as they sometimes seem, yet at worst they seem to betoken a loving purpose thwarted by some swift cross-current, like a mighty river contending with little obstacles. Why the obstacles should be there, and how they came into being, is dark indeed. But there is enough to make us believe in a Will ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was to tell me, that he could not leave the town without looking in upon me to bid me farewell; more betoken, as he intended sending in his son Mungo by the carrier for trial, to see how the line of life pleased him, and how I thought he would answer—a thing which I was glad came from his side of the house, being likely to be in the upshot the best for ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... you would make of such an opportunity?" said Harpax, scornfully. "No, no, comrades. If this outlandish animal indeed escape us, he must at least leave his fleece behind. See you not the gleams from his headpiece and his cuirass? I presume these betoken substantial silver, though it may be of the thinnest. There lies the silver mine I spoke of, ready to enrich the dexterous ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... assurance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... did not betoken a character that, if the opportunity had offered, could not have found amusement and even instruction. His countenance, radiant with health and the lustre of innocence, was at the same time thoughtful and resolute. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... evening together. They made each other mutually acquainted with the evil omens and the impressions which they had occasioned, and bantered one another a little thereon; but decided positively that such fore-tokenings for the most part—betoken nothing at all. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... peculiarities. They, if ever any were, are pieces for effect, of great boldness of plot, still more fantastic than romantic; even though Gozzi was the first among the comic poets of Italy to show any true feeling for honour and love. The execution does not betoken either care or skill, but is sketchily dashed off. With all his whimsical boldness he is still quite a popular writer; the principal motives are detailed with the most unambiguous perspicuity, all the touches are coarse and vigorous: he says, he knows well ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the impression—and hers was a face that demanded study, Joan found herself looking at it again and again—of having come through great battles against fate. And if she had not won—the tell-tale lines of discontent that hung about her mouth did not betoken victory—at least she had not been absolutely defeated. She had carried the banner of her convictions through thick ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... being fitted for the torrid zone, some for the temperate, some for the frigid. And he establishes that the fuci of these early rocks speak of a torrid climate, although they may be found in what are now temperate regions; he also states that those of the higher rocks betoken, as we ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... Flinders Lane would astonish some of the City Croesuses. But if a visitor really wishes to form an idea of the wealth concentrated in Melbourne, he cannot do better than spend a week walking round the suburbs, and noting the thousands of large roomy houses and well-kept gardens which betoken incomes of over two thousand a year, and the tens of thousands of villas whose occupants must be spending from a thousand to fifteen hundred a year. All these suburbs are connected with the town by railway. A quarter of an hour will bring ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... excitable, and variable disposition, and much diversity of character—now blowing hot, now cold—along with intense love and hate, gushing, glowing emotions, brilliancy, and variety of talent. So look out for ringlets; they betoken April weather—treat them gently, lovingly, and you will have the brightest, clearest sunshine, and the sweetest, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... interior changes—whatever else they might betoken—marked the triumph of one person—the Baroness Lehzen. The pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. Discreet and victorious, she remained in possession of the field. More closely than ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... was now grown gray; her cheeks were wan; her step was feeble. She seldom went from home, save to the church, and to the neighboring cottages. She never mentioned her sons' names; never allowed a word to pass her lips, which might betoken that she thought of them; but every day, when the tide was high, and red flag on the sandhills showed that there was water over the bar, she paced the terrace-walk, and devoured with greedy eyes the sea beyond in search of the sail which never came. The stately ships went ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Mount of Venus crosses the line of life, and forks into the line of death! a great sun in the plain of Mars—a cloud in the vale of Mercury! and where the lines of life and death meet, a sanguine spot and a great star! I cannot read it! In a boy's hand, that would betoken a hero's career, and a glorious death in a victorious field; but in a girl's! What can it mean when found in a girl's? Stop!" And she peered into the hand for a few moments in deep silence, and then her face lighted up, her eyes burned intensely, and once more ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and envy. Joseph saw another sweven and told to his father and brethren: Methought I saw in my sleep the sun, the moon, and eleven stars worship me. Which when his father and his brethren had heard, the father blamed him, and said: What may betoken this dream that thou sawest? Trowest thou that I, thy mother and thy brethren, shall worship thee upon the earth? His ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... an American child must perforce include the history and geography of the British Isles. For a Briton, however, knowledge of America is rather one of the highly desirable things than one of the absolutely indispensable. It would certainly betoken a certain want of humanity in me if I failed to take any interest in the welfare of my sons and daughters who had emigrated to New Zealand; but it is evident that for the conduct of my own life a knowledge of their doings is not so essential for me as a knowledge of what ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... earliest phase the Black Mass seemed to betoken this redemption of Eve, so long accursed of Christianity. The woman fills every office in the Sabbath. She is priestess, altar, pledge of holy communion, by turns. Nay, at bottom, is she not herself ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the town of Mansoul with haste to the green trees, and to the meadows, to gather boughs and flowers, therewith to strew the streets against their Prince, the Son of Shaddai, should come; they also made garlands, and other fine works, to betoken how joyful they were, and should be to receive their Emmanuel into Mansoul; yea, they strewed the street quite from Eye-gate to the castle-gate, the place where the Prince should be. They also prepared for his coming what music ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... skeletons, partly in military garb, keep guard over the tablet which records the virtues of a departed hero. He was probably a soldier, but the figure of a lictor on the left with his fasces of axe and rods seems to betoken some civil employment. In ancient times the lictors walked in advance of the magistrates, and executed ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... to be already numbered. Ominous signs are in the air, that betoken its future. Not only signs, but redoubtable forces are at ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... thee, my Has-se?" he asked. "Thy looks betoken a worriment of some kind. May I not share it ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... "There, sir. Retribution comes at last, leaden-footed but iron-handed. A long catalogue of sins is visited on you to-day, and not only on your shrinking body, but on your conscience too, if you have one left. Let those red marks betoken that your reign is ended. Liar and tempter, you have led boys into the sins which you then meanly deny! And now, you boys, there in that coward, who cannot even endure his richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... lacerated and quivering flesh, he said—"Now hast thou deigned to comfort and visit me, O pitying Mother; and, even as by these austerities against this miserable body, is the spirit relieved and soothed, so dost thou typify and betoken that men's bodies are not to be spared by those who seek to save souls and bring the nations of the ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... other, and he showed that when he made nothing of the ram. The ram you saw betokens the Desires of Men. The hag is Old Age, and her gown withered up your four comrades. And the two wells you drank the two draughts out of," he said, "betoken Lying and Truth; for it is sweet to people to be telling a lie, but it is bitter in the end. And as to myself," he said, "Cuanna from Innistuil is my name, and it is not here I am used to be, but I took a very great ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... wave has left them as its monument,—if they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push their branches over the high board-fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk,— if they have a little grass in the side-streets, enough to betoken quiet without proclaiming decay,—I think I could go to pieces, after my life's work were done, in one of those tranquil places, as sweetly as in any cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. I visit such spots always with infinite delight. My friend, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of literary independence, reinforced no doubt by the reaction of public opinion against Byron, and influenced also by his friend Immermann's judgment in particular,[255] was no longer willing to be considered a disciple of the English master. Several unmistakable references betoken this change of heart, for example, the following from his "Nordsee" III (1826): "Wahrlich in diesem Augenblicke fuehle ich sehr lebhaft, dass ich kein Nachbeter, oder, besser gesagt, Nachfrevler, Byrons bin, mein Blut ist nicht so spleenisch schwarz, meine Bitterkeit koemmt nur aus ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... plough and hoe Yields me good hope—but more the fostering sun Of Sense divine that quickens me within, Whose rays those many minor stars outshone— That it is destined in high heaven to show Mercy, and grant my prayer; so I may win The end Thy gifts betoken, enter in The realm reserved for me from earliest time. Christ prayed but 'If it may be,' knowing well He might not shun that cup so terrible: His angel answered, that the law sublime Ordained his death. I prayed not thus, and mine— ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... strange and solitary way, Rove, as the beldam does her will betoken, Nor climbing, nor descending hill, survey Each other's face, nor any word is spoken. But when the sun upon the middle day Had turned his back, their silence first was broken By cavalier encountered in their way: What followed ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... eager as a trader, than prudent as one who should know the value of credit;" he said, making, at the same time, a lofty gesture to betoken indulgence for so venial an error. "We must overlook the mistake, Captain Ludlow; since, as the young man truly observes in his defence, gain acquired in honest traffic is a commendable and wholesome pursuit. One who appears ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... think of them in relations analogous to the human. You can detect the blood kinship, for example, between prescribe and manuscript, and know that the strain of fact or fie or fy in a word is pretty sure to betoken making or doing. You know that there are elaborate intermarriages among words. You recognize phonograph, for example, as a married couple; you even have confidential word as to the dowry brought by each of the contracting parties ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of bed with a haste that made me light-headed for a moment, "help me into my clothes, and be quick about it; I think I hear sounds below that betoken ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... ecstasy, in which he had lost all the use of his senses, and in which all the powers of his soul were suspended. Once they saw him, during the night, raised from the ground, and his arms extended in the shape of a cross, surrounded by a luminous cloud, as if to betoken the Divine light which filled his mind. St. Bonaventure says that they had efficient proof that God at such times revealed to him some of the great secrets of His wisdom; but His faithful Servant only made such parts of them known as were for the glory of his ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... was not difficult of access. He sat in a deep chair in the hall, and round him were all manner of strange things whose shape and name I knew not, but little was there save old rolls of parchment to betoken a Churchman's dwelling. A great table held bottles of many shapes of glass and earthenware, and optic glasses and tools lay intermingled. I caught the gleam of much bright steel on settle and shelf—chain-mail, targe, dagger, helmet, and sword. A great warrior's ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... display and pomp of the old-time princely dignitaries of the Church. But no repairs were ever made, no care was taken of anything, the hangings were frayed and ragged, and dust preyed on the furniture, amidst an unconcern which seemed to betoken some proud resolve to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... forth from the window looking, Attentive mark the signs of yonder heaven; Judge if aright I read what they betoken: Thine all the loss, if vain the warning given. The morn, the ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... home. And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women from the bay below—barefooted, straight as willow wands, with burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and coral beads hung ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and were the S. P. R. nothing but a weather-bureau for catching sporadic apparitions, etc., in their freshness, I am disposed to think its function indispensable in the scientific organism. If any one of my readers, spurred by the thought that so much smoke must needs betoken fire, has ever looked into the existing literature of the supernatural for proof, he will know what I mean. This literature is enormous, but it is practically worthless for evidential purposes. Facts enough are cited, indeed; but the records of them are so fallible and imperfect that at most they ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... sins you towld me yisterday that youd bin an gaged yerself into the fome, my mind has bin Onaisy. Ye no, darlint, from the our ye cald me yer own Susan—in clare county More betoken—iv bin onaisy about ye yer so bowld an Rekles, but this is wurst ov all. Iv no noshun o them sandlewood skooners. The Haf ov thems pirits an The other hafs no beter. Whats wus is that my owld master was drownded ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... nature is open to many objections, even if it were only a question of inorganised matter. Simple physics already betoken the insufficiency of a purely mechanic conception. The stream of phenomena flows in an irreversible direction and obeys a determined rhythm. "If I wish to prepare myself a glass of sugar and water, I may do what I like, but I must wait for my sugar to melt." ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... carelessly slung over the rail; we see a hammock hung in one corner; and some clothes drying on lines in another. A couple of colley dogs come barking to meet us from their kennels on a shady side; and various other slight details betoken that we are ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... sat on opposite sides of the dean's table, regarding each other attentively. Johnsen was pale and had something nervous about his manner, which seemed to betoken a wish to bring the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... strange impersonality betoken? Why are these peoples so different from us in this most fundamental of considerations to any people, the consideration of themselves? The answer leads to ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... I pray is this letter suspended from her dear hand? does it mean to betoken some new calamity?—What, has the unhappy woman written injunctions to me, making some request about[30] my bridal bed and my children? Be of good courage, hapless one; for no woman exists, who shall enter the bed and the house of Theseus. But lo! the impressions of the golden seal[31] of ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... or a morning grey, Doth betoken a bonnie day; In an evening grey and a morning red, Put on your hat, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... conceive a more enjoyable climate, and the numerous productions of which the valley can boast betoken ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... by staying. A last month may be pleasant enough, or even a last week, but a last day is purgatory. The melancholy of the occasion cannot be shaken off. It is only the prolonged wail of a last farewell.' All this was said in the old man's ordinary voice, but it seemed to betoken if not feeling itself, a recognition of feeling which ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... Directory intended to claim the Channel Islands, the north of Newfoundland, and all our conquests in the East Indies made since 1754, besides the restitution of Gibraltar to Spain.[91] Nor did these hopes seem extravagant. The financial crisis in London and the mutiny at the Nore seemed to betoken the exhaustion of England, while the victories of Bonaparte raised the power of France to heights never known before. Before the victory of Duncan over the Dutch at Camperdown (October 11th, 1797), Britain seemed to have lost her ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... scouring the coast of Armenia, had captured not a few boys, to purchase of them some of these youngsters, supposing them to be Turks; among whom, albeit most shewed as mere shepherd boys, there was one, Teodoro, by name, whose less rustic mien seemed to betoken gentle blood. Who, though still treated as a slave, was suffered to grow up in the house with Messer Amerigo's children, and, nature getting the better of circumstance, bore himself with such grace and dignity ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of Shakspeare. Speaking of Milton's not allowing his daughters to learn the meaning of the Greek they read to him, or at least not exerting himself to teach it to them, he admitted that this seemed to betoken a low estimate of the condition and purposes of the female mind. 'And yet, where could he have picked up such notions,' said Mr. W., 'in a country which had seen so many women of learning and talent? But his opinion of what women ought ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... first eyed the strangers askance. Satisfied, however, at length, that he was a white man, and perhaps a person of more importance than his costume might betoken, he set diligently to work to boil the kettle and fry some buffalo meat; the old hunter, who had taken a seat on a pile of wood near the fire, looking ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... distinctly saw that sharp foxy expression cross Lucia's face, which from long knowledge of her he knew to betoken that she had thought of some new plan. But she did not choose to reveal it and re-erected ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... did not wish to continue the subject. The farmer's own accent did not greatly betoken acquaintance with schools ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... absolutely nothing on her examination, Miss Wyatt, and what little she has recited during the year does not betoken any unusual ability. I am sorry, but it would ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... in favour of relief, at the time of the Irish and English Emancipation Acts, were couched in terms which betoken a marked departure from the bitterness of tone which had long been customary. When the French Revolution broke out, the reaction became, for an interval, in many quarters far stronger still. In the presence of anti-Christian principles exultingly ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... grain, and a tender, oily smoothness; a pleasant carnation color, and clear white suet, betoken good meat; yellow suet is ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... black short-tailed sow; then supping upon parsnips, nuts, and apples; catching up an apple suspended by a string with the mouth alone, and the same by an apple in a tub of water: each throwing a nut into the fire; and those that burn bright, betoken prosperity to the owners through the following year, but those that burn black and crackle, denote misfortune. On the following morning the stones are searched for in the fire, and if any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw them in."[615] According to Sir John Rhys, the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... near When, Lord, Thou wilt be here The signs whereof Thou'st spoken Thine advent should betoken, We've seen them oft fulfilling In number ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... and English reader, comment on the practices recorded above is quite unnecessary, except the observation that they betoken a callousness of feeling and a depth of cruelty and destructiveness to which, so far as known, no savages ever yet have sunk. As an exhibit of the groveling pusillanimity of the human soul, the roccolo of northern Italy ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... The smile indeed had been grim, but it had been intended to betoken outward civility. Now there came a frown upon her brow which was more grim and by no means civil. "The truth is that at such a time one who ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... male human being is ever too old for sentiment, provided that it strikes him at the right time and in the right way! What did that bunch of wild flowers betoken? Knowledge, first; then, sympathy; and finally, encouragement, at least. Of course she had seen my accident, from above; of course she had sent the harvest laborer to aid me home. It was quite natural she should imagine some special romantic interest in the lonely ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... mischief which could not fail to add to the uneasiness of the responsible servants of the Crown. A general election stirred up other noxious ingredients, and during the spring of the year everything seemed to betoken a coming convulsion. At this time the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... a little preparation to herald the catastrophe. Poor Carey, an honest, weak tool of dishonest speculators and birds of prey in the shape of needy, unscrupulous relations, when the appalling tidings reached him which could only betoken immediate wreck, did all that there was left to him to do. He called a meeting of the Redcross shareholders. These were the leading professional men in the town who had invested their savings, and a small proportion of the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph. Rosedale, a day or two after their chance meeting, had called to enquire if she had recovered from her indisposition; but since then she had not seen or heard from him, and his absence seemed to betoken a struggle to keep away, to let her pass once more out of his life. If this were the case, his return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental dalliance. He was too busy, too practical, and ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... by such different anticipations, the little group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every step,—for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the fiery Selwyn spirit than ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry |
