"Harbinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Harbinger of Spring last week. A violet? No. A swallow? No. A bud? No. Ah! no; put up your encyclopedia of Spring information and I'll tell you. It was the annual boy with his shoes off for the first time since the warm weather. ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... soon drying in the warm sun, which was now smiling serenely upon them. The mock suns, or "sun dogs," as they were commonly called, all disappeared with the storm of which they seemed to have been the harbinger. Beautiful as had been their appearance, the boys all agreed that if their coming was to be so speedily followed by such a storm they would gladly dispense with them in the future; nor did they see them again ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... people with a sudden bound. Almost the first sight they caught of him was in the flashes of his guns, and the blaze of his camp-fires, those wintry days and nights in front of Donelson. From that hour until the closing triumph at Appomattox he was the leader whose name was the harbinger of victory. From the final sheath of his sword until the tragedy on Mount McGregor he was the chief citizen of the republic and the great central figure of the world. [Applause.] The story of his life savors more of romance than reality. It is more like a fabled tale of ancient days ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... rate, as I told you but now, each is a harbinger of the Virgin. As to Joseph persecuted and sold, a slave raised almost to the throne, the merciful protector of his people, he is the prototype ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... was in keeping with the surroundings, since the day was neither clear nor dull, but of the grey tint which may be noted in uniforms of garrison soldiers which have seen long service. To complete the picture, a cock, the recognised harbinger of atmospheric mutations, was present; and, in spite of the fact that a certain connection with affairs of gallantry had led to his having had his head pecked bare by other cocks, he flapped a pair of wings—appendages as bare ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... cock-house at last" (deafening cheers) "and we must make our concert a stunner. It must go with a bang from start to finish. It must lick every other fag's concert that ever was, and 'be the bright harbinger of—' What is the ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... said. "Oh, Lance, how I dread the sight of those yellow envelopes; they always fill me with horror; they always seem to be the harbinger of bad news." ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... ourselves, find the same regard for self pervades the rest, and that there is no voluntary attendance—then the sight of the expiring wretch, in his last effort, turning his head over the side of his hammock, and throwing off the dreadful black vomit, harbinger of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fast. On a spring or summer evening you may hear its plaintive hoot among the apple-blossoms of an orchard, or the sheaves of a cornfield. Curiously enough, this simple sound earned the little bird the name of being the harbinger of death, and peasants believed that whenever its cry was heard where sickness was in the family, the ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... fire, in full career, Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier, The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear, And hurrying as to havoc near, The cohorts' eagles flew. In one dark torrent, broad and strong, The advancing onset roll'd along, Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, Peal'd ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... encounter That fierce harbinger of gloom— Fain to dare the spells of magic, Fain to foil the wrath of doom. Hark! the solitary raven Croaks a note of death and pain, And a human call defiant ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... this territory, there was organized a "Conference of the Lutheran pastors of the Metropolitan District for the discussion of all questions of doctrine and practice to the end of effecting unity." This, too, is a harbinger of an approaching ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... mention. About half an hour before dawn one morning, the cook aroused the camp with the report that the herd was missing. The beeves had been bedded within two hundred yards of the wagon, and the last watch usually hailed the rekindling of the cook's fire as the first harbinger of day. But on this occasion the absence of the usual salutations from the bed-ground aroused Parent's suspicion. He rushed into camp, and laboring under the impression that the cattle had stampeded, trampled over our beds, yelling at the top of his lungs. Aroused in ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... chase, pursuing something undefinable which she longed to obtain, that she might be for ever satisfied and her measure of happiness complete. A calm to her was like a summer day in winter-time, the harbinger ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... this world has yet ever known. The old adage 'It is always darkest just before dawn,' is beautifully applicable to the present state of the world. So I take courage and launch my book out upon the tempestuous sea of humanity, trusting that it may be welcomed as the harbinger of a better and happier era. I am sure that it bears to the world the olive ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... praise! for the Night is past and sweet Morning reddens in the east, ... another Day is born,—a day in which to win God's grace and pardon,—another wonder of Light, Movement, Creation, Beauty, Love! Awake, awake! Be glad and grateful for the present joy of life,—this life, dear harbinger of life to come! open your eyes, ye drowsy mortals, to the divine blue of the beneficent sky, the golden beams of the sun, the color of flowers, the foliage of trees, the flash of sparkling waters!— open your ears to the singing of birds, the whispering of winds, the gay ripple of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Michaelmas" and "Very-Merit"; but under the heading of "Degrees," although by a slight exercise of the imagination we can picture to ourselves "a quater master," "a general to galeries," or even a "vessel captain," we are entirely nonplussed by "a harbinger" and "a parapet." ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... before eight o'clock. All was clean and bright, waiting for me. Papa and the servants were well, and all received me with an affection that should have consoled. The dogs seemed in strange ecstasy. I am certain that they regarded me as the harbinger of others. The dumb creatures thought that as I was returned, those who had been so long absent were not far behind.... I felt that the house was all silent, the rooms were all empty. I remembered where the three were laid—in what narrow, dark dwellings—never more to reappear ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... replied, "the cessation of your pains is a sure harbinger of death. Already has mortification set in, and the best surgeon in ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... more essential than the mosquito net under which I slept every night for nearly four months. Insects are the bane of Africa. The mosquito carries malaria, and the tsetse fly is the harbinger of that most terrible of diseases, sleeping sickness. Judging from personal experience nearly every conceivable kind of biting bug infests the Congo. One of the most tenacious and troublesome of the little visitors is the jigger, ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... morning, was the youngest daughter of Hyperion and Theia, or, according to some, of Titan and Terra. Orpheus calls her the harbinger of Titan, for she is the personification of that light which precedes the appearance of the sun. The poets describe this goddess as rising out of the ocean in a saffron robe, seated in a flame-colored car, drawn by two or four horses, expanding with her rosy fingers the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... arise, an artful prodigy, who with approval and disapproval could strain and constrain all the past, until it became for him a bridge, a harbinger, a herald, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... present state than I could have been as a man. I shall always be the friend of men, and keep near their dwellings. I shall ever be happy and contented; and although I could not gratify your wishes as a warrior, it will be my daily aim to make you amends for it as a harbinger of peace and joy. I will cheer you by my songs, and strive to inspire in others the joy and lightsomeness of heart I feel in my present state. This will be some compensation to you for the loss of glory you expected. I am now free from the cares and pains of human ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... migrated from Damascus to Gaza. Opulent and zealous, he devoted himself henceforth to preaching the Messiah, living and dying his apostle and prophet—no other in short than the Elijah who was to be the Messiah's harbinger. Nor did he fail to work miracles in proof of his mission. Merely on reading a man's name, he would recount his life, defaults and sins, and impose just correction and penance. Evil-doers shunned ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... arrange our camp and set the tents up, down poured the furious harbinger of the Masika season in torrents sufficient to damp the ardor and newborn love for East Africa I had lately manifested. However, despite rain, we worked on until our camp was finished and the property was safely stored from weather and thieves, and we could regard with resignation ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... forming the groundwork of one of the ballads which I have made the harbinger of doom to the house of Rookwood, is ascribed, by popular superstition, to a family resident in Sussex; upon whose estate the fatal tree—a gigantic lime, with mighty arms and huge girth of trunk, as described in the song—is still carefully preserved. Cuckfield Place, to which this singular ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... father did not answer; he was greeting a new-comer, a tall, fine-looking young man, with dark hair and a fair moustache, between whom and himself there was no relationship, yet a certain negative resemblance. Claud Fresnay, Viscount Harbinger, was indeed also a little of what is called the 'Norman' type—having a certain firm regularity of feature, and a slight aquilinity of nose high up on the bridge—but that which in the elder man seemed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and foxes great with young, And wolves from far Lanuvian hill, Give clamorous tongue: Across the roadway dart the snake, Frightening, like arrow loosed from string, The horses. I, for friendship's sake, Watching each wing, Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh, The harbinger of tempest flies, Will call the raven, croaking harsh, From eastern skies. Farewell!—and wheresoe'er you go, My Galatea, think of me: Let lefthand pie and roving crow Still leave you free. But mark ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... the activities and output of his plant. And when college and university days are over, where does the young professional man turn his eyes? To the West. Westward, with the sun, he travels; its fiery course is an invitation to and a harbinger of his ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... beauties die; But you fair star! as first created shine, In never fading immortality! Like vice, from virtue's glance, yon clouds retire, Before the smile of one benignant ray, Sleepless and sad, my soul would fain aspire, Promethean like, to snatch ethereal fire, And draw relief from thee! bright harbinger of day! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... moment was satisfaction at the sudden appearance of Ranger's white head, the sure harbinger of his master and Alick, and she sprang up to meet them in the shrubbery path—all her morbid shyness at the sight of a fresh face passing away when her hand was within Alick's arm. When they came ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... writers, who have attempted to use the subject for romantic ends, have uniformly taken the historical view, and sought to extract their pathos from the effect of the delusion on innocent persons. The historical view is that of intelligent criticism; but Hawthorne's effort was the harbinger and token of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... her call, the real bird, from a neighbouring tree (for these meadows are dotted with timber like a park), began to echo my lovely little girl, 'cuckoo! cuckoo!' I have a prejudice very unpastoral and unpoetical (but I cannot help it, I have many such) against this 'harbinger of spring.' His note is so monotonous, so melancholy; and then the boys mimic him; one hears 'cuckoo! cuckoo!' in dirty streets, amongst smoky houses, and the bird is hated for faults not his own. But prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... he awoke with a splitting headache, the harbinger of an attack of fever, and was obliged to inform the head clerk, by means of a note, of his inability to attend office. An answer was brought by Gyanendra to the effect that three days' leave of absence was granted, but that his work must be carried on by some other clerk. He was, therefore, ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... momentary gratification of flattery and admiration were sighed for. So irksome was the monotony and so uncongenial the role forced upon them by disguise, they hailed with joy the least circumstance that might be the harbinger of a change. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... hooker with her new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don't she? Lord, but she needs painting." Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward. "The H-A-R-B-I—oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course—the Harbinger. How long's she been down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? Well, she ought to—by the looks of her she needs a good early ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... ground; broods of young blue-coats are again seen drifting from stake to stake or from mullen-stalk to mullen-stalk about the fields in summer, and our April air will doubtless again be warmed and thrilled by this lovely harbinger of spring. — ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... not—through the night That long has reigned with tyrant sway, E'en now I see the opening light, The harbinger of coming day; To Heaven I now direct my prayer— O God of love, forsake me not! Grant that my waywardness may ne'er ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... to the eye by its delicate fringe-like bunches of white flowers. Even the touch of this shrub is poisonous, and produces violent swelling. The arbor judae is abundant in every wood, and its bright and delicate pink is the earliest harbinger of the American spring. Azalias, white, yellow, and pink; kalmias of every variety, the too sweet magnolia, and the stately rhododendron, all grow in wild abundance there. The plant known in England as the Virginian creeper, is often seen climbing to the top of ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, as Death's harbinger, the names of those whose death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were already waiting at the prison's gate to drive them ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... was produced on John. There was something in the face of Jesus that almost overpowered the fearless preacher of the desert. John had been waiting and watching for the Coming One, whose herald and harbinger he was. One day he came and asked to be baptized. John had never before hesitated to administer the rite to any one who stood before him; for in every one he saw a sinner needing repentance and remission ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Deo salutari meo. The souls we have wounded are in unison with us, and with themselves, only in God.... And the sweet Christian symbolism invited him with its most enticing images: the Shades of Paradise; the Fountain of Living Water; the Repose in the Lord God; the green Branch of the Dove, harbinger of peace.... But the passions still resisted. "To-morrow! Wait a little yet! Shall we be no more with you, for ever? Non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum?..." What a dismal sound in these syllables, and how terrifying for a timid soul! They fell, heavy as ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... still remained. The mate quickly opened it, and took out the tools likely to prove most useful, with an ample supply of nails. Scarcely had they been transferred to the boat, when Alice, who had been the harbinger of good tidings, exclaimed, "See! see that large fish!" Walter seized one of the harpoons, and handed it to the mate, The fish was swimming round close to the raft; the harpoon flew from the grasp of ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sorrow is the harbinger of joy. Mortal throes of anguish forward the birth of immortal being; but divine ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... man's lips, with smiles apart, Bespoke the gladness of his heart. And in his arms he took the boy The harbinger of future joy; Delighted that indulgent Heaven To his fond hopes this pledge had given, It seemed as if, to bless his reign, Irij had come ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... return to their own country another way, we may presume that they were originally directed by some similar communication to undertake the journey. It is probable that they did not belong to the stock of Abraham; and if so, their visit to the babe at Bethlehem may be recognised as the harbinger of the union of Jews and Gentiles under the new economy. The presence of these Orientals in Jerusalem attracted the notice of the watchful and jealous tyrant who then occupied the throne of Judea. Their story filled him with alarm; and his subjects anticipated some tremendous ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... glorious are the days of youth; happy the moments of the LOVER, mingled with smiles and tears of his devoted, and long to be remembered are the achievements which he gains with a palpitating heart and a trembling hand. A bright and lovely dawn, the harbinger of a fair and prosperous day, had arisen over the beautiful little village of Cumming, which is surrounded by the most romantic scenery in the Cherokee country. Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the the thick forest, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... is easily recognized; and, besides, I was following you. At Sevres your postilion told mine that he had brought you here. Will you permit me to act as your harbinger? I will write as soon as I ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... was but the harbinger of new woes for war-stricken Europe. England, being essentially a maritime power, could render Frederic but little assistance in troops; but the cabinet of St. James was lavish in voting money. Encouraged by the vigor Frederic had shown, the British ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... man to let the grass grow under his feet, and he had set off that morning with his letter of introduction to seek Sir Percevall Hart, the Queen's knight harbinger. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... April, some of them climbing over the icebergs to the shore found much open sea. They also saw a small bird diving in the water, and looked upon it as a halcyon and harbinger of better fortunes. The open weather continuing, they began to hanker for the fatherland. So they brought the matter, "not mutinously but modestly and reasonably, before William Barendz; that he might suggest it to Heemskerk, for they were all willing to submit ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Western Port. Adventure with a Snake. Black Swans. Cape Patterson. Deep Soundings. Revisit King and Hunter Islands. Fire. Circular Head. Gales of Wind. Reid's Rocks. Sea Elephant Rock. Wild Dogs. Navarin and Harbinger Reefs. Arrive at Port Phillip. Sail for Sydney. Pigeon ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... to think at last that it must be near dawn, and turned our eyes eastward, in the expectation of seeing the pale red and yellow streaks which usher in the rich glow, the harbinger of the rising sun. That was my idea, not friend Obed's. He remarked, "Daylight will soon be on, I guess, and it is time we were back at camp to get some breakfast, before we begin our trudge over the mountains, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... the morning, and harbinger of the rising sun: whom poets and artists represent as drawn by white horses in a rose-colored chariot, unfolding with her rosy fingers the portals of the East, pouring reviving dew upon the earth, and ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... Sad harbinger of things to harrow, Another came, ah! soon a day, To tell him his dear winsome marrow From this sad world had passed away. No more for him those eyes so merry, That were to him so sweet to see! No more those ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... being this difference, however, that the art of the latter considered as art is wholly inferior. Now we know enough about the soul of the Australian native, thanks largely to the penetrating interpretations of Sir Baldwin Spencer, to greet and honour in him the potential lord of the universe, the harbinger of the scientific control of nature. It is more than half the battle to have willed the victory; and the picture-charm as a piece of moral apparatus is therefore worthy of our deepest respect. The chariot of progress, of which the will of man is the driver, is drawn by two steeds, namely, Imagination ...
— Progress and History • Various
... to the murmurings of his own element. The Tramontana, as usual, had driven all perceptible vapor from the atmosphere, and the vault of heaven, in its cerulean blue, and spangled with thousands of stars, stretched itself above him, a glorious harbinger for the future to one who died in hope. The care of Ghita and the attendants had collected around the spot so many little comforts, as to give it the air of a room suddenly divested of sides and ceiling, but habitable and useful. Winchester, fatigued with his day's work, and mindful of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... last was something that might well be discovered upon inquiry to be an answer to her prayer. This capuchin who had stared at me from the courtyard became at once to her mind—so ill-balanced upon such matters—a supernatural visitant, harbinger, as it were, of ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... Uncle Tom's Cabin. We have marked the rapid progress of its circulation from circle to circle, and from country to country, with feelings of thrilling interest; for we trust, by the divine blessing upon the softening influence and Christian sentiments it breathes, it will be made the harbinger of a better and brighter day for the happiness and the harmony of the human family. The facilities for international intercourse which we now possess, while they rapidly tend to remove those absurd jealousies which have so long existed between the nations of the ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... is being sought who can bear a weight of such magnitude, and can succeed a king so great. Fame, the harbinger of truth, destines the illustrious Numa for the sovereign power. He does not deem it sufficient to be acquainted with the ceremonials of the Sabine nation; in his expansive mind he conceives greater views, and inquires into the nature of things. 'Twas ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... deep tone of the Castle death-bell came swelling across the river from the other side. In an instant I knew it was the harbinger of death—of the Princess Charlotte? I was right—she ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... from the shrine Of Poesy's fair temple, brings a wreath Which fame and gratitude alike entwine, Around a name that charms the monster Death, And bids him pause!—Amidst despairing life BIRKBECK's the harbinger of hope and health; When sordid affluence was with man at strife, He boldly stripp'd the veil, and show'd the wealth To aged ignorance, and ardent youth, Of cultured minds—the freedom of the soul! The sun of science, and the light of truth, The ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... of Hawthornden, a Scotchman, born in 1585, may almost be looked upon as the harbinger of a fresh outburst of word-music. No doubt all the great poets have now and then broken forth in lyrical jubilation. Ponderous Ben Jonson himself, when he takes to song, will sing in the joy of the very sound; but great men have always so much graver work to do, that they comparatively ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair, Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life, And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey, So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides. The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note, Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow. Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale, To the ends of the earth—and comes back to me. Eager and greedy, The lone ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... on: when, like many of his respectable brethren, he hailed it at first as the harbinger of national reformation and prosperity. But he had soon reason to find that he had been deceived. However, in the fervour of the moment, and upon the suppression of the monastic and other public libraries, he received a very wide and unqualified ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... happiness as it would have done had he followed her advice. Whenever she lost a child, she beheld a bright flame shining before her, and would immediately cry out, "God save my children!" well knowing it was the harbinger of the death of some one of them, which melancholy news was sure to be confirmed very shortly after. During her very dangerous illness at Metz, where she caught a pestilential fever, either from the coal fires, or by visiting some of the nunneries ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... a blithe laugh and tossed another peeling to the yellow rooster, who had dropped the role of harbinger of evil and was posing ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... could scarce look off him, and said he was worthy of such parents, gave him a crown of gold, the spirit of divination, and in conclusion made him a demigod. O vis superba formae, a goddess beauty is, whom the very gods adore, nam pulchros dii amant; she is Amoris domina, love's harbinger, love's loadstone, a witch, a charm, &c. Beauty is a dower of itself, a sufficient patrimony, an ample commendation, an accurate epistle, as [4829]Lucian, [4830]Apuleius, Tiraquellus, and some ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... high and breaking in fiery sparkles. The silver sharks unwearyingly kept their silent vigil about the rocking buoy. Up the eastern horizon was stealing a faint pallor, harbinger ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... shop-window in which he sees such a card, he thinks of me; and not only does he think of me but he sends me his thoughts." Or was she mistaken. Ella was diffident; surely this could not be misconstrued. The Christmas card—was it not a harbinger? The two young couples on it and the words—surely he meant something by that. His enraptured eyes again rose before her; they seemed not only to envelop her, but to caress her. She thought neither of past nor future; she lived only in the present. She lay wide awake that night ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... too, the scourges of disease and civil strife combined with exhaustion in hastening her ruin. The plague had broken out in the very year of the last expedition against Hadrach (765), perhaps under the walls of that city. An eclipse of the sun occurred in 763, in the month of Sivan, and this harbinger of woe was the signal for an outbreak of revolt in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... stride, And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide, With mightier march and fiercer power It gain'd Arachne's neighbouring tower— Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won, Of Ida's fire the long-descended son Bright harbinger of glory and of joy! So first and last with equal honour crown'd, In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. And these my heralds! this my SIGN OF PEACE! Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece, Stalk, in stern tumult, through ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that he was under the influence of bang, and said, "Poor fellow! the narcissus is in the garden; this is the convent of sufferers, and there are green garments enough here. Arise and sober thyself, for the morning and harbinger of benefits as well as of the acquisition of the victuals for subsistence is approaching." When the superintendent heard these words he thought they were a dream, for he had not yet fully recovered his senses. He sat quietly, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to my heart, sweet harbinger of bliss! How have I looked, till hope grew sick, for a moment bright as this; Thou hast flashed upon my aching sight when fortune's clouds are dark, The sunny spirit of my dreams—the dove ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... death did seem to her Of long-lost joy the harbinger— Like an old household servant, come To take the willing scholar home; The school-house, it was very dear, But then the holidays were near; And why should she be lingering here? Softly the servant bore the child Who at her parting ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... Johnson's friends was Mrs. Charlotte Lennox to whom he gives the palm among literary ladies. Up to this time there were few lady humorists, and none of an altogether respectable description. But Mrs. Lennox appeared as a harbinger of that refined and harmless pleasantry which has since sparkled through the pages of our best authoresses. She wrote a comedy, poems, and novels, her most remarkable production being the Female Quixote. Here a young lady who had been reading romances, enacts the heroine with very ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... want to show you a present I got to-night." Then silence. Wesley had no watch. The rebels had relieved him of that at Bull Run. But it must be quite midnight. He opened one of the windows softly. Oh, the glory of the night, harbinger of his high emprise, his deathless glory! The wondrous, wondrous stillness of the scene—and to think that over yonder, in the dark depths of the forest, fifty, perhaps a hundred, men were waiting for him—for him? Yes, the mighty arms ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... my Father wrote in his diary at the time of my Mother's death. He said that the thought that Rome was doomed (as seemed not impossible in 1857) so affected my Mother that it 'irradiated' her dying hours with an assurance that was like 'the light of the Morning Star, the harbinger of the ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... first enslaved my heart— Those glittering pearls and ruby lips, whose kiss Was sweeter far than honey to the taste. As when the merchant opes a precious box Of perfume, such an odor from her breath Comes toward me, harbinger of her approach; Or like an untouched meadow, where the rain Hath fallen freshly on the fragrant herbs That carpet all its pure untrodden soil: A meadow where the fragrant rain-drops fall Like coins of silver in the quiet pools, And ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... evening rises on the traveler from his home; no lowering cloud, no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken crevasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand, arid and burning, on that surface, but all blended and softened into one beam of kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promise of love, hope, and a brighter ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... character and to the habits of the Egyptians, who had no love of the sea. On this hypothesis Sirius, the bright star of Isis, which on July mornings rises from the glassy waves of the eastern Mediterranean, a harbinger of halcyon weather to mariners, was the true Stella Maris, "the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... morning-star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire! Woods and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... shock sustained by all nations during the prevalence of the black plague is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell victims to fear on the first appearance of the distemper, and the most stout-hearted lost their confidence. The pious closed their accounts with the world; their only remaining desire was for a participation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... bearing, in large letters, the significant expression of "No petticoat government—no Scotch minister—no Lord George Sackville," prefigured those popular tumults which soon afterward disturbed the metropolis and extended to the American colonies. That placard was the harbinger of that great DECLARATION, the adoption of which by a representative Congress of the Anglo-American people fifteen years afterward, is the occasion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... one another. Indeed, the enslavement of each other would, under this construction of duty, be the doing of good to one another. Think you, sir, that the universal exercise of this right would promote the fulfilment of the "new commandment that ye love one another?" Think you, it would be the harbinger of millenial peace and blessedness? Or, think you not, rather, that it would fully and frightfully realize the prophet's declaration: "They all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... fair settlement of this most dangerous question. We all recall how our hopes revived, and how gladly we hailed the introduction of the bill recommended by a joint committee of conference of the Senate and House of Representatives. It was welcomed as the harbinger of peace by the entire people of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... at maturity, give her a joyous initiation into the noble order of women. She will welcome the new function as a badge of womanhood and as a harbinger of wonderful things ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... won currency at this time, too. Arising as he had done out of a cataclysm, Paul Mario by many was accepted as the harbinger of a second Coming. His claims were based upon no mere reiteration of ancient theories, but upon a comprehensible system which required no prayer-won faith from its followers, but which logically explained life, ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... operates, like the circle formed by the pebble thrown into water, in extending its influence in proportion to its circumference. As philanthropists in many different countries are labouring simultaneously to promote this great end, we are justified in considering the present age as the harbinger of a better; and we may rejoice in the anticipation. The progressive improvement of the human family is a delightful subject for meditation, giving us, perhaps, a prelibation of the joys of futurity, and animating us to contribute our aid, trifling as it may be, to the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... be welcomed by Aminta, and she was very timid on finding herself alone with the earl. He, however, treated her as the harbinger bird, wryneck of the nightingale, sure that Aminta would keep her appointment unless an accident delayed. He had forgotten her name, but not her favourite pursuit of botany; and upon that he discoursed, and he was interested, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Chopin that stir the heart like voices from an unseen world; at such times one feels that the profoundest answer which science can give to our questionings is but a superficial answer after all. At these moments, when the world seems fullest of beauty, one feels most strongly that it is but the harbinger of something else,—that the ceaseless play of phenomena is no mere sport of Titans, but an orderly scene, with its ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... says?" she cried. "Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer up! 'Tis a harbinger of spring, and flowers, and warmer weather. Who knows but that he brings good luck to us ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... were Roko Mbati-ndua, the one-toothed lord; a fiend with a huge tooth projecting from his lower jaw and curving over the top of his head. He had bat's wings armed with claws and was usually regarded as a harbinger of pestilence. The mechanic's god was eight-handed, gluttony had eighty stomachs, wisdom possessed eight eyes. Other gods were the adulterer, the abductor of women of rank and beauty, the rioter, the brain-eater, the killer of men, the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... speak in no other manner, I may in this way utter one word to the young, to whom I have heretofore spoken from a more solemn place; I would remind them how almost prophetically, sixteen years ago, in the volume which was the unknown dawn and harbinger of the re-awakening of deeper truth, this was given as the watchword to those who should love the truth, 'In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' There have been manifold tokens that patience is the one ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... gold fixing his look. By this, Apollo's golden harp began To sound forth music to the ocean; Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard, But he the bright Day-bearing car prepar'd, And ran before, as harbinger of light, And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage, Dang'd down ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... cork, a tiny dark object like that, drifting along some distance out, would make a focal point in the fog, and would give the illusion of a clearance. Once, parading the deck as the man on watch, giving an occasional shake to the bell, I went suddenly happy with the certainty that I was now to be the harbinger of good tidings to those below playing cards. A vague elevated line appeared to starboard. I watched it grow into definition, a coast showing through a haze that was now dissolving. Up they all tumbled at my shout. They stared at the wonder hopefully and silently. The ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... endeavoured, by her praise, to remove the chagrin which her ingenuous countenance (ever the faithful harbinger of her thoughts) betrayed so plainly—"I assure you, my dear," said she, "that for some time you performed very prettily; didn't ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... the earth instead of those cellars in which they resided when we passed them. there was great joy with the natives last night in consequence of the arrival of the salmon; one of those fish was caught; this was the harbinger of good news to them. they informed us that these fish would arrive in great quantities in the course of about 5 days. this fish was dressed and being divided into small peices was given to each child in the village. this custom is founded in a supersticious opinon that ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... studying these proceedings is the curious folly of the whole affair! Why was a harbinger of peace sent if only to be immediately recalled? Why were the hopes of the Roman Catholics, of the whole country in fact, raised to the highest pitch of expectation, if only that they might be dashed to the ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... assured of this by her own sad experience. In tones of deep conviction, which permit of no manner of doubt, she tells me that AM-AN-EE caused the death of her infant—"brother belonga Jimmy." She had bogied at Toorgey-Toorgey, when to her dismay the harbinger of disaster appeared to spring out from the sea. In a week the child ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... commissioners to Europe—Messrs. Yancey, Rost and Mann—sailed from New Orleans, on March 31, '61, their mission was hailed as harbinger to speedy fruition of these delusive thoughts, to which the wish alone was father. Then—though very gradually—began belief that they had reckoned too fast; and doubt began to chill glowing hopes of immediate ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... a letter in his hand, hobbled from the cook-tent toward them; like a sinister harbinger of evil he advanced, grinning ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... pestilential,—where, with all the fecundity of nature, a single habitation is not to be found. Some sickly men change your horses, recommending to you not to sleep in passing the marshes; for sleep there is really the harbinger of death. The plough which some imprudent cultivators will still sometimes guide over this fatal land, is drawn by buffaloes, in appearance at once mean and ferocious, whilst the most brilliant sun sheds its lustre on this melancholy spectacle. The marshy and unwholesome parts in the north are ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... all her band, The fairest of her gems, We hail thee as a welcome guest, Which Winter still contemns. For thou art still the harbinger (A credit to her choice) To tell that pleasant times draw nigh, For which let ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... our children," he said, as they sallied forth just as the east was growing rosy with the harbinger of dawn. ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... mingled with doubt and fear, for the sudden transition from a state of hopeless despair to that of comparative safety, is ever attended with a misgiving of its reality. Her deliverance from the power of the Moors appeared almost certain; the name of Aguilar was the harbinger of victory; yet the anticipation of her rescue caused so powerful a revulsion of feeling, that Theodora nearly sunk under its pressure. When she had a little recovered, she perceived, however, more ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... shrine. His eye never swept the horizon behind us with an anxious gaze, as ours did, while we looked for the smoke of a pursuing steamer. Neither did it kindle at sight of the famous landmarks that measured our rapid course, each of which we hailed with delight as another harbinger of safety. He had ceased to perform the duties of a seaman, and devoted himself entirely to the care of the INVISIBLE PRINCESS, as we grew to call her. But though invisible to our eyes, hers was the pervading presence of our thoughts. Not a wave ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... our situation. All at once a white butterfly, of the species so common in France, appeared fluttering over our heads, and settled on our sail. The first idea which, as it were, inspired each of us made us consider this little animal as the harbinger, which brought us the news of a speedy approach to land, and we snatched at this hope with a kind of delirium of joy. But it was the ninth day that we passed upon the raft; the torments of hunger consumed our entrails; already some of the soldiers and sailors ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... myself that shone radiant in the eyes of my uncle as he read with me. I had this advantage also over many, that, perhaps from impression of the higher mind, I saw and learned a thing not merely as a fact whose glory lay in the mystery of its undeveloped harmonics, but as the harbinger of an unknown advent. For as long as I can remember, my heart was given to expectation, was tuned to long waiting. I constantly felt—felt without thinking—that something was coming. I feel it now. Were ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... with a cold, from the accident. But although this seemed the only effect produced upon his bodily health, his mind had suffered a severe shock which was not equally obvious. Fancies, each gloomier than the preceding, took, henceforth, more and more possession of his imagination. He seemed the harbinger of misfortune to all connected with him. Frequently rose up the image of his dead brother, mingling with his dreams and obtruding itself even into his waking thoughts, at one time dripping with water as when taken from the pond—ghastly pale—livid—with scarcely distinguishable lineaments; ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... skatin' stiff-laig about in a ring like I relates, arms bent, an' back arched; "let all the sons of men b'ar witness; an' speshully let a cowerin' varmint, named Sam Enright, size me up an' shudder! I'm the maker of deserts an' the wall-eyed harbinger of desolation! I'm kin to rattlesnakes on my mother's side; I'm king of all the eagles an' full brother to the b'ars! I'm the bloo-eyed lynx of Whiskey Crossin', an' I weighs four thousand pounds! I'm a he- ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... midst of a well-nurtured animalism. The Herod of a ruling selfishness seeks to obliterate the loftier ideal. But while he summons all his strength to prevent the embodiment of the new thought, there are other faculties that perceive the star of promise and follow it as a harbinger of truth. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... Mrs. Marrable was not in her best form when her young ladyship arrived, and Benjamin the coachboy came up the garden pathway as her harbinger to see if she should descend from the carriage to interview the old lady. She did not want to do so, as she felt she ought to get Mrs. Prichard home as soon as possible; but wanted, all the same, to fulfil her promise of delivering Sister Nora's parcel with her own hands. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... French landed, they were informed that, two days previous, the village of the Colapissas had been attacked by a party of two hundred Chickasaws, headed by two Englishmen. These were the first tidings which the French had of their old rivals, and which proved to be the harbinger of the incessant struggle which was to continue for more than a century between the two races, and to terminate by the permanent occupation of Louisiana ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... of Gregory VI was the harbinger of an epoch of moral renaissance. The wise Pontiff, whose glory it had been to free the Church from a disgraceful yoke, proved himself worthy of the sovereign power, as much by the zeal with which he wielded as by the noble disinterestedness with which he resigned it. He found ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... charnel gulf I 2 Of death on death, not to be done away, Why harrowest thou my soul? Ill boding harbinger of woe, what word Have thy lips uttered? Oh, thou hast killed me again, Before undone! What say'st? What were thy tidings? Woe is me! Saidst thou a slaughtered queen in yonder hall Lay in her blood, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... as the sky began to turn a deep red in the east, and the "chuck me" chameleon, the harbinger of the early dawn, began his morning challenge. Our progress was very cautiously made through the cane-fields, banana groves, and bamboo jungles, halting and investigating the slightest noise, the rustling of a leaf or the ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... my imagination, 'tis excellent; for in this kind the hand, you know, is harbinger to the tongue, and provides the words a lodging in the ears of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... a robin sing, I wonder if his English mate May not be hopping near your gate, A harbinger, with ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... we are Negroes, members of a vast historic race that from the very dawn of creation has slept, but half awakening in the dark forests of its African fatherland. We are the first fruits of this new nation, the harbinger of that black to-morrow which is yet destined to soften the whiteness of the Teutonic to-day. We are that people whose subtle sense of song has given America its only American music, its only American fairy tales, its only touch of pathos and humor amid its mad money-getting ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... —— behind, after. positivamente adv. positively, certainly. postrado, -a prostrate, kneeling. postrero, -a last. precipitado, -a precipitate, headlong, rash, abrupt. precipitar(se) precipitate, hasten, rush headlong, hurry. precursor, -a m. f. precursor, herald, harbinger. preguntar ask, inquire, question. premtica f. pragmatic (a law). prender catch, take, bind, fasten; —— fuego set fire. presa f. capture, prize. prsago, -a presaging, ominous. prsago m. presage, omen. presentar ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... turn anxious to effect a reconciliation with the King, even upon terms less favourable than those to which she had hitherto aspired. Gaston seldom entered her apartments, nor was his presence ever the harbinger of anything but discord; while Puylaurens and Chanteloupe openly braved and defied each other, and the two little Courts were a scene of constant broils and violence. Monsieur, moreover, forbade his wife to see her royal mother-in-law so ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Indians with deer slung over their horses. The skin of the first that is shot is presented to a priest, who flings it back to the slayer to be retained by him as a trophy, and at the same time asks from the Great Spirit that this may prove only the harbinger of deer in abundance whenever wanted. There was some slight dancing that evening in the sacred square, but not of significance enough to make it an object with me to remain for it, and as so many were reserving themselves for the winding-up assembly of the ladies, on Sunday morning, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... are richer meads, And here are goodlier steeds Than ever graced the glorious land of Greece; Here waves the yellow corn, Here is the olive born — The gray-green gracious harbinger of peace; Here too hath taken root A tree with golden fruit, In purple clusters hangs the vine's increase, And all the earth doth wear The dry clear Attic air That lifts the soul to liberty, and frees ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the colony until after the restoration of King Charles II. The evidence suggests that there was no violent division between royalists and Parliamentarians in Virginia. The people were Virginians first and royalists or Parliamentarians second. The solidarity of their political interests was a harbinger of the American independence that was slowly to mature ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... house and entered the deserted garden where pearl-tinted spikes of iris perfumed the air and great masses of peonies nodded along borders banked deep under the long wall. A few butterflies still flitted in the golden radiance, but already that solemn harbinger of sunset, the garden toad, had emerged from leafy obscurity into the gravel path, and hopped heavily ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... its lullaby the cannon's thunder, its cradle the hearts of the brave, its nurse necessity, its baptismal rite a rain of blood and tears. May it forever be another beacon of Bethlehem to guide us on to a grander future—a harbinger of hope and happiness, an emblem of love and liberty, and in its deathless splendor go ever ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... clean, but seemed always to bear traces of a hasty cleansing, as though the keepers had been suddenly forewarned. On inquiry, it proved that such was the case, and that a wandering fiddler was the unfailing harbinger of the engineer. At last my father was storm-stayed one Sunday in a port at the other side of the island. The visit was quite overdue, and as he walked across upon the Monday morning he promised himself that he should at last take the keepers unprepared. They were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... called it, "whence roving tribes and rude barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion,"—so might the son of Ulva carry the same blessings to Africa, and be remembered, perhaps, by millions of the human race as the first pioneer of civilization, and the first harbinger of the gospel. It was graceful in the Bishop of Oxford (Samuel Wilberforce) to advert to the debt of unparalleled magnitude which England, founder of the accursed slave-trade, owed to Africa, and to urge the immediate prosecution ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... precursor, antecedent, precedent, predecessor; forerunner, vancourier[obs3], avant-coureur[Fr], pioneer, prodrome|, prodromos[obs3], prodromus[obs3], outrider; leader, bellwether; herald, harbinger; foreboding; dawn; avant-courier, avant-garde, bellmare[obs3], forelooper[obs3], foreloper[obs3], stalking-horse, voorlooper[Afrikaans], voortrekker[Afrikaans]. prelude, preamble, preface, prologue, foreword, avant-propos[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... who had brought the first offers of an armistice after Austerlitz. These recollections touched the superstitious chords in the great Corsican's being; for in times of stress the strongest nature harks back to early instincts. This harbinger of good fortune the Emperor now summoned and talked long and earnestly with him.[380] First, he complimented him on his efforts of the previous day to turn the French left at Doelitz; next, he offered to free him on parole in order to return to the allied headquarters ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... primitive rock, was hailed with joy, as if we had seen a forest growing on the flanks of the Cordillera. The top, however, of a heavy bank of clouds, which remained almost constantly in one position, was the most promising sign, and eventually turned out a true harbinger. At first the clouds were mistaken for the mountains themselves, instead of the masses of vapour ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of this unhappy race might have been raised to the solitary spire that sprang up in the midst of them, the bearer of present consolation, the harbinger of future equality; but Holy Church at Marney had forgotten her sacred mission. We have introduced the reader to the vicar, an orderly man who deemed he did his duty if he preached each week two sermons, and enforced humility on his congregation and gratitude for the blessings of this ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... simply a shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation and preventing it from establishing boldly, freely, and regardless of all obstacles a new form of power; the Council of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, harbinger of the abolition ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... that each individual should think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger of Jannat or Juhannam." ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... of the wind, and the roaring of the ice, as the fields were dashed against each other by its fury, rendered it truly terrific; while the fragments, as they were dispersing by the storm, struck violently against the vessel, and each blow sounded like the harbinger of instant fate. Such shocks were repeated every five or ten minutes and sometimes oftener; nor was there any possibility of avoiding them. In this awful situation they offered up earnest prayers to Him who alone is able to save, and about six in the morning they were carried into ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... sickness and death, longed for these lovely flowers. The time of the Mayflower's blossoming has long been past, but in fancy our thoughts go back to that early spring when the first bluebird winged his way to Burial Hill, calling up memories of the English robin, which this harbinger of spring resembles. It was the Pilgrims who ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... morning star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... his notes in company with the wild song of the Ring Ousel and the harsh calls of the Grouse and Plover. Though his notes are monotonous, still no one gives them this appellation. No! this little wanderer is held too dear by us all as the harbinger of spring for aught but praise to be bestowed on his mellow notes, which, though full and soft, are powerful, and may on a calm morning, before the everyday hum of human toil begins, be heard a mile away, over wood, field, and lake. Toward the ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... the twenty-first chapter later as a second volume. At half-past nine he retired to his bedroom. Lady Burton then repeated "the night prayers to him," and while she was speaking "a dog," to use her own words, "began that dreadful howl which the superstitious regard as the harbinger of death." ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... they both were, they knew well enough the Indian tradition that the bee is the harbinger of the coming of the white man. When he comes, the plow soon follows, and weeds grow where lately have been the flowers of the forest or ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... from his yellow teeth in that smile which Emerson had come to recognize as a harbinger of the violent acts that rejoiced his ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... with somewhat startling mottos, for its pathetic theme is Children and children's disease; and it seems to me appropriate, in view of what it portends, to send forth in this form a world-thought, as a harbinger of sympathy—a foreword which may set in motion the thought-waves of pity. For of all living creatures born into this world of pompous ignorance and maudlin solicitude to struggle for precarious existence from the cradle to the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... have public knowledge and public opinion working with it. Well, it is God's cause, and I commit it altogether to him. I am, however, sadly disappointed, but how weak and short- sighted is man! This temporary failure may be the harbinger of success. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... power, Preserving, recreating, day by day. Better confess how little we can know, Better with feet unshod and humble awe Approach this living Power to ask for aid." And as he spoke the devas filled the air, Unseen, unheard of men, and sweetly sung: "Hail, prince of peace! hail, harbinger of day! The darkness vanishes, the light appears." But Mara heard, and silent slunk away, The o'erwrought prince fell prostrate on the ground And lay entranced, while devas hovered near, Watching each heart-throb, breathing that sweet calm ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... did this harbinger of evil news resume the situation. Caligula was in his palace, surrounded by the slaves of his household and guarded by a few soldiers against a raging mob—an hundred thousand or more strong—who had formed a ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and a part of the Mason and Gorges claim, had, in 1644, formed a confederacy. The New England Confederacy—the harbinger of the United States of America—was simply a league of independent provinces, as were the thirteen states under the "Articles of Confederation," each jealously guarding its own privileges and rights against any encroachments of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... fell away only to come back again in playful scorn for the vast object that had rent and baffled them so long. On high fluttered the Stars and Stripes, gay in the presence of death, a sprightly harbinger of hope flaunting defiance ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... The great harbinger of the new era was Galileo. There had been prophets before him, and after him came a greater one—Newton. They did nothing of note in electricity and magnetism, but they were filled with the true spirit of science, they introduced proper and reasonable methods of investigation, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... a prominent part in the many notable gatherings which were a feature of this winter. Associated in people's minds as a harbinger of the new era, his popularity increased in line with the ever brightening political horizon. The Archduke enjoyed having him at his receptions, introducing him to the sovereigns, and made much of him generally. It was at the Archduke's apartments that Beethoven was introduced to the Empress ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... usually between eleven and twelve, and I am always up before seven. I was always instructed by my father to consider indolence as one of the greatest faults; it was, in fact, a sin of the first magnitude in his vocabulary.—Indolence, he always said was the harbinger of every vice, of every evil. And the Songs of Solomon and his Proverbs were on every occasion ready to support his opinion. He would say to the sluggard, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." He would forgive many a fault ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... So may Dick Whittington have meditated as he trudged the London road, but Amyntas had no talismanic cat and no church bells rang him inspiring messages. Besides, Dick Whittington had in him from his birth the makings of a Lord Mayor—he had the golden mediocrity which is the surest harbinger of success. But to Amyntas the world seemed cold and grey, notwithstanding the sunshine of the morning; and the bare branches of the oak trees were gnarled and twisted like the fingers of evil fate. At last he came to the top of a little hill whence one had the last view of the ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... perhaps those irruptions which preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Then, as well as now, generations of men were impelled forwards in the same direction to meet and struggle on the same spot; but the designs of Providence were not the same; then, every newcomer was the harbinger of destruction and of death; now, every adventurer brings with him the elements of prosperity and of life. The future still conceals from us the ulterior consequences of this emigration of the Americans towards the West; but we can readily ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... empire would he regained by Christians. From this superstitious belief they selected the Asiatic shore for the burial of true Mussulmans; nor was it altogether a fanciful belief, for in the sudden rise of Russia, Turkey foresaw the harbinger of her fall, and recognized in Muscovite warriors the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... carried to Paris, I know nobody that would do more to promote peace, or that will bear the want of it, with a better grace than myself. If I don't send you an actual declaration of war in this letter, at least you perceive I am the harbinger of it. An account arrived yesterday morning that Boscawen had missed the French fleet, who are got into Cape Breton; but two of his captains(582) attacked three of their squadron and have taken two, with scarce ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... appearance of cumulus, the whole, at the same time, rising from the ground like a magnificent curtain. As the cloud ascends, it is broken up and evaporates or passes off with the morning breeze. The stratus has long been regarded as the harbinger of fine weather; and, indeed, there are few days in the year more serene than those whose morning breaks ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... day, and not even for the delight of meeting the mistress of his heart, the period of whose return was now uncertain, would he disappoint her. William was engaged in packing his trunk, when Dr. Keene, again the harbinger of ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... wish to speak with great respect, are haunted, as it seems to me, with an unreasonable fear of what they call superficial knowledge. Knowledge, they say, which really deserves the name, is a great blessing to mankind, the ally of virtue, the harbinger of freedom. But such knowledge must be profound. A crowd of people who have a smattering of mathematics, a smattering of astronomy, a smattering of chemistry, who have read a little poetry and a little history, is dangerous to the commonwealth. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... never expect to be intelligible again. When the 'heart is oppressed with unutterable anguish, condemned to conceal that passion which is at once the torment and delight of life'—when 'his lip, the ruby harbinger of joy, lies pale and cold, the miserable appendage of a mang—' that is, Miss Monson, I mean to say, when all our faculties are engrossed by one dear object we are often incoherent and mysterious, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... wise to attribute the movement to surrender. He was greatly and blissfully thrilled, but he ended by regarding the head upon his shoulder as an encouraging preliminary, merely advanced as a harbinger of his success, and not to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the fears and apprehensions of many people. Some considered it as a portentous omen of the wrath of Heaven in vengeance denounced against the land, others as the immediate harbinger of the last day, when 'the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... shadowy forest. Thus he dwelt alone in the vast dim wastes, wandering whithersoever he listed through the depths of the melancholy and wintry woods, sleeping by his camp-fire or in the hollow tree-trunk, ever ready to do battle against brute or human foe—a stark and sombre harbinger of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... teachers is eager to master and control it. In truth it gives its full measure and reveals itself in the fulness of growth only among primitive peoples. With us it is checked in its flight by an antagonistic power, which treats it as a harbinger of insanity. Finally, children are not equally well-suited for this study; we must make a distinction between the imaginative and non-imaginative, and the latter should ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... which had covered the wide prairie save the yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been gathered. Here, the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow land, there, by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening to crimson and mauve—the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the insistent and intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was buoyant, confident and heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault which covered and endeared the wide, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... intense suffering, that we were in great apprehension for his life. Horrible days, and yet more horrible nights! But they were succeeded by fine weather, and at length we had the consolation of seeing the moon, smiling placidly down upon us, like a harbinger of peace. On the evening of the twenty-sixth the full moon rose with a troubled countenance, her disk obscured by angry clouds. She shook them off, but still looked turbid and superb. A gloomy cloud, black as night, still stretched over her like a pall, thickly veiling, yet not entirely obscuring ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Hark! how the noise increases! through the gloom 115 Of the still evening—harbinger of death, Rings the tocsin! the dreadful generale Thunders ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... is a huge, fat, religious gentleman ... big enough to be a pope. His gills are as rosy as a turkey-cock's. His big belly walks in state before him, like a harbinger; and his gouty legs come limping after it. Never was such a tun of devotion seen.—Dryden, The Spanish Fryar, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. |
