"Foretell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manufacture that. Father Peter had an enemy and a very powerful one, the astrologer who lived in a tumbled old tower up the valley, and put in his nights studying the stars. Every one knew he could foretell wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there was always a war, and generally a famine somewhere. But he could also read any man's life through the stars in a big book he had, and find lost property, and every one in the village except Father Peter stood in awe of him. Even Father ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conservators and teachers of his doctrine, who formed a particular order, like that of the Levites of Israel and of the Chaldeans of Assyria. They did not constitute a hereditary caste like the Brahmins of India, but they were chosen from among the people. They claimed to foretell future events. They worshiped fire and the stars, and believed in two principles of good and evil, of which light and darkness were ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling with it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On the other part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneth the exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much to say as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune or mischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to come to pass. A clear and evident ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Fontenelle and Voltaire, of whom the first lived to the use of a hundred, and the second to upwards of four-score years, and yet both of whom came into the world with very doubtful chances of existence, it is become a very hazardous task to determine, or even to foretell, length of days by the state of health at birth. They add, that an unhealthy nurse, aggravating the hereditary weakness of the child, infused with her milk into his blood the germs of that asthma from which he suffered all his life, and of which he eventually died. These facts accepted—a delicate ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... a placid sky, to bid the trees Assume the lively verdure of their leaves: The vine to bud, and, joyful, in its shoots, Foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits: The ripen'd corn to sing, while all around Full riv'lets glide; and flowers ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of the future are always concealed in the history of the present. Hence—pardon the reiteration—if we can once trace this sequence of dominant functions, whose evolution has filled past ages, we can safely foretell something at ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... species; let us suppose that, without forge or anvil, the instruments of husbandry had dropped from the heavens into the hands of savages, that these men had got the better of that mortal aversion they all have for constant labour; that they had learned to foretell their wants at so great a distance of time; that they had guessed exactly how they were to break the earth, commit their seed to it, and plant trees; that they had found out the art of grinding their corn, and improving by fermentation the ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... resistance complete in every detail. The site in which the attempt was to be made was visited and its military features were appraised in all their bearings; the events which would succeed each other in a few short hours could be predicted as surely as one could foretell the regular movements of a machine; the Roman general was walking into a trap from which there should be no escape but death. The framing of Jugurtha's scheme necessarily depended on his knowledge of Metellus's ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... also been demonstrated that kites may be used by meteorologists to indicate the approach of storms, which they foretell by a sudden and continuous veering over a considerable arc, usually about sixty degrees. This veering begins usually six or seven hours before a storm, and often as much as twelve hours. And another sure sign of a storm is the continuous and sudden dropping ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a Trojan drab, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... men gave ear, and waited; and kept silence at my counsel. They waited for my words as for the showers; and opened their mouths as for the latter rain. I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners." And everything seemed to foretell a continuance of my happy lot. My prejudices and my convictions, my tastes and my affections, my habits and my inclinations, my interests and my family, all joined to bind me to the cause of Christ by the strongest bonds. And I seemed ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... his nerves on edge with apprehension. It was impossible to foretell what might happen. For all they knew, the three men may have suspected that they had been followed, and were now laying a clever trap, in order to take the explorers ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... has a mind once in her life to speak truth, or to foretell,-the latter of which has as seldom any thing to do with truth as her ladyship has,-why she may now about the Tesi's dog, for I shall certainly forget what it would be in vain to remember. My dear Sir, how should one convey a dog to Florence! There are no travelling ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... harm in the trade, gal; but such is not Roswell's ar'nd in the West Ingees. It's a great secret, the reason of his call there; and I will venture to foretell that, should he make it, and should it turn out successful, you ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Are truly represented by the hues That thrill the forests with prophetic fire. And what could painter's skill compared to these? What palette ever held the flaming tints That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell How set the ebbing currents of the year? What poet's page was ever like to this, Or told the lesson of life's waning days More forcibly, with more of natural truth, Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse? And then, again, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... daughter of Captain Jonathan Prescott who commanded a company under Sir William Pepperell at the siege of Louisburg and lost his life there; and I could not question the wisdom of colonial times. Indeed, to this hour I have a lingering belief that cats can foretell ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... round the back of hers. Apollo's chair was made memorable with his well-known lyre and bow, and these words were carved round it: "The golden lyre shall be my friend, the bent bow my delight, and in oracles will I foretell ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... things, and they had to tighten their belts like the rest. Then they got their revenge and swept the dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still revenging themselves. You should see the stocks of goods they sit on in their cellars and wait for the rises that the newspapers foretell! They've got one excuse, it's true—there are others, bigger people, that are worse. Ah, you can say that the business people will have given a rich notion of their patriotism during ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, the widely-spread reputation they enjoy, we shall content ourselves with a few words explanatory of the arrangement of a work which, it requires no great gift of prophecy to foretell, must ere long push Lempriere from its stool. The present Dictionary may be divided into three portions. The Biographical, which includes all the historical names of importance which occur in the Greek and Roman writers, from the earliest times down to the extinction ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... "Everything should foretell a happy termination to this voyage; M. de la Perouse is a good seaman, and his route has been most ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... circumstance, and determined, if possible, to ascertain how an ignorant boy had attained a precision and knowledge in the weather, of which the wisest philosophers would be proud, he rode back, wet as he was. "My lad," said Newton, "I'll give thee a guinea if thou wilt tell me how thou canst foretell the weather so truly." "Will ye, sir? I will then," said the boy, scratching his head, and holding out his hand for the guinea. "Now, sir," having received the money, and pointing to his sheep, "when you see that black ram turn his tail ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier—a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization. I believe that a moment's thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... putting exact knowledge of facts above tradition or sentiment; accumulating facts patiently until sufficient have been gathered to make possible the formulation of generalizations and laws enabling us to connect the present with the past, and in some measure to foretell the outcome of the present, as Marx foretold the culmination of competition in monopoly? Is it not to see past, present, and future as one whole, a growth, a constant process, so that instead of vainly fashioning plans for millennial Utopias, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... written on paper. It is written with characters of flesh and blood. Strive as hard as man may, he can never fully foretell how an ink-written act will play. There is an inexplicable something which playing before an audience develops. Both the audience and the actors on the stage are affected. A play—the monologue and every musical form as well—is one thing in manuscript, another ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... small and of brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black 'unparliamentary' smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken to foretell rain. As they drove through the larger and wider streets, from the station to the hotel, they had to stop constantly; great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares. Margaret had now and then been into the city in her drives with her aunt. But there the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to-day, Christianity be thought of as being mainly a means of social improvement, or if its principles of action be applied to life without that basis of them all, in the Cross which takes away the world's iniquity, then it needs no prophet to foretell that such a Christianity will only have superficial effects, and that, in losing sight of this central thought, it will have cast away ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... how it happened. There was a sort of flank and rear movement and the entire company, excepting, of course, the dank spiritualist, precipitated itself on me. Voices clamoured for me to foretell destinies. Hands were thrust before me. They eddied, surged and swirled about me. I never saw such a massed quantity of hands. It was like leaving a Swiss hotel in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... never two days alike. The motherly sky never gives birth to twin clouds. The weather shakes its bundle of mysteries in our faces, and banters us with, "Don't you wish you knew?" We prophesy rain upon the morrow, and wake with a bar of golden sunlight on the coverlet. We foretell a hard winter, and, before it is half gone, become nervous lest we should miss our supply of ice. The fly, the murrain, the potato-rot, and the grasshoppers, all have a divine office in tipping over our calculations. The phantom host of the great North come out for parade ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Miss Brewster somewhat exceeded her knowledge. Few of us can foretell what may or may not happen ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... rebellion must have made the worst part of your lot. You did not feel how impossible it is for us to judge rightly of God's dealings, and you opposed yourself to his will. But what do we know? We cannot foretell the working of the smallest event in our own lot; how can we presume to judge of things that are so much too high for us? There is nothing that becomes us but entire submission, perfect resignation. As long as we ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... heart, in that. It is too unjust—too cruel to be possible. One says to oneself: it is but a separation! Oh! Satni, thy doctrines may be the truth. But they declare this separation eternal; they make the death of our loved ones final, irreparable, horrible, therefore I foretell thee this: Women will never believe them! What is there that is changed?—Yesterday, children came playing close to us. You know how their cries and laughter made me glad—the voice of one of them was like the voice of mine. I made him come, ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... race shall possess the earth through all the unknown periods of the future, the parents continually passing off the stage in death as the children rise upon it to maturity. We cannot discern any authority in those old traditions which foretell the impending destruction of the world. On what grounds are we to believe them? The great system of things is a stable harmony. There is no wear or tear in the perfect machinery of the creation, rolling noiseless in its blue bearings of ether. It seems, comparatively speaking, to have just ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... nature incapable of entering into this moral arithmetic. It is probable that a revolution similar to that of France would have occurred in this country, had it not been counteracted by the genius of Pitt. In 1618 it was easy to foretell by the political prognostic that a mighty war throughout Europe must necessarily occur. At that moment, observes Bayle, the house of Austria aimed at a universal monarchy; the consequent domineering ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... were elected to the Parliaments and city councils of the new regime. Poland, restored, gave universal suffrage, and elected eight to the Parliament. Its women are strongly organized and very capable. It is not possible to foretell the future of these experiments in democracy. It has been reported from time to time that the suffrage had been given to women in Bulgaria, Roumania and Serbia and then denied but at present they do not seem to be ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... I did not venture to pronounce upon it. "About the future, we have no prospect before our minds whatever, good or bad. Ever since that great luminary, Augustine, proved to be the last bishop of Hippo, Christians have had a lesson against attempting to foretell, how Providence will prosper and" [or?] "bring to an end, what it begins." Perhaps the lately-revived principles would prevail in the Anglican Church; perhaps they would be lost in some miserable ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... prophesy fifty years earlier that a second Emperor should some day sit upon the throne of France? Who would have ventured to foretell that this capricious people, loathing as they did in 1815 the name of Buonaparte, should one day choose by universal suffrage another of that ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... attach much importance to these omens. The gall and liver of the slaughtered animal are carefully examined. If the fluid in the gall sack is exceedingly bitter, the inquirer is certain to be successful; if it is mild he had best defer his project. Certain lines and spots found on the liver foretell disaster, while a normal organ assures success. See also Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, Vol. II, p. ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... well—just as well!" Dermott said, after a silence, peering into the cloud of smoke he had blown ceilingward, as though to foretell the future. "Ye see, Mr. Ravenel, if she will so far honor me, I'm intending some day ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... woman shivered a little, I thought. "That's what causes me to wonder, Doctor," she said. "There is an effect upon her. She can foretell the condition of her disease. She seems conscious that her life depends on the welfare of something else or the misfortune and suffering of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... knowledge and gifts, to whom men resort for needs lying outside the scope of that worship. Every savage religion contains a certain amount of magic, of practices, that is to say, by which it is thought possible to influence or to foretell outward events. Early man is not limited in his views of what may happen by any accurate knowledge of natural laws, or of the sequence of cause and effect, and he imagines it possible to influence nature in various ways. He imitates what he ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... I, a peace-loving man, engaged in a peaceable occupation, and yet finding myself continually in the midst of fighting, and now there was every probability of my having to engage in a desperate battle, the termination of which it was impossible to foretell. As I reached the deck I could see a number of dark phantom-looking objects gliding slowly over the water towards us almost noiselessly, the only sound heard being that produced by their oars as they dipped into the water. The pirates, for such we were still ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... weep, wilt thou not weep forth thy purple melancholy, then wilt thou have to SING, O my soul!—Behold, I smile myself, who foretell ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... beneath him that he stopped short in his downward climbing and stood as still as a mouse, with his heart in his mouth. A few inches more and he would have been discovered;—what would have happened then would have been no hard matter to foretell. ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... no endurance, no forbearance, of which he has not shown himself capable. For his country——All I ask from Heaven for him is, opportunity to serve his country. Whether circumstances, whether success, will ever prove his merits to the world, I cannot foretell; but I shall always glory in him as my ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... hot and free from rain, and they have been known to be very cloudy and chilly. Indeed, twelve hours of cloud in that northern latitude will reduce the temperature very uncomfortably. The woodsmen and peasants can foretell quite accurately some weeks ahead when the main changes are due, which is of great help to the stranger ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... to superficial knowledge; but I know of no branch in which, to the same degree as in astronomy, the great leading phenomena are the reverse of true; while they yet appeal so strongly to the senses, that men who could foretell eclipses, and who discovered the precession of the equinoxes, still believed that the earth was at rest in the center of the universe, and that all the host of heaven performed a daily revolution ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... Hazel. "A banshee is a ghost, that the peasants in Ireland believe in. It stands outside their windows at night and wails dismally. Its appearance is supposed to foretell the death of a member of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... what had sent him to her, the San Reve, with a lie on his lips about having quit his calls at the Harleys'; he was seeking to blind her to what was passing. But she, the San Reve, would be cunning; she would fathom the traitor Storri. Even then she could foretell the end. In a week, or mayhap a month, the news would reach her of the wedding of Storri and Miss Harley. What else could come? Storri was a Count. Were not Americans mad after Counts? And such a nobleman! Wealthy, handsome, brilliant, bold—who ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... (both species) is supposed by all hunters to foretell rain, when its "Kow, kow, kow" ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... brought her here? If she stays the mill will claim her body and soul. The overseer has marked her out; he hovers in the part of the room where she works. She has colour and her difference to her pale companions is marked. Excelsior will not leave those roses unwithered. I can foretell the change as yellow unhealthfulness creeps upon her cheeks and the red forever goes. There are no red cheeks here, not one. She has chosen a sitting-down job thinking it easier. I saw her lean back, put her hands around her waist ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Ulysses, and I would to heav'n That, where he died, thyself had perish'd too. Thou hadst not then run o'er with prophecy As now, nor provocation to the wrath Giv'n of Telemachus, in hope to win, Perchance, for thine some favour at his hands. But I to thee foretell, skilled as thou art 250 In legends old, (nor shall my threat be vain) That if by artifice thou move to wrath A younger than thyself, no matter whom, Woe first the heavier on himself shall fall, Nor shalt thou profit him by thy attempt, And we will charge ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... not for us, O plaintive elegist, Thine epicedial tone of sad farewell To joy in wisdom and to thought in youth! Our western Muse would keep her tryst With sunrise, not with sunset, and foretell In boyhood's bliss the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... who has cover'd the whole Earth with water (as they imagine) and relate innumerable fabulous Tales, some of which have a kind of Analogy with the Universal Deluge. These Barbarians believe that there are certain Spirits in the Air, between Heaven and Earth, who have a power to foretell future Events, and others who play the part of Physicians, curing all sorts of Distempers. Upon which account, it happens, that these Savages are very Superstitious, and consult their Oracles with a great deal of exactness. One of these Masters-Jugglers who pass for Sorcerers among ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... all my wish and thine complete, By turns we languish and we burn, Let sighing gales our sighs repeat, Our murmurs, murmuring brooks return. 7 Let me, when Nature calls to rest, And blushing skies the morn foretell, Sink on the down of Stella's breast, And ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... them with such fury, tearing their capes and hose, that in their fright they fancied he was mad. But the Bargello, like an experienced person, told them: "It is the nature of good dogs to divine and foretell the mischance coming on their masters. Two of you take sticks and beat the dog off; while the others strap Benvenuto on this chair; then carry him to the place you wot of." It was, as I have said, the night after Corpus Domini, and about ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... account them as spies. We have heard the report of thy wisdom and sagacity. How, then, canst thou look upon their countenances, and yet declare them to be spies? Especially as we have heard thou didst interpret Pharaoh's dream, and didst foretell the coming of the famine, are we amazed that thou, in thy discernment, couldst not distinguish whether they be ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... first night, is also silent about it. In a letter written, as it happens, by Bolingbroke, on the day that Cato was produced, he indicates the signs of the time, as they appeared to a Tory statesman: 'The prospect before us,' he writes, 'is dark and melancholy. What will happen no man is able to foretell.' ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... father greeted him, the alacrity with which he accepted and leaned on the strong arm offered him, proved that the daily walks had been solitary and doubtless sad ones. I think Mr. Shaw understood the real meaning of that little act of respect, and felt better for the hopeful change it seemed to foretell. But he took it quietly, and leaving his face to speak for him, merely said, "Thanky, Tom; yes, mother will enjoy her dinner twice as ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... story of a dream that he had had the night before—a dream which he said came to him before great events. He had dreamed it before the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg. This time it must foretell a victory by Sherman over Johnston's army, news of which was hourly expected, for he knew of no other important event likely to occur. The members of the cabinet were deeply impressed; but General Grant, who had come to Washington that morning and was present, remarked with matter-of-fact exactness ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... coates lyke calendars, and hammering upon dialls, taking the elevation of Pancridge Church (their quotidian walkes) pronosticate of faire, of foule, and of smelling weather; men weatherwise, that wil by aches foretell of change and alteration of wether. Some more active gallants made of a finer molde, by devising how to win their Mistrises favours, and how to blaze and blanche their passions, with aeglogues, songs, and sonnets, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... day of the wedding, and the eve of the inauguration, she did foretell, in the hearing of a score, that Mr. Rothsay would never ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... more equal distribution of what would be produced; and the happiness of a community depends vastly more on the distribution than on the amount of its wealth. In thus speaking of the future, I do not claim any special prophetical gift. As a general rule, no man is able to foretell distinctly the ultimate, permanent results of any great social change. But as to the case before us, we ought not to doubt. It is a part of religion to believe that by nothing can a country so effectually gain happiness and lasting prosperity as by the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... pointed and poisonous, that every hostile criticism seemed to shrivel up in that glittering fire, and there seemed to be nothing left but to seek her friendship and good will. For instance, if things went well in Baden, one could confidently foretell that at the end of the summer season Natasha would be found in Nice or Geneva, queen of the winter season, the lioness of the day, and the arbiter of fashion. She and Bodlevski always behaved with such propriety and watchful care that not a shadow ever fell on Natasha's fame. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... ball with growing excitement. It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the character of the Contessa's campaign. It might reintroduce her into society under better auspices than ever, or it might—but there was no need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would conclude at the same source as it began, Bice's triumph—a debutante who was already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the greatest parti in the kingdom. The idea ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... before capi], take beforehand, anticipate; order, charge. praecipu [praecipuus, especial], adv., especially. prae-clrus, -clra, -clrum, very bright; splendid, remarkable, famous. praeda, -ae, f., booty, spoil, plunder. prae-dc, -dcere, -dx, -dictus, say beforehand, foretell, predict. praedor, -r, -tus [praeda], plunder. praemium, -, n., reward. praesns, -sentis [part. of praesum], adj., present, immediate, imminent. praesentia, -ae [praesns], f., the present. praeses, praesidis, ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... had arrived with their hussars, bringing rescue, salvation—did not all depend, a hundred times over, on a mere yes or no, a step, a gesture, a look? Take any ten men with whom you are intimate, let them have been King of France, you can foretell the issue of their ten nights. Ah, it was that night truly that heaped shame on fatality, that laid bare her weakness! For that night revealed to all men the dependence, the wretched and shivering poverty of the great mysterious force that, in moments of ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... in motion by the hand, and as it revolves horizontally from east to west round its axis, the marble is caused by a jerk of the finger and thumb to fly off in a contrary movement. The public therefore conclude that no calculation can foretell where the marble will fall, and I believe they are right, inasmuch as the bank plays a certain and sure game, however deep, runs no risk of loss, and consequently has no necessity for superfluously cheating or deluding the public. It also plays double, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Roman Catholic, were not assumed as a basis. Now, as the people had been contending at least ten years long for constitutional rights against prerogative, and at least seven for liberty of conscience against papistry, it was easy to foretell how much effect any negotiations thus commenced were likely ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... carry him to his tryst. The shadows of night were already on the forest when he entered it; and the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees, and their dismal sighing, that seemed to foretell a storm, all combined to disturb his fancy and raise strange spectres in his imagination. The shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, caused him an unprecedented shock, and the great rush of blood to his head made him stagger and clutch hold of the nearest ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... tall dark man" which the amateur crystal-gazer really wants. He doesn't want the future. There is so little to foretell in most of our lives. Nobody is going to pay two guineas to be told that he will be off his drive next Saturday and have a stomach-ache on the following Monday. He wants something a little more romantic than that. Even if he is never going to be influenced by a tall dark man from India, ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... where we cannot penetrate. In his unfinished book on Ecclesiastical Prophecy he enumerates the illusions of mediaeval saints when they spoke of the future, and describes them, as he once described Carlyle and Ruskin, as prophets having nothing to foretell. At Frankfort, where he spoilt his watch by depositing it in unexpected holy water, and it was whispered that he had put it there to mend it, everybody knew that there was hardly a Catholic in the Parliament of whom such a fable could be ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraining him to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of Israel were constrained, only with this difference, that, whereas the Jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was his mission to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord. But, throughout it all, and through the whole discourse, there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwise than as the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... am a Prophet new inspir'd, And thus expiring, do foretell of him, His rash fierce blaze of Ryot cannot last, For violent fires soone burne out themselues, Small showres last long, but sodaine stormes are short, He tyres betimes, that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding, food doth choake the feeder: Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming meanes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... quotations show the deep relationship between the arts, and especially between music and painting. Goethe said that painting must count this relationship her main foundation, and by this prophetic remark he seems to foretell the position in which painting is today. She stands, in fact, at the first stage of the road by which she will, according to her own possibilities, make art an abstraction of thought and arrive finally at purely artistic composition. [Footnote: By "Komposition" ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... for six weeks before that decision was pronounced. Remembering, it should seem, how fertile a source of controversy ecclesiastical endowments had supplied throughout a large part of the Christian world, and how impossible it was to foretell with precision what might be the prevailing opinions and feelings of the Canadians on this subject at a future period, Parliament at once secured the means of making a systematic provision for a Protestant clergy, and took full precaution against the eventual inaptitude of that ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... chastier of the foe, To the freed kingdoms of my native land! Then shall our song with loftier cadence flow, Boasting the deeds of thy heroic hand! Scorn not, meanwhile, the feeble lines which thus Thy future glory and success foretell. Live, prince beloved! be brave, be prosperous; Conquer, howe'er opposed,—and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... and inevitably as a love-bird on a barrel-organ picking out a fortune. The art of prophecy has grown with civilisation. Prophets were regarded as almost divine persons in the old days, but now every man is his own Isaiah. I am the most modest of the prophets, but even I venture to foretell that there will be an annular eclipse of the sun in the coming year on the 8th of April, that it will begin at twenty-two minutes to 8 A.M. at Liverpool, and that it will be visible at Greenwich. What clairvoyant could go further? Test my mantic gifts at any other point and I doubt not I can satisfy ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... Capaneus and other impious commanders marching to the siege of Thebe." ("Gillespie's Miscel. Quest.," p. 178.) AEschylus makes Eteocles give the following description of the character of Amphiaraus, and foretell his destiny.—("Septem ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... many enemies would laugh, were the Lord to withhold supplies, and say, Did we not foretell that this ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... was forced from him, and it became a hand-to-hand struggle, of which, from the difference in numbers, it was not difficult to foretell the result. Yet Kinraid made desperate efforts to free himself; he wasted no breath in words, but fought, as the men said, 'like a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to their unaccustomed palates were proving potent. The Stranger's cigars were singularly aromatic. It seemed the most reasonable thing in the world that the Stranger should be thus able to foretell to ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... ingenious physician assures us, that he has for years past been in the habit of consulting his patients in place of his barometer, and has thus been enabled to foretell vicissitudes of weather before they had manifested themselves, by attending to the accounts they gave of their sensations in the bath. There are seven springs, whose united volumes of water, in twenty-four hours, fill a chamber of twenty ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... an instrument for viewing the heavens at the hour of one's birth, by which the astrologers professed to foretell the events of ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... as "tears of perfect moan," with fitful fire at its heart, ominous of evil and sorrow, set in a mourning band of jet on the forefront of the poem, that the brow so circled may, "like to a title-leaf, foretell the nature of a tragic volume." Not indeed that without these the ground would in either case be barren; but that in either field our eye rests rather on these and other separate ears of wheat that overtop the ranks, than on the waving width of the whole harvest at ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Letters came frequently from Mr. Curling to the parsonage, and at last came a message by special mission to say that the evil day was at hand. As far as Mr. Curling's professional experience would enable him to anticipate or foretell the proceedings of such a man as Tom Tozer, he thought that the sheriff's officers would be at Framley parsonage on the following morning. Mr. Curling's experience did not mislead him in this respect. "And what will you do, Mark?" said Fanny, speaking through her tears, after she had read the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... they all wondered what the Hall-Sun's words might signify; for she had told them nought about the battles to be, saving that some should come back to the Mid-mark; whereas aforetime somewhat would she foretell to them concerning the fortune of the fight, and now had she said to them nothing but what their own hearts told them. Nevertheless they bore their crests high as they followed the Wolf down into the meadow, where all was now ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... might have imagined that the heavens were precipitating themselves on the earth; streets vanished, sank into the depths, and men reappeared, drifting on the surface, amidst shocks whose violence seemed to foretell the end of the city. A prolonged roar ascended—the roar of all the water rushing along the gutters and falling into the drains. And at last, above muddy-looking Paris, which had assumed with the showers ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... stars, being powerful deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... spake the ancient woman: "Thy dream to me shalt thou show; Such oft foretell but the weather, and the airts whence the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... protecting post, and breathing thick and hard, after his exertions, but disdaining to permit a single sign of suffering to escape. His person was now protected by immemorial and sacred usage, until the tribe in council had deliberated and determined on his fate. It was not difficult, however, to foretell the result, if any presage could be drawn from the feelings of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... counselor. He knew the past, present, and the future; he could foretell the result of a battle, and he had courage to rebuke even the bravest Knights for cowardice. On one occasion, when the battle seemed to be lost, he rode in among the enemy on a great white horse, carrying a banner with a golden dragon, which poured forth flaming fire from ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... about as such affairs have so often occurred in the past. Unheeded warnings, unnoted threats, unpunished outbreaks, that experienced soldiers about the reservation could readily understand, and foretell what was coming, and make their own individual preparations for the inevitable. But nothing they could report to superiors would shake the serene confidence of the Department of the Interior in the pacific purposes of its red children, the wards of ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... courtly presence, his gentle bearing, persuasive conversation, amiable, respectful manners. The consciousness that we shall never see him again is a sad and depressing reflection, and a mournful reminder that it is only a question of time—how long mortal man can not foretell—when those of us who survive him must obey a similar summons, and disappear, as he has done, from the scenes ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... misrepresentations on one side and supineness on the other, their numbers accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own government, and the greater part of them with all governments, they will increase, and nothing short of omniscience can foretell the consequences." ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... is the stronger. We are dealing with influences so subtle that the accidents of some striking dramatic occurrence, for example, may turn them this way or that. We are dealing with the human will—and thereby comes a snare for the feet of the would-be impartial prophet. To foretell the future is to modify the future. It is hard for any prophet not to break into exhortation after the fashion of the ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... genuine fragments in it, is very likely." (Ibid., p. 505.)—In other words, Dr. Arnold, rather than suppose "my Canon of Interpretation" (!) worthless, is prepared to eject the Book of Daniel from the Inspired Canon. Any thing is "very likely," in short, except that God could foretell future events, and Dr. Arnold be in ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... his experience of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it was not only on that ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... 1898. Another illustration was that of the Russians in the war of 1904; the practical disadvantages under which the Russian fleet operated at Tsushima were too great to be balanced by the advantage of the attack; especially as the situation was such that the Japanese were able to foretell with enough accuracy for practical purposes the place where the attack would be delivered, and ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... heard Mr. Franklin's arrival talked of among the servants out-of-doors, and saw his way to making a little money by it. Second, that he and his men and boy (with a view to making the said money) meant to hang about till they saw my lady drive home, and then to come back, and foretell Mr. Franklin's arrival by magic. Third, that Penelope had heard them rehearsing their hocus-pocus, like actors rehearsing a play. Fourth, that I should do well to have an eye, that evening, on the plate-basket. Fifth, that Penelope would do well to cool down, and ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... disturbed and so easily alarmed, that if the least unusual or extraordinary thing happened, he thought it a prodigy or a presage, and his court was thronged with diviners and priests whose business was to sacrifice and purify and foretell the future. So miserable a thing is incredulity and contempt of divine power on the one hand, and so miserable, also, superstition on the other, which like water, where the level has been lowered, flowing in and never stopping, fills the mind with slavish fears and follies, as now ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... 'decreed a constitution.' He has limited Himself. He has marked out His path across the great wide region of possibilities of the divine action; He has buoyed out His channel on that ocean, and declared to us His purposes. So we can reckon on God, as astronomers can foretell the motions of the stars. We can plead His faithfulness along with His love, and feel that the one makes sure that the other shall be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... their power; but none of them resembles the one which haunts me. One might say that man, ever since he has thought, has had a foreboding of, and feared a new being, stronger than himself, his successor in this world, and that, feeling him near, and not being able to foretell the nature of that master, he has, in his terror, created the whole race of hidden beings, of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... birth fail to checkmate all these machinations, and that the new arrival actually finds himself swimming in the unfathomed bliss of a belt with a brass plate, and a princely income of seven Queen's rupees every month, who could foretell that almost before a year has passed he will again be floundering in the mire of disappointed ambition? Yet so it is. He hears of another Chupprassee with only eleven months' service against his twelve, who has been promoted to eight rupees, and immediately the canker ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... of the most intelligent men in France, struck by the arrested increase of their own population and by the telling statistics from Further Britain, foretold the coming preponderance of the English race. They did not foretell, what none could then foresee, the still more sudden growth of Prussia, or that the three most important countries of the globe would, by the end of the century, be those that chiefly belonged to the conquests of the Reformation. ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... did; and by that sign, O Mirza, I knew you were in the extremity of passion. Offended? Not so, not so! I sent you to take care of her—fight for her—die, if her need were so great. Of whom might I expect such service but a lover? Did I not, the night of our parting, foretell what would happen?" He paused gazing at the ruby of the ring on ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... this could not be a matter of doubt; and I occupied myself almost immediately with preparations for the sojourn, which proved to be not a long one, but the duration of which no human intelligence could then have been able to foretell. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... probably meet," he replied, sheathing his sword, "but I was not prophetic enough to foretell the exact circumstances ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... self-styled authors change, much the same as with the Cambridge books on mathematics. A study of the edition, "Coast or Fishery Barometer Manual," teaches that the barometer foretells coming weather; that it does not always foretell coming weather; that only few are able to understand much about what it does tell us; that it may be used by ordinary persons without difficulty; that its indications are sometimes erroneous: that any one observing it once a day may be always weatherwise; that its ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... foretell a man's kismet? I know what I know, and I think what I think! I know thee, hakim, for a gentle fellow, who hurt me almost not at all in the drawing of a bullet out of my flesh. What knowest thou ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... must not risk the chance of rebuff. How could she foretell what was in his mind and heart, how probe the depths of his feeling toward her? Perhaps he would receive her protestations in skeptic spirit. Heaven knew he had cause to! Dared she.... ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... cared little for the order of St. John, and he should have put, by way of postscript, at the bottom of his note, "We will keep Malta in spite of you." I always told the First Consul that if he were in the situation of the English he would act the same part; and it did not require much sagacity to foretell that Malta would be the principal cause of the rupture of peace. He was of my opinion; but at that moment he thought everything depended on concluding the negotiations, and I entirely agreed with him. It ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... that he heard and saw through the window of his cell. He knew the two knights well, when he heard their tale, and how that they were even the same who had but lately passed his way, and he spake to the Father of Adventure: "Even so did I foretell ye when ye would ride toward that land, and I prayed ye to refrain. But that would ye not do, and so have ye come to harm therein! They who are fain to despise counsel ofttimes do so to their own mischief. ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... regiment. He was in the thickest of the fight at Angostura. He was wounded, but he hopes to recover soon, and we have not told Felicia. He writes me that it was really a lost battle, and that the fall of Santa Anna is surely coming, but that nobody can foretell what course he will take, cruel or otherwise, when he and his army return to fight with General Scott, on the road from the sea to this city. Go and read your letters, and then I ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... ink for a mirror, the old Egyptian sorcerer promised to reveal the past and foretell the future. The single drop of ink with which a lover writes may sadly change the blissful ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... music, or walking about, or doing something to disturb me just at the very moment when I was most busy with my books. Mariuccia, indeed, would ask me from time to time what I should do when Nino was gone, as if she could foretell what I was to feel. I suppose she knew I was used to him, after fourteen years of it, and would be inclined to black humours for want of his voice. But she could not know just what Nino is to me, nor how I look on him as my own boy. These peasants are quick-witted and foolish; they ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Church and going to the point of schism. Well, his luggage now lay there packed, he was going off and he would write that book, he would be the great schismatic who was awaited! Did not everything foretell approaching schism amidst that great movement of men's minds, weary of old mummified dogmas and yet hungering for the divine? Even Leo XIII must be conscious of it, for his whole policy, his whole effort towards Christian unity, his assumed affection for the democracy ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... take you to a doctor. Bad dreams are always a sign of ill health and are a very disagreeable thing, from which there is no need that you should suffer any more than from headache or indigestion or colic. Dreams, of course, do not mean or foretell anything whatever, except simply how bad, or good, the state of your ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... kingdom, and reject the supplications of Chosroes." [68] [] Placed on the verge of the two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and in the midst of the Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before many years should elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... agrees with Godwin that morality means the 'calculation of consequences,'[231] or, as he says with Paley, implies the discovery of the will of God by observing the effect of actions upon happiness. Reason then regulates certain innate and practically unalterable instincts by enabling us to foretell their consequences. The reasonable man is influenced not simply by the immediate gratification, but by a forecast of all the results which it will entail. In these matters Malthus was entirely at one with the Utilitarians proper, and seems to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... rate-making, it is evident that the rates upon single commodities can not be reviewed upon their individual merits, but the tariff must, in the judicial determination of the question whether it is reasonable or not, be viewed as a whole. But as it is impossible to foretell what effect a readjusted tariff would have on the revenues of a road, even courts are forced to admit that an actual trial of the tariff is necessary to establish ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... button formulae is used by boys to foretell their profession in life. A friend remembers how in childhood his buttons were completely worn out by the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species in each genus, and all the species in many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups within each class, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... that," replied Henry Warden; "thou mayest indeed cast me into a dungeon, but can I foretell that my Master hath not task-work for me to perform even in that dreary mansion? The chains of saints have, ere now, been the means of breaking the bonds of Satan. In a prison, holy Paul found the jailor whom he brought to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... live? What would be their relations to one another and their community? The agricultural scientist is making great discoveries. The mechanical engineer goes from one triumph to another. The chemist already could work wonders in our fields if there was a machinery for him to work through. We cannot foretell the developments in each branch, but we can see clearly that the organized community can lay hold of discoveries and inventions which the individual farmer cannot. It is little for the co-operative society to buy expensive threshing sets and let its members have the use ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... royal person did foretell A kingly stateliness, from all pride clear; His look majestic seemed to compel All men to love him, rather than to fear. And yet though he were every good man's joy, And the alonely comfort of his own, His very name with terror did annoy His ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... or green. Most of that literary fruit was green. In a short time he was able to foretell the fate of the hero with a certainty that would have piqued the author. The cleverest literary craftsman couldn't let the poor orphan boy be as poor as a church mouse for ten pages, but that Walter would see the flashing ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... time for leaving them approached. She had gone through so much that evening, that this discovery made but a slight impression upon her—she had seen how her friend could sacrifice himself; how he had saved another, and had himself been saved. These strange incidents seemed to foretell an important future to her—but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... lodgings at Deptford: and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out to the marquis' daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... since this morn when I met them, The men of my household and the great man they honour: Better counsel in king-choosing might I have given Had ye bided my coming back hither, my people: And yet who shall say or foretell what Fate meaneth? For that man there, the stranger, Honorius men called him, I account him the soul to King Theobald's body, And the twain are one king; and a goodly king may be For this people, who grasping at peace and good days, Careth ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... if Atlantes watched thee well, While yet he was alive, thou best dost know. I the fixed stars had heard of thee foretell, That thou shouldst perish by a treacherous foe In Christian land; and still their influence fell Was ended, laboured to avert the blow; Nor having power in fine thy will to guide, I sickened sore, and of ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... action would have upon all other men and of calculating their action—his singular power of arriving at a correct estimate of the nature and capacities of a country, which he knew only by maps and the most general description—and the perfect accuracy with which he could foretell the main incidents of a march and campaign—as when he would briefly sketch his plan of that raid. All who heard him felt that he was right in the main, and although some of us were filled with a grave apprehension, from ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... their steps for a fresh start over a better-known route. This settled, the senior seemed to feel relieved of a weight. He even saw and relished certain funny phases of the incident, though he never ceased to foretell different kinds of trouble for the company, varying in range from mere complaints to the most ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the post of danger, and encounters difficulties for the mere honour of overcoming them, but in another, and less active form, that of endurance. And their wisdom and power were greater than the wisdom and power of the Abnakis priests, who could draw water from the clouds, and foretell the coming of tempests and storms(1). The wisdom and power of the strange beasts was very great—they were subtler than the fox or the beaver, and stronger than ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of these companies would fill several pages. One was to give instruction in astrology, by which every man might be able to foretell his own destiny by examining the stars; a second was to manufacture butter out of beech trees; a third was for a wheel for driving machinery, which once started would go on forever, thereby furnishing a cheap ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the eastern parts of her empire; and that I cannot examine the whole foreign policy of this country without adverting to the events which have happened in Northern Italy. It was at the beginning of the present session of Parliament that I had occasion to foretell before your Lordships the speedy discomfiture of the then monarch of Sardinia by the victorious troops of Marshal Radetzky. After a temporary success the year before, his Sardinian Majesty had been repulsed, had been compelled to repass the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... cultured into the soul, leaving the impress on generation after generation, of honor, of order, of manliness, of thrift? The condition of the farmers is the postulate by which the sagacious economist will foretell the future prosperity of the nation they represent. This is what the American farmer should have presented to him from every stand-point. It is lamentable that this vocation should be so sadly represented by the most of those who ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... matter of pure romantic accident. Philosophers know, that, if, at the opening of the Adamic period, any man had existed with a perfect knowledge of the world's physical geography and the laws of national development, he would have been able to foretell a priori the situations of all the greatest capitals. It is a law as fixed as that defining the course of matter in the line of least resistance, that population flows to the level where the best livelihood is most easily obtained. The brute motives of food and raiment must govern in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... fought again many a time over our wine) formed the dismal burthen of the first despatch from Mr. Wolfe which reached England and plunged us all in gloom. What more might one expect of a commander so rash? What disasters might one not foretell? Was ever scheme so wild as to bring three great bodies of men, across broad rivers, in the face of murderous batteries, merely on the chance of inducing an enemy, strongly entrenched and guarded, to leave his position and come out and engage ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by the stars] astrology[obs3], horoscopy[obs3], judicial astrology1[obs3]. [obs3] adytum[Place of prediction]. prefiguration[obs3], prefigurement; prototype, type. [person who predicts] oracle &c. 513. V. predict, prognosticate, prophesy, vaticinate, divine, foretell, soothsay, augurate[obs3], tell fortunes; cast a horoscope, cast a nativity; advise; forewarn &c. 668. presage, augur, bode; abode, forebode; foretoken, betoken; prefigure, preshow[obs3]; portend; foreshow[obs3], foreshadow; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... aristocracy which has outlived the vigor of its prime; surrounded by a Europe containing nothing grand, unless it be Napoleon on one side and Pitt on the other, genius degraded to minister to egotism; intellect bound to the service of the past. No seer exists to foretell the future: belief is extinct; there is only its pretence: prayer is no more; there is only a movement of the lips at a fixed day or hour, for the sake of the family, or what is called the people; love is no more; desire has taken its place; the holy warfare of ideas is abandoned; the conflict ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... sir, the Gubbaun knew it all. Some said surely that he could foretell. There was the house, all beautiful and nate, and a most splendid intertainment on the table; there was a large party of the Gubbaun's friends, and plenty ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... but now foretell the day, Johnny, when this sad thing must be, When light and gay you'll turn away And laugh and break the heart in me? For like a nut for true love's sake My empty heart shall crack and break, When fancies fly And love goes by And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... after a study of this book and by carefully following the principles here laid down may with practice quickly learn to read the horary fortunes that the tea-leaves foretell. It should be distinctly understood, however, that tea-cup fortunes are only horary, or dealing with the events of the hour or the succeeding twenty-four hours at furthest. The immediately forthcoming events are those which ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... valuable piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that Tell came out of hiding. This happened on the afternoon following the morning scene with Judson. And aside from the task of the morning, the news of Bud Anderson's untimely death had come that day. Nobody could foretell what next this winter's campaign might hold for the Springvale boys out on the far Southwest Plains, and my ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... mixture of cares; and those to be enjoyed when time—which I therefore thought slow-paced—had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience have taught me these were but empty hopes, for I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Nevertheless, I saw there a succession of boys using the same recreations, and, questionless, possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... America where the English became dominant. In South America, dominated by the Spaniards, civilization has made no strides, while in the United States a new nation has arisen whose ultimate destiny none may limit or foretell. As the gates of a new century open and disclose almost unlimited fields for human progress, this new nation, with an enthusiasm and courage born of success, has taken her place to lead in the eternal forward search for ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... fought against the strong desire to go there that had suddenly seized me, and assured myself that I would not go, that it would be absurd to go, undignified, sentimental, and silly, that I did not know them and would be in an awkward position, and that I was old enough to know better. But who can foretell from one hour to the next what a woman will do? And when does she ever know better? On the third morning I set out as hopefully as though it were the most natural thing in the world to fall unexpectedly upon hitherto consistently ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the music of Canaan, have introduced [Greek: kukneion asma,] the singing of these birds: and, instead of the death of Thamuz, lamented by the Cucnaans, or priests, they have made the swans sing their own dirge, and foretell their own funeral. Wherever the Canaanites came, they introduced their national worship; part of which, as I have shewn, consisted in chanting hymns to the honour of their country God. He was the same as Apollo of Greece: on which account, Lucian, in compliance with the current notion, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... sailing-boat, and Marjory was an expert sailor, and was allowed to go out on fine days by herself, though never without permission, in case she should be overtaken by a sudden storm. The doctor made a study of the weather day by day, and was able to foretell it to a certain extent. Sometimes, on a day which looked to Marjory to be quite fine, he would forbid her going on the loch, and she would find that ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... then—i.e., Laeghaire Mac Neill—possessed druids and enchanters, who used to foretell through their druidism and through their paganism what was in the future for them. Lochru and Luchat Mael were their chiefs; and these two were authors of that art of pseudo-prophecy. They prophesied, then, that a mighty, unprecedented ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... work.[381] There is no doubt that a strong sentiment exists outside of New York City in favor of the enfranchisement of women. However, with the adverse influence always exerted by a great metropolis, it is impossible to foretell when this ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... God will come and oppose their pride. Ye proud, however, if you do not turn about and become better, then will the sword and the pestilence fall upon you; with famine and war will Italy be turned upside down. I foretell you this because I am sure of it: if I were not, I would not mention it. Open your eyes as Balaam opened his eyes when the angel said to him: "Had it not been for thine ass, I would have slain thee." ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... not appear that the future destinies of Samaria and Jerusalem were revealed to Elijah, nor the fate of the surrounding nations, as seen by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. He was not called to foretell the retribution which would surely be inflicted on degenerate and idolatrous nations, nor even to declare those impressive truths which should instruct all future generations. He therefore does not soar in his dreary solitude to those lofty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... President in 1856 meant the secession of all the Slave States, and rebellion. Under these circumstances I preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or postpone secession, to seeing the country plunged into a war the end of which no man could foretell. With a Democrat elected by the unanimous vote of the Slave States, there could be no pretext for secession for four years. I very much hoped that the passions of the people would subside in that time, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a man of noble family, had often to travel more than ten leagues before falling in with an equal or a neighbor." The destruction of the republican form of government is, then, almost the necessary catastrophe; but what will follow that catastrophe it is not so easy to foretell. The Republic, thus undermined, will fall; but what shall supply its place? The tendency of decaying republics is to anarchy; and men take refuge from the terrors of anarchy in despotism. The South least of all can indulge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... The prophets foretell the beauty of its coming and the psalmists sing of the joy which it brings. Jesus Christ is its Divine Messiah, its high priest and its holy prince. The evangelists and prophets proclaim and preach it. From beginning to ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke
... regard to later periods of history, he spoke with the careless ease of an every-day looker on; and told anecdotes that the researches of scholars afterwards fully verified. His predictions were, indeed, most startling; and the cotemporaneous evidence is very strong and explicit, that he did foretell the time, place, and manner of the death of Louis XV, several years before it occurred. His gift of memory was perfectly amazing. Having once read a journal of the day, he could repeat its contents accurately, from beginning to end; and to this endowment he ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... from them all the astronomical phenomena which are anticipated during the year, that we are apt to forget how in early times this was impossible. It has only been by slow degrees that astronomy has been rendered so perfect as to enable us to foretell, with accuracy, the occurrence of the more delicate phenomena. The prediction of those transits by Kepler, some years before they occurred, was justly regarded at the time as ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... says Skarphedinn, "for that is a debt we all have to pay, but still it were more needful to avenge thy father than to foretell ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... however, he was met by a deputation of Chaldean astrologers. The astrologers were a class of philosophers who pretended, in those days, to foretell human events by means of the motions of the stars. The motions of the stars were studied very closely in early times, and in those Eastern countries, by the shepherds, who had often to remain in the open air, through the summer nights, to watch their flocks. These shepherds observed ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... To foretell, or to express future time simply, the auxiliary shall is used in the first person, and will in the second and third; but when a speaker determines or promises, he uses will in the first person and shall in the ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg |
