"Ill-omened" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their ill-omened repast, when the air above us was darkened by two mighty shadows. The captain of my ship, knowing by experience what this meant, cried out to us that the parent birds were coming, and urged us to get on board with all ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... imitators the only positively successful one was William E. Robinson, whose tragic death while in the performance of the bullet-catching trick is the latest addition to the long list of casualties chargeable to that ill-omened juggle. He carried the imitation even as far as the name, calling himself Chung Ling Soo. Robinson was very successful in the classic trick of apparently eating large quantities of cotton and blowing smoke and sparks from the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... masquer this, but a grim messenger from the Shades, bringing dire warning to one, at least, of that gay company. As it had come, so it vanished, but all the gaiety had gone from the merry throng. The ill-omened dancer had laid a chilly hand on the heart of ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... arrived. Troops of guests streamed in from all parts, a long row of carriages stood in the street, as on that other ill-omened day; but this time ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... when the boys appeared in their mourning suits, with their bundles on their backs, they were sent back again to put on their forest green, Master Headley explaining that it was reckoned ill-omened, if not insulting, to appear before any great personage in black, unless to enhance some petition directly addressed to himself. He also bade them leave their fardels behind, as, if they tarried at York House, these could ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all her romantic fantasies arrived at this self-same dreary termination,—it appeared impossible for her even to imagine any other than a disastrous result from her connection with her ill-omened attendant. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Look at that pale emaciated form, a figure of wax, rather than flesh and blood—that is thy mother—that is the unhappy Zilia Moncada, to whom thy birth was the source of shame and misery, and to whom thy ill-omened presence has now brought death itself. And behold me"—he pushed the lad from him, and stood up erect, looking wellnigh in gesture and figure the apostate spirit he described—"Behold me," he said; "see you not my hair streaming with sulphur, my brow ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... there was some discussion in the Cabinet regarding the fate of this ill-omened trophy, one section wishing it to be placed in a museum on account of its historical interest, another advocating the breaking up of the necklace and the selling of the diamonds for what they would fetch. But a third party ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Pulteney had been a failure; Bolingbroke would thenceforward be a hinderance rather than a help to the Patriots. His counsel was of no further avail, and he only brought odium on them; indeed, his advice had from first to last been misleading and ill-omened. The Patriots were now only anxious to get rid of him; Pulteney gave Bolingbroke pretty clearly to understand that they wanted him to go, and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... He had reached the limit of his observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... at Marly—"ill-omened Marly"—that the Duc de Berry, the younger grandson of Louis XIV., and husband of the profligate daughter of the Duc d' Orleans—afterward Regent, died, with great suspicion of poison, in 1714. The MS. memorials of Mary Beatrice by a sister of Chaillot, describe how, when Louis XIV. was mourning ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... believed that the visiters and they were the same individuals. Circumstances, however, unfavourable to this idea, arose, and I turned from one conjecture to another, until I reposed, at length, in the belief that they were sinners—sinners of the deepest dye—such as their ill-omened looks betrayed—and that they sought the kind and ever-ready minister to obtain his counsel, and to share his prayers. At all events, this was a subject upon which I received no enlightening from their confidant. Once I took occasion to make mention of it; but, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the law of the land, and the whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,—their motto the famous ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the dynasty; ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... he had heard. As he had anticipated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her mute with dismay, for it at once brought a cloud over the future, which to her eye was dark with portents. Elwood himself was also obviously considerably ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the conversion of the Indian tribes two hundred years since, and had failed. Their mission-house and chapel are now a heap of ruins, and the ferocious Apache Indians keep the fertile valley a solitude by the mere terror of their name. To this ill-omened place Penrose and his companions have made their daring pilgrimage; and they are now risking their lives in the attempt to open the hearts of these bloodthirsty savages to the influence of Christianity. Nothing has been yet heard of them. At the best, no trustworthy ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... nor priest, nor any cultured coterie. The sandy peninsula, on whose inner edge, at the cove called Yerba Buena, stood some hide and tallow stores and fur depots which drew to them the stragglers that passed that way, was about as ill-omened a spot as the one designated by the snake-devouring eagle perched upon an island cactus as the place where the wandering Aztecs should rest and build their city of Mexico. San Francisco's godparents were but common humanity, traders and adventurers, later gold-seekers and pot ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... strongest motives, patriotic devotion and commercial gain, would have been lacking. The English have never been good at preparing for a merely possible war; they are apt, indeed, to regard such preparation as ill-omened and impious. This strenuous and self-dependent breed of men, being conscious that they do not desire war, and believing that he is thrice armed who has his quarrel just, have always been content, in the face of many warnings, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... towards the drawing-room. His thoughts must have gone astray, for he turned by accident into the wrong room—a small apartment hardly used at all; and before he had time to turn back he stopped petrified at the sight of a picture on the wall. There could be no mistake—it was the original of that ill-omened print he had seen in the Edinburgh hotel, "The Execution of Lord Tulliwuddle." The actual title was ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... saw the chair in which she had curled herself up and gone to sleep, saw the rug upon which Sorez had reclined, saw the very spot where she had sat with the image in her lap, saw where she had stood as she had thrust the revolver into his hand and sent him on his ill-omened errand. But all these things only emphasized her absence. It was as though he were looking upon the scene of events of a year ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Who could see the faintest glimmer of it? Who could see anything but the ill-omened figure of Michael Vanstone, posted darkly on the verge of the present time—and closing all the prospect that lay ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... listen through space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... "Sundry remarks of this ill-omened individual will afford you a clear indication of his abject views and pernicious purpose. Speaking of the patriotic tribunal now called upon to punish him, he declared insultingly,—'The Revolutionary Tribunal is like a play of William Shakespeare, who ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... ice-slopes steep, That I the glory of his deeds might reap. My porter, who with uncomplaining back O'er passes, peaks, and glaciers bears my pack: Tho' now the good man looks a trifle sadder, When I suggest the ill-omened name of "ladder." O'er many a pipe our heads we put together; Our first enquiry is of course "the weather." With buoyant hearts the star-lit heaven we view; Then our next point is "What are we to 'do'?" My pipe I pocket, and with head up-tossed My listening followers ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... Bodhisattva, free from low-feeling, with hearts undisturbed by passion, moved by pity towards him and commiseration, came in a body to behold the Bodhisattva, so calmly seated and so undisturbed, surrounded with an uncounted host of devils, shaking the heaven and earth with sounds ill-omened. Bodhisattva silent and quiet in the midst remained, his countenance as bright as heretofore, unchanged; like the great lion-king placed amongst all the beasts howling and growling round him so he sat, a sight unseen before, so strange and wonderful! ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... The men were awe-stricken. There was something despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet there was a savage grandeur in it, which bound their savage hearts ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... assistance might, moreover, at any moment give place to a democratic faction which already harassed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with the populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw Spain into anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened constitution of 1812. But above all, the attitude of the three Eastern Powers bade the ruler of France hesitate before committing himself to a military occupation of Spanish territory. Their sympathies were with Don Carlos, and the active participation of France in the quarrel might possibly ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... of sorrowful true hearts to us and him, dates "November 24th," just while Voltaire (whom she always likes, and in a beautiful way protects, "FRERE VOLTAIRE," as she calls him) was despatching Hirsch on that ill-omened Predatory STEUER-Mission. Her Brother is in real alarm for Wilhelmina, about this time; sending out Cothenius his chief Doctor, and the like: but our dear Princess re-emerges from her eclipse; and we shall see her again, several times, if ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... poor wife's face the old pale and heartbroken look. The cottage lost its neat and cheerful air, and the melancholy of neglect was visible. Sometimes at night were overheard, by a chance passer-by, cries and sobs from that ill-omened dwelling. Tom Chuff was now often drunk, and not very often at home, except when he came in to sweep ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... Sarayashiki with its cruel fate of the unhappy Kikujo[u], the Lady of the Plates. Long had the distressed figure of the wretched girl ceased its wailing over the never completed tale of the porcelain plates. But the memory of her misfortunes, of the ill-omened well of the Yoshida Goten has remained for centuries in the mind, and thought, and speech of Nippon. Up to the early years of Meiji the Ko[u]jimachi-ido still existed, to be pointed out to the superstitious ever present in this land. The Bancho[u], for many decades of years, had become the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Halbert, "that he had never been its owner! that he had never brought it to Ellerslie, to draw down misery on his head! Ill-omened trust! whatever it contains, its presence carried blood and sorrow in its train. Wherever it has been deposited war and murder have followed: I trust my dear master will ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... The inclination of the wall was so vertical that it did not even rest me to lean against it. I felt with my hands and with my feet. Surely, I thought, there must be some fissure like those in which that ill-omened weed had found a place ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman
... continued to enjoy, in no ordinary degree, popular applause and the favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on which side he should embark in that perilous and ill-omened insurrection. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... the volubility of the little speaker; for as she hastily, and with the license of a petted child, pulled the articles from the parcel, she was startled to find lying among the numerous colored things a black crape veil. Sombre, dark, and ill-omened enough it looked there, with pink, and lilac, and blue, and glittering bijouterie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... human character than that which pretended to secure the happiness or accomplish the ruin, to prolong the life or hasten the death, of the objects of private love or hatred. While systematically practising upon the credulity of his dupes, the professed master of this ill-omened art frequently resorted to assassination by poison or dagger in the accomplishment of his schemes. Sorcery by means of waxen images was particularly in vogue. Thus, the Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis the First, in her singular collection of tales, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... more than a recapitulation of the count's. Debt, distress, sickness, and the heart-burnings of altered fortunes filled it; and when I closed it, I felt like one over all whose views in life a dark and ill-omened cloud was closing forever. Webber's I could not read; the light and cheerful raillery of a friend would have seemed, at such a time, like the cold, unfeeling sarcasm of an enemy. I sat down at last to write to the general, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Possessing a genius for drawing second only to that for music, he had exercised it on the walls of the room, originally modelled and tinted to represent a robin's egg. He mixed his colors with the bitter distillations of his heart, and created the beautiful but ill-omened vision which long afterwards so ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the silvern voice, "that you, who possess so many beautiful things, should consent to have so ill-omened a curiosity in ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... the tombs of ages. All around Lies hushed and still, save with large, dusky wing The bird of night makes its ill-omened sound; Or moor-game, nestling 'neath th' flowery ling Low chuckle to their mates—or startled, spring Away on rustling pinions to the sky, Wheel round and round in many an airy ring, Then swooping downward to their covert hie, And, lodged beneath ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... me, could she join with the marchesa against me? Was I not induced by my love for her to pay her aunt's debts? Answer me that, my father. Why did she insist upon this ill-omened marriage?—a proceeding as indelicate as ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... with a ferocity which had for its inspiration a full understanding of the consequences of disaster in such a direction. Outflanking stared at him with all its ugly meaning, and as he went he shouted hoarsely back to Kars his ill-omened news. Kars needed no second warning. He passed the call on to Bill. He claimed the reinforcement which only desperate emergency had the right to demand. Then he flung himself to the task of making good the depleted defence where ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... this and yielded. After all, it did not much matter, for of course he would not touch upon the strange sequel of his ill-omened act; so he told the story faithfully and circumstantially, while the inspector took it all down in his note-book, questioning him closely respecting the exact time of ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... room. "That will do," said they, as he was about to enter with them, "we won't trouble you to wait." And closing the door upon the unsuspicious butler, they took up their station on either side of the dead, like a couple of ill-omened mutes. They had placed an arrest upon the corpse; it was theirs until their claim was satisfied, and they sat down to thus watch ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not seem to proceed from anywhere within the library, but from some distant room, far away overhead. A musical sound it was, but breaking in upon the silence of that ill-omened house, its music was the music of terror. In a faint and very sweet cascade it rippled; a ringing as of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Addison unkindly remarked that the real essential was that the pastrycooks should never run short of paper. Now "Esmond" is, in my opinion, exceedingly interesting during the campaigns in the Lowlands, and when our Machiavelian hero, the Duke, comes in, and also whenever Lord Mohun shows his ill-omened face; but there are long stretches of the story which are heavy reading. A pre-eminently good novel must always advance and never mark time. "Ivanhoe" never halts for an instant, and that just makes its superiority as a novel ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... concentrated in the northern corner of Natal. Towering over his left front was the Drakensberg Range through which Botha's Pass runs into the Orange Free State; on his right front was the Buffalo River with a difficult country beyond; and on his front was Majuba of ill-omened memory and Laing's Nek, over which the road to Volksrust and ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight. Not even in the worst days of Lord Castlereagh's ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a faction. Gentlemen, there ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... this! Unlucky!" For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father's death. Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. "There," said he, "the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tale was known to few, But now from lip to lip it flew:— A youth, the flower of all the band, Who late had left this sunny shore, When last he kist that maiden's hand, Lingering to kiss it o'er and o'er. By his sad brow too plainly told The ill-omened thought which crost him then, That once those hands should lose their hold, They ne'er would meet on earth again! In vain his mistress sad as he, But with a heart from Self as free As generous woman's only is, Veiled ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... as the "Haunted House," acquired its ill-omened name from a tragic occurrence traditionally said to have happened many years ago, and the peasantry in the neighbourhood affirm that at midnight a wild huntsman, with his hounds, accompanied by a lady carrying a poisoned cup, is occasionally seen. The story is that, in the reign of George II., ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... even in their blindness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever did ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... now was dying, and the Queen-mother took the opportunity of laying hands on the middle party. She arrested Alencon, Montmorency, and Henri of Navarre, together with some lesser chiefs; in the midst of it all Charles IX. died (1574), in misery, leaving the ill-omened crown to Henri of Anjou, King of Poland, his next brother, his mother's favourite, the worst of a bad breed. At the same time the fifth civil war broke out, interesting chiefly because it was during its continuance that the famous ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... Waiting for his turn to speak, he had marked them down as men after his own heart. For though Courtier knew that against an unpopular idea there must always be a majority, he never thought so ill of any individual as to suppose him capable of belonging to that ill-omened body. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the merchant, during which time he contrived to disorganise all the mechanism of the house, to turn night into day, harmony into discord, to drive poor Mrs. Mervale half-distracted, and to convince her husband that he was horribly hen-pecked, the ill-omened visitor left them as suddenly as he had arrived. He took a house of his own; he sought the society of persons of substance; he devoted himself to the money-market; he seemed to have become a man of business; his schemes were bold and colossal; his calculations rapid and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... never running away? But the taking them, for all that, not so easy. One man shrinks from picking flowers, another from cutting down trees. And, it's curious that most of the forest tales and legends are dark, mysterious, and somewhat ill-omened. The forest-beings are rarely gay and harmless. The forest life was felt as terrible. Tree-worship still survives to-day. Wood-cutters... those who take the life of trees... you see a ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... Dano-Irish chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose intercession procured them such terms as led to their surrender. Then, amid the ruins of the burning city, and the muttered malediction of its surviving inhabitants, the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with Richard de Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into at Bristol three ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... it was! Zounds! I almost acquired a relish for benevolence. They caught me round the neck like madmen. The very girls seemed in love with my black visage, that's as ill-omened as the moon in an eclipse. Gold, thought I, is omnipotent: it makes even ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard on Wednesday.' Mr. O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as 'ill-omened tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr. O'Rourke was not a man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles as the unpleasantness which ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... will the tribesmen of the ill-omened prophet do with them? They cannot hide them on the desert or anywhere on the banks of the Nile, for they all would die of hunger and thirst on the desert, and they certainly would be apprehended on the Nile. Perhaps they will try ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the youth, turning white to the gills, "thou art an ill-omened sorcerer!" And he slunk off—shortly afterwards, as it chanced, to meet this very fate. For he was sent on service and slain ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... who perched there, 'Light o' Leap' by name, upon awakening, saw to his great wonder a fowler approaching—a second God of Death. The sight set him reflecting, as he flew off uneasily to follow up the man's movements, and he began to think what mischief this ill-omened apparition foretold. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... contrive to keep to the track, the light-heeled gentlemen of the road may swoop down upon you like birds of prey, and rob you of the little worldly wealth that you possess. Wherefore I counsel you to pause ere you reach that ill-omened waste, and pass the night at the hostel there. The beds may be something poor, but they will be better than the wet bog, and you will be less like to be robbed there than ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her in the cloak, and taking her into his arms, hid her face against his shoulder, and stood for a moment staring out towards the spot from whence had come the ill-omened jackal cry. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... all in amazement He shrugged his shoulders; he smiled, and positively could not conceive what had happened to us, and why we were in such a state of excitement. He himself did not see an insect at all, did not hear the ill-omened whirr ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... (doubtless as a propitiation of outraged deities) upon a certain bank, and how, upon reaching the specified point, he discovered that what he carried had eluded his vigilance. "All gone: notes, gold, and pocket-book—the savings of a lifetime," concluded the ill-omened one, and at the recollection a sudden and even more highly-sustained frenzy of self-unpopularity involving him, without a pause he addressed himself by seven and twenty insulting expressions, many of which were quite ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... only in the general phenomena of vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching simplicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a worship ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of Fantomas a tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... I have pursued, for I have been chasing rainbows now for three years, and I suppose I shall go on chasing them; but as long as there is a chance left, I can't quit—I can't. And something tells me that I have left that ill-omened thing behind at last, and I ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Musa said. "Nor will I help you carry the curse you have brought upon yourself by today's ill-doing." He darted back to the farmhouse, where he ordered half-wakened Waziri to pad barefoot after him to the wagon, rubbing his eyes. "Come, son," Musa said. "We must flee these ill-omened fields." Without another word to his host, the carpenter hoisted his boy into the wagon, mounted, and set off into the night. The hoofs of his horse padded softly ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... scene could be more propitious?—But such a pair of lovers! Not a nightingale sang to soothe us: the very gypsies who were encamped there during the fair, made no offer to tell the fortunes of such an ill-omened couple, whose fortunes, I suppose, they thought too legibly written to need an interpreter; and the gypsey children crawled into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us as we went by. For a moment I paused, and was almost tempted ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded over like the leaves of a half-opened book when they close, crushing the trees below, piling its ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had been the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up that deep cavity above the mansion-house which bore the ill-omened name of Dead Man's Hollow. This it was which had saved the Dudley mansion. The falling masses, or huge fragments breaking off from them, would have swept the house and all around it to destruction but for this ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 1910 a vigorous debate took place in the Bavarian Parliament, in the course of which Dr. Mueller declared that the advocates of the reform would not rest "until this unjust electoral system, this bulwark of short-sighted injustice and ill-omened party spirit, is set aside in the higher interests of justice and of civil and religious freedom." The principle has received a recognition even more general in character, for a ministerial decree issued in June 1901, relative to the associated committees of employers ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... was no time and no necessity for any one to do anything. The situation itself vanished in the financial crash as a building vanishes in an earthquake—here one moment and gone the next with only an ill-omened, slight, preliminary rumble. Well, to say 'in a moment' is an exaggeration perhaps; but that everything was over in just twenty-four hours is an exact statement. Fyne was able to tell me all about it; and the phrase that would depict ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... laughing, "she must be stupid indeed. To drive away any one dear to her. And moreover, into an ill-omened wood. The forest and its mysteries might have waited long enough ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... This ill-omened happening broke up the wedding party. The marriage was cancelled. All the preparations had been for nothing. To this day the fate of the sisters is unknown. The bride and bridegroom-elect ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... a new born thing, Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing; My mother died to give me birth: forlorn I came into the world, a babe of woe, Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn; Yet heir to what the idolators of show Deem life's good things, which ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... by some malicious fiend, he would open the postern, the key of which Daniel had been obliged to give him, and would gaze with longing eyes down into the chasm where the supposed riches lay. There was now no doubt about it; on that ill-omened night the Freiherr, after his servant had left him, must have taken one of his usual walks to the postern, where he had been most likely suddenly seized with dizziness, and had fallen over. Daniel, who also seemed much upset by the Freiherr's terrible end, thought it ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... That ill-omened man Flitch had sidled round by the bushes to within a few feet of him. Flitch primarily defended himself against the accusation of drunkenness, which was hurled at him to account for his audacity in trespassing against the interdict; but ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the guerillas. Now and then a scurrying movement told of a gopher, hiding too, and on one mantel-piece, the black fireplace yawning below, sat a tiny tawny-tinted owl, whose motionless beadlike eyes met his with a stare of stolid surprise. After he had passed, its sudden ill-omened cry set ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... developing itself under simple yet severe conditions, fitted to bring out the real force of a man. After half an hour's talk you part as if you were parting with an old friend, yet knowing that the same roof is not likely ever to cover both of you again. There are, of course, rough and ill-omened explorers and settlers in South Africa, as in other new countries: but having wandered a good deal, in different countries, on the outer edge of civilization, I was struck by the large proportion of well-mannered and well-educated men whom one came ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... was nervously conscious, meanwhile, of a more ill-omened occurrence. This was the non-arrival of several of her oldest pupils, notably, the refractory and incorrigible Pike County contingent to whom Sperry had alluded. For the past few days they had hovered on the verge of active insubordination, and had indulged in vague mutterings which she had resolutely ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses—kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit. The one is clear and firm. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the custody of the serjeant-at-arms, he was placed on board a barge, of ill-omened appearance, being covered with black cloth, like a Venetian gondola, and kept for offenders against the Star-Chamber. In this he was rowed down the Thames, and up the Fleet, to the entrance of the prison. The progress ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Mushahirah, or monthly pay; not a cateran came near us but affected to hold himself dishonoured if not provided at once with the regular salary. 'Brahim was wholly beardless, and our Egyptians quoted their proverb, Sabah el-Kurud, wa la Saban el-'Ajrud—"Better (see ill-omened) monkeys in the morning than the beardless man." As the corruption of the best turns to the worst, so the Bedawi, a noble race in its own wilds, becomes thoroughly degraded by contact with civilization. I remember a certain chief of the Wuld Ali tribe, near Damascus, who was made ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... speeches a portent occurred. A cloud of 56 ill-omened birds[152] flew over his head and its density obscured the daylight. To this was added another omen of disaster. A bull broke from the altar, scattered the utensils for the ceremony, and escaped so far away that it had to be killed ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... forget the dismal appearance of the Cedar Barrens. The soil was nowhere more than two inches deep, and the trees which covered it by millions had all died as soon as they attained a height of fifteen or twenty feet. Swarms of ill-omened turkey-buzzards were the only living creatures visible "like foul lemures flitting ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... day give him enough anxiety. He must grow to be a mighty man for their sakes, and I doubt not that his nurse gives him better nourishment to that end than I could who am only a weak woman. But you, you poor, dear, little ill-omened mite, I shall nourish you myself, and if your life is unhappy it shall not be because I have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself have explained the feeling that was this morning at work within him. It was the first time he and the dowager had met since the marriage, and she brought before him all too prominently the ill-omened past: her unjustifiable scheming—his own miserable weakness. If ever Lord Hartledon felt shame and repentance for his weak yielding, he felt it now—felt it in all its bitterness; and something very like rage against the dowager was bubbling up in his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... him turn round in the garden, and give us a last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... was a grey and yellow garment worn and patched, an ill-omened rag thrown down at the foot of a tree. It bore the convict's original number at the Perth Penitentiary. The felon was not there, but his filthy garments betrayed his passage. This livery of crime, after having clothed some miscreant, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Rankin was of opinion that its ill-fame was maintained by 'policy on the one hand and by ignorance of truth on the other.' But Mr. Judge died a few days after. So with Dr. Macpherson, of the African Colonial Corps. It appears ill-omened to praise the place; and, after repeated visits to it, I no longer wonder that the 'Medical Gazette' of April 14, 1838, affirmed, 'No statistical writer has yet tried to give the minutest fraction representing the chance of a surgeon's return from ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... my cousin Rashleigh's villainy I had yet to learn. In the rebellion of 1715, when in an ill-omened hour the standard of the Stuart was set up, to the ruin of many honourable families, Rashleigh, with more than another Jacobite agent, revealed the plot to the Government. My poor uncle, Sir Hildebrand, was easily persuaded to join the standard of the Stuarts, and was soon taken ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... cold, and rugged country such as mine, the days of immigration are long at an end; and away up there, which was at that time far beyond the northernmost extreme of railways, hard upon the shore of that ill-omened strait of whirlpools, in a land of moors where no stranger came, unless it should be a sportsman to shoot grouse or an antiquary to decipher runes, the presence of these small pedestrians struck the mind as though a bird-of-paradise had risen from the heather or an albatross ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... along the same narrow passage by which they had entered. I rode in company with three or four young Indians at the rear, and the moving swarm stretched before me, in the ruddy light of sunset, or in the deep shadow of the mountains far beyond my sight. It was an ill-omened spot they chose to encamp upon. When they were there just a year before, a war party of ten men, led by The Whirlwind's son, had gone out against the enemy, and not one had ever returned. This was the immediate cause of this season's warlike preparations. I was not a little astonished when ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... fellow looked sheepish and frightened enough, as he patrolled slowly with his escort up and down the crowded Porta Pia thoroughfare; but even this insult failed to effect its object. The device was too transparent for an Italian crowd not to detect it, and the ill-omened cortege of the "Pope's representative," as the Romans styled the executioner, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... invented a pretext for the frequent but varying use of nevermore. This word could not be spoken in the right tone by a human being; it must come from an unreasoning creature, hence the introduction of the raven, an ill-omened bird, in harmony with the main tone of the poem. He then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty. Hence the death of a beautiful ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... wonder from its size, as that it was born without any certain mark of distinction whether it was male or female, which was the case two years before at Sinuessa. Aruspices, called in from Etruria, declared this to be indeed a foul and ill-omened prodigy, which ought to be removed out of the Roman territory, and, being kept far from coming in contact with the earth, to be plunged into the deep. They shut it up alive in a chest, and carrying it away, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... worthy vessel, Many months have lain at anchor, I, a war-ship well constructed, Am decaying in the harbor, Never having sailed to conquest; Worms are gnawing at my vitals, In my hull their dwelling-places, And ill-omened birds of heaven Build their nests within my rigging; Frogs and lizards of the forest Play about my oars and rudder; Three times better for this vessel Were he but a valley birch-tree, Or an aspen on the heather, With the squirrels in his branches, And the dogs beneath them barking!" Wainamoinen, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... property, studded with little islands, each of which is covered with its own thicket of hollies, birch, and dwarfed oaks. The house itself is poor, ill built, with straggling passages and low rooms, and is a sombre, ill-omened looking place. When Josephine Murray was brought there as a bride she thought it to be very sombre and ill-omened; but she loved the lakes and mountains, and dreamed of some vague mysterious joy of life which was to come to her from the wildness ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... the maiden, laughing, "this is beyond belief; she must be very stupid. To drive from her one who was dear to her! And worse than all, into that ill-omened wood! The wood and its mysteries, for all I should have cared, might ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Dalilah was admitted, Hasan asked her, "What bringeth thee hither, O ill-omened old woman? Verily, thou and thy brother Zurayk the fishmonger are of a piece!"; and she answered, "O captain I am in the wrong and this my neck is at thy mercy; but tell me which of you it was that played me this trick?" Quoth Calamity Ahmad, "'Twas the first of my lads." Rejoined Dalilah, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... the doctor, and M. Plantat exchanged a significant look. What misfortune had befallen M. Courtois, this worthy, and despite his faults, excellent person? Decidedly, this was an ill-omened day! ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... before his eyes, as he had known him in his own impetuous youth. Dear, indeed, had that prince been to Ella, both before and after his elevation to the throne, and as he heard the sweet boyish voice of Edwy, his thoughts were guided by memory to that ill-omened feast at Pucklechurch, where the vindictive outlaw Leolf had murdered his king. The sword of Ella had been amongst those which avenged the crime on the murderer, but they could not call back the vital spark which had fled. "Edmund the Magnificent," as they loved to ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... now scarcely a vestige of it remained. The little doctor's talk, above all the sight of his calm, thoughtful face and the aspect of his calm, satisfied room, gave the coup de grce to the uneasiness of a spurious and ill-omened excitement. When the power of wide medical knowledge is joined to the power of goodness and of umbrageous intellectuality, a doctor is, among all men, the man to lay the ghosts that human nature is perpetually at the pains to set walking ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... however, asked, "When was it our fashion to count our foes?" and their rashness prevailed. Arthur marched to besiege the town of Mirabeau, where there resided one whom he should never have attacked—his aged grandmother; but Constance had taught him no sentiment toward her but hatred, and with this ill-omened beginning to his chivalry he commenced ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not a few whose very names I have forgotten. Over all this hung the oppressive shadow of the great Russian empire—the shadow lowering with the darkness of a new-born national hatred fostered by the Moscow school of journalists against the Poles after the ill-omened rising of 1863. ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... such follies away like cobwebs, and, turning back, consider who could have found his interest in such a deed. Against whom did the dead man urge him to be on guard lest Martin's papers should be spirited away? Was there some other claimant of that ill-omened peerage of whom he knew nothing, or was it—And Westray resolutely quenched the thought that had risen a hundred times before his mind, and cast it aside as ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog. But, one way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the first steps of my escape, and led ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anemones, and pale yellow amaryllis, only showed their arid brown or gray remnants. The moat had become a deep waterless cleft; and beneath, on the accessible sides towards the glen, clustered a collection of black horsehair tents, the foremost surmounted by the ill-omened crescent. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it is an ill-omened Year: beside War (which I won't read about) so much Illness and Death—hereabout, at any rate. A Nephew of mine—a capital fellow—was pitched upon his head from a Gig a week ago, and we know not yet how far that head of his may recover itself. But, beside one's own immediate ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... fleeing away in a car drawn by fire-breathing dragons, and driven by the Furies; and the youthful poet could not avoid reflecting that a record of the most miserable union that even the ancient mythology had recorded was a singularly inappropriate and ill-omened ornament for nuptial festivities.[4] ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... horror upon horror; then came Clement Hicks, as one having authority, and bade them begone. The ill-omened fowls hopped off; relations began to collect; there was an atmosphere of suppressed electricity about the place, and certain women openly criticised the prominent attitude Hicks saw fit to assume. This, however, did not trouble ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... and arms next was the rule of the ancients. They must both be cultivated concurrently. Archery and horsemanship are the more essential for the military houses. Weapons of warfare are ill-omened words to utter; the use of them, however, is an unavoidable necessity. In times of peace and good order we must not forget that disturbance may arise. Dare we omit to practise our warlike exercise ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... nothing really to fear from him. He was too wise not to understand the gulf between them. To-morrow she would confront him flatly with his deceit; she would array the power of the authorities behind her race. She would sweep instantly from that ill-omened palace. There would be no ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... holding on a while, the victor, up to his back in water, began moving towards the shore, dragging along with him, by the neck, the body of the heron, whose great feet came trailing after at an astonishing distance behind. To see him, wet as a drowned rat, tugging up the muddy bank with his ill-omened and unsightly prey, was indeed a singular spectacle. Whatever had brought on this queer contest, the fisher had won—fairly, too, for aught I could see; and I hadn't it in my heart to intercept his retreat. But Ben, to whom ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... rumour on the subject. Indeed, during the last forty-eight hours, since she had left the chambers of Mr. Furnival, she had been more at ease within herself than during the previous days which had elapsed subsequent to the ill-omened visit made to her by Miriam Dockwrath. It had seemed to her that Mr. Furnival anticipated no danger, and his manner and words had almost given her confidence. But now,—now that a public rumour was spoken of, her heart was as low again ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of a precipice and the deep sea, he who ventured on the passage must have hurried anxiously along the thread of sand, hoping to reach the last bend in time. As he rounds the ill-omened corner he sees he is too late; already the surf is breaking against the cliff. He turns back only to find retreat barred behind by rollers that have crept in since he passed. His very footprints have ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... floods were high the loud roaring of the wind through the wild mountain gorges and the terrific raging of the torrent over its rocky course gave to this savage locality its ill-omened names of Devil's Hoof, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... now ill-omened birds of prey Through the unpeopled mansions rove: Quench'd is that eye's inspiring ray, And lost the breezy ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... Now at these ill-omened words a shiver and a murmur went through the Council. But Maqueda only shrugged her shoulders, causing the silver trimmings on ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... save that love hath mastered him to the utmost of mastery," the Queen, after lending an attentive ear and comprehending the case, waxed wroth at her with exceeding wrath and bowed her head awhile groundwards; then, raising it, she looked at Shawahi and said to her, "O ill-omened beldam, art thou come to such a pass of lewdness that thou carriest males, men, with thee into the Islands of Wak and bringest them into me, unfearing of my mischief? Who hath foregone thee with this fashion, that thou shouldst do thus? By the head of the King, but for thy claim on me for fosterage ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... the name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville ears," he objected. "You've no idea how ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... compliment or other while he was buying her apples, for he appeared very much pleased after he came home, and he hasn't bestowed a compliment on me since the month after we were married. Ah, fated word! Ah, Percy, Percy!—on that ill-omened day, what caused you to linger? We might even then have retraced ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... said Fergus; 'and you may wish Edward Waverley (no longer captain) joy of being freed from the slavery to an usurper, implied in that sable and ill-omened emblem.' ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the castle of Ellieslaw, destined to be the scene of this ill-omened union, was a building of much older date than the castle itself, though that claimed considerable antiquity. Before the wars between England and Scotland had become so common and of such long duration, that the buildings along both sides of ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... no immediate reply, but was studying the ill-omened grove with his glass. After a moment he said, "I do not think there will be any further pursuit. The enemy are retiring from the grove. My explanation of their conduct is this: There is some large ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... field at the head of 15,000 riflemen and 45,000 spearmen. The Khalifa had embarked on a great venture in planning the invasion of Abyssinia. The vast strength of the Negus was known to the Dervishes, and has since been proved to the world. The Mahdi had forbidden such a war. An ill-omened prophecy further declared that the King of Abyssinia would tether his horse to a solitary tree by Khartoum, while his cavalry should ride through the city fetlock deep in blood. But Abdullah feared neither God nor man. He reviewed ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the public clamor; and so ill-omened a commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for position, in which both armies were now manoeuvring. The real details of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... sacred oil, the sceptre which his little fingers could scarcely enclose. Alas for the luckless Stewarts! again and again this affecting ceremony took place before the time of their final promotion which was the precursor of their overthrow. They were all kings almost from their cradle—kings ill-omened, entering upon their royalty with infant terror ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... fleet that clears St. Helen's shore Holds Burrard, Hope, ill-omened Moore, Clinton and Paget; while The transports that pertain to those Count six-score sail, whose planks enclose Ten ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... your wedding, I'm sorry I gave you my promise to stay away from it. I think that this recent notion of yours that the marriage of an ex-Vestal is an ill-omened occasion, like a funeral, is morbid and baseless. Every Vestal has a right to leave the order at the end of her term of service and to marry if she pleases. The right is indubitable. Nothing that is right is ill-omened. I think that ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... moth, closely resembles that peculiar instinct by which the vulture and other birds that prey upon carrion, are able to single out a diseased animal from the herd, which they follow with their dismal croakings, hovering over its head, or sitting in ill-omened flocks, on the surrounding trees, watching it as its life ebbs away, and stretching out their filthy and naked necks, and opening and snapping their blood-thirsty beaks that they may be all ready to ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... word made the painter's blood run cold. The horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various |
