"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the other less imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it. His friend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had it from Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was "a sort of emblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to the sight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God and Nature,"[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of the extraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with his ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... verisimilitude of his fairy lore, and so apt to embellish his plot with its mythology, should not have thought of causing the king-making Earl of Warwick to lose the horn of that prodigious cow—no doubt one of those guardian pledges bestowed upon his family—by way of presage to his fall. Deer's antlers, there can be little doubt, were placed in the halls of our forefathers, a votive offering to the Diana of the Scandinavian Pantheon; as it was the custom in like manner to ornament the temples with the heads of sacrificial victims in the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... told with some detail, implies, indeed, that it was begun, and some progress made in it, while Dante was yet in Florence—begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it—continued afterward in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the Queen of Angels. She already beholds the face of the Ever-blessed. And the envoye of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the principles of Emilius. 'Then so much the worse,' cried the perverse philosopher, 'both for you and your son.' If he had been endowed with second sight, he would have thought at least as rude a presage due to this last and most ill-starred of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... that he was entering upon a new phase of life. Would he find therein the woman and the work capable of dominating his heart and becoming an object in life to him? Within himself he felt neither the conviction of power nor the presage of fame or happiness. Though penetrated, impregnated with art, as yet he had not produced anything remarkable. Eager in the pursuit of pleasure and of love, he had never yet really loved or really enjoyed whole-heartedly. Tortured by aspirations ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Puritan clergymen, was born in Boston and died in his native city, without ever having traveled a hundred miles from it. He entered Harvard at the age of eleven, and took the bachelor's degree at fifteen. His life shows such an overemphasis of certain Puritan traits as almost to presage the coming decline of clerical influence. He says that at the age of only seven or eight he not only composed forms of prayer for his schoolmates, but also obliged them to pray, although some of them cuffed ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... light of presage, unknown star, Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are, What message trembles in thee from so far? Cry wellaway. but well befall ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... August a halo round the moon fixed the attention of the inhabitants of Cumana, who considered it as the presage of some violent earthquake; for, according to popular notions, all extraordinary phenomena are immediately connected with each other. Coloured circles around the moon are much more rare in northern countries than in Provence, Italy, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... to defend the throne, And guard my father's glories, and my own. Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates; (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs denied with gore, Not all my brothers gasping on the shore; As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread; I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!] In Argive looms our battles to design, And woes of which so ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... one o'clock the next day. The doctor was very pleased at her long and sound sleep, the like of which the old lady had not enjoyed since her first collapse, and which, in his view, was certain to presage ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... or presage of coming evil, the Duchess put off her journey till quite late, and only arrived there as night was coming on. At the entrance to the Villa the Duke met her, holding in a leash two splendid hare-hounds, which he begged her to accept and ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... the sight of these gifts of fortune, which he felt were a presage of Virginia's departure, came a few days after to my dwelling. With an air of deep despondency he said to me—"My sister is going away; she is already making preparations for her voyage. I conjure you to come and exert your ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... too, adorn'd with every grace Of person and of mind; And happy in a starry race, Of that auspicious kind, As joyfully presage, No want of royal heirs in any ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... "Hold, hold." At the same moment the silver head of the cane fell off, and rolled on the floor. It was an accident which might have happened at any time; but in this superstitions age it could not fail to be taken for an omen. Both his friends and enemies interpreted it as a presage of his ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... festal boughs. Forth of it she seemed to hear her husband's voice crying and calling when night was dim upon earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. Therewithal many a warning of wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. In her sleep fierce Aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left by herself alone, ever going uncompanioned on a weary way, and seeking her Tyrians in a solitary land: even as frantic Pentheus sees the [470-503]arrayed Furies and a double sun, and Thebes ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the North seemed to presage the full triumph of the Confederacy; and it was a gloomy time enough for Lincoln and his Ministers. A second and more serious invasion by Lee was impending, and the lingering progress of events in the West, of which the story must soon be resumed, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... and Donop seemed to invite attack. Their fancied security seemed also to presage success. An inexorable necessity called loudly for action before conditions so favorable should be changed by the freezing up of the Delaware when, if the enemy had any enterprise whatever, the river would no longer prevent, but assist, his marching into ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... felt himself raised up in the air by divine power, so that he had reached the top of the tree, and that from thence he easily made the tallest branches bend quite to the ground. The Holy Spirit pointed out to him that this was a presage of the favorable issue of his application to the Apostolic throne. This filled him with joy, and his recital of it to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... free from all superstition. But I saw that he was startled; and he admitted afterwards that he, too, had remembered about that rainbow in the morning, and had also thought of the comet that had appeared a few years before and that many people believed to presage the end of ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... presage? A like vain waiting and disclosure of death-dealing accident? Notwithstanding her attitude of high resolution, the question challenged Damaris in sardonic fashion from beneath the black canopy of the great bed. Her hand went up to the string of pearls which, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that incorporeal thing had a life and a power of its own. Never before had she felt that unearthly chill run through her, nor that strange sensation in her hair. It was a thing of evil omen, and the presage was already about to be fulfilled. The spirit of the dark woman had arisen at the sound of the words in which he denied her; she had risen and had come to claim her own, to rob Unorna of what seemed most worth coveting on earth—and she could take him, surely, to the place whence she came. How could ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Severinus' presage was strangely fulfilled. Feva had handed over the city of Vienna to his brother Frederic,—"poor and impious," says Eugippius. Severinus, who knew him well, sent for him, and warned him that he himself was going to the Lord; and that if, after his death, Frederic dared touch aught of the substance ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... created that strange phenomenon which since that time has characterized both our national despotism and our legislation; for ever since those epochs which seemed to presage the Revolution, when the spirit of philosophy rose and reflected upon the history of the past, France has been the prey of many convulsions. Feudalism, the Crusades, the Reformation, the struggle between the monarchy ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the crowd of minor singers. The mighty verse swept Odo out to open seas of thought, and from his vision of that earlier Italy, hapless, bleeding, but alive and breast to breast with the foe, he drew the presage of his ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circumference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3609. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 81, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... born at a moment when victory has crowned both our nations. This circumstance is a happy presage of his future glory, and promises, that he will one day be the support of your independence as well as of the alliance, which unites France with the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... Tiber, could find their hearts thus suddenly dissolved at the death of an unfortunate but undistinguished servant. The motive of the threnody was somewhat too obvious, and many minds passed from the memory of Tiberius's death to the thought of the doom which this little drama was meant to presage for ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... talked fondly and foolishly, and Elsa mostly was silent. She had loved this walk over the stubble, and the plain had been in perfect peace save for the rumbling of the Maros, insistent and menacing, which had struck a chill to the girl's heart, like a presage of evil. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of subtlety in the methods of these men. He understood their ruffianism too well. Therefore the sound of movement that reached him suggested the obvious result of their first failure. It was the presage of ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... who the coming changes can presage, And mark the future periods of the Stage? 40 Perhaps if skill could distant times explore, New Behns,[1] new Durfeys, yet remain in store; Perhaps where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died, On flying cars new sorcerers ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... told Biargey all that had happened, and took to his bed again, a poor, old, helpless, miserable man; but his wife, who saw her presage beginning to come true, kept up her courage, rowed out fishing every day, and guided the household ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... management, a favorable death rate, and very low expenses, some of them have provided protection at very low rates for many years. Others have failed with disappointment and disaster to the older members. Still others are struggling with difficulties that presage dissolution. Many now have some form of reserve accumulations, and some have so improved their methods that they closely resemble reserve companies. The assets of all the assessment companies are now $1.37 per $100 of insurance in force, while the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... if we may credit tradition, this mountain broke out again so furiously, that its cinders and liquid fire were carried as far as Constantinople; which prodigy was thought, by superstitious minds, to presage the destruction of the empire, that happened immediately after, by that inundation of Goths, which spread itself all ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... for herself—and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him. Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing in his ears ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... herself. The day after the death of the younger not finding her at home, I asked her elder sister what was become of her; but she, instead of answering, affected to weep bitterly; from whence I formed a fatal presage. I pressed her to inform me of what she knew respecting her sister Father,' replied she, sobbing, I can tell you no more than that my sister put on yesterday her richest dress, with her valuable pearl necklace, went out, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... presage of what we have seen happen since, when the whole Court was infected with heresy, about the time of the Conference of Poissy. It was with great difficulty that I resisted and preserved myself from a change ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... those sinister persons who seem to smell blood and presage crime, reached Avignon from Versailles: his name was Jourdan. He is not to be confounded with another revolutionist of the same name, born at Avignon. Sprung from the arid and calcined mountains of the south, where the very brutes are more ferocious; by turns butcher, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... tremor of misgiving! All of his heart he pours into his lay,— "Love, love, love, and pure delight of living: Winter is forgotten: here's a happy day!" Fair in your face I read the flowery presage, Snowy on your brow and rosy on your mouth: Sweet in your voice I hear the season's message,— Love, love, love, and ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... blue with the presage of showers; blue, too, with the presage of fate. An interminable morning. My tasks had become utterly distasteful. And in the afternoon, so when I sat down to make out invoices, I wrote automatically the names of the familiar customers, my mind now exalted by hope, now depressed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fire-light there was a black chaos in which the form of all things was lost. It was not a night for talk. It was filled with the whisperings of storm, and to Philip those whisperings were an oppressive presage of the tragedy that lay that night ahead of them. The dogs were harnessed, five that Jean had chosen from the pack; and straight out into the pit of gloom the half-breed led them. In that darkness Philip could see nothing. But not once did Jean falter, and the dogs followed ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... mankind, the priests kept his staff just like any other sacred object. That at such a time, when all the other holy things perished, this should have been preserved, gave them good hopes of Rome, which that omen seemed to presage would be eternal. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... for miles. Cuckfield Place (a house and park, according to Shelley, which abounded in "bits of Mrs. Radcliffe") is described in Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood. It was in the avenue leading from the gates to the house that that fatal tree stood, a limb of which fell as the presage of the death of a member of the family. So runs the legend. Knowledge of the tree is, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... own Disgrace. True Valour's slow, deliberate, and cool, Considers well the End, the Way, the Means, And weighs each Circumstance attending them. Imaginary Dangers it detects, And guards itself against all real Evils. But here Tenesco comes with Speed important; His Looks and Face presage us something new. ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... when the aged man arose And met Romara's wistful eye,— What accents shall the change disclose That marked his visage, fearfully?— From joy to grief and deepest dole, From radiant hope to dark presage Of future ills beyond control— Hath passed, ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Werter, thy presage was just; To cherish the hope be my care, For should it forsake me, how must I ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... highly interesting and important topic in itself, is commonly exaggerated, to the neglect of the vastly more important question of the tenure of land. Free trade did not cause the famine. On the contrary, the presage of the famine was one of the minor causes which induced Peel to take up Cobden's policy for the free importation of foodstuffs. The effect of that policy upon Ireland sinks into insignificance beside an agrarian ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... taken to be the voice of the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning (which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw omens from the movements of birds.[1604] In Ashantiland the cry of the owl means death.[1605] When in Australia the track of an insect is believed to point toward ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... hast reached thy wishes' goal, I trow: In happy presage then rejoice and fear not any woe. Treasures this very day, will I collect and neath escort Of horsemen and of champions, to Shamikh they shall go. Brocade and bladders full of musk I will to him despatch And eke white silver and red gold I'll ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... Saint Denis appeared to me in a dream covered in dusky flames, and amid them I saw the spectre of Death, holding in his hand the necklaces and bracelets of a young lady. The appalling death of my cousin followed close upon this presage. Henceforth, the view of Saint Denis spoils all these pleasant landscapes for me. At Versailles fewer objects confront the eye; a park of that sort has its own wealth of natural beauty, which suffices. I shall make Versailles a delightful resort, for which France will be grateful to me, and which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was destined to a swift and sudden fulfilment. The red glare was scarcely out of the west when the wind began to howl and whistle through our rigging with a presage of the tempest that was to come. What was of worse omen still, the long streamer on the main-mast, which hitherto had spread due eastward, now suddenly flapped to south- east, showing that the gale was coming upon us from ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... as well as their having thrown overboard nearly all that they carried. At that place many of their Christian captives were recovered. At this time, in the middle of the night, a strange thing happened, almost prophetic of the misfortune to those Moros, and apparently a presage of their fall and destruction. There was an earthquake, so sudden and so terrible that it was plainly felt upon the sea; and a rumbling which sounded as if some aperture of hell were opening. All our soldiers ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian history, and were embodied in a great work which was compiled for the library of Sargon ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... evidence of its legitimate effect by taking to his bosom a nigger wench as his wife. Of course he is disowned by his family, and spurned by his friends, even radical fanaticism not being yet ready for such a dose as this. However—" Jim did not finish the homily of which this was the presage, but, throwing the paper on the ground, indignantly drove his heel through it, tearing and soiling it, and then viciously kicked ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... only every other year, and the natives superstitiously look upon their appearance as a presage of a good crop. It is a pity that the cattle are so greatly molested by them, that they cannot remain in the fields; for they are extremely beautiful and twice ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Chinese doctor largely consists in ability to feel the pulse, or rather the innumerable pulses of his Chinese patient. This is the real criterion of his skill. The pulses of a Chinaman vary in a manner that no English doctor can conceive of. For instance, among the seven kinds of pulse which presage approaching death, occur ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... sad presage of an approaching famine (as one well observes), not of bread nor water, but of hearing the word of God, when the thin ears of corn devour the plump full ones; when the lean kine devour the fat ones; when our controversies about doubtful ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... a ticket having been made and approved at a public meeting over which Anthony Lispenard presided, its effect upon both parties was tremendous. The character and standing of the candidates seemed a presage of victory. It elated, and gave life and vigour to the republicans, while it paralyzed ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the claim of the Socialists awakened the Individualists to opposition: and the tramways of London were held as a trench in the world-wide conflict between Socialism and its enemies, whose capture was hailed as an omen of progress by one side, and by the other deplored as the presage of defeat. ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... his weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux's lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare the engine was off the track. He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he was ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... purely instrumental to a higher power, deemed it more religious and respectful to have regard only to the higher power, and to say that God had graciously warned him. [101] One of the examples of this presage was, that, going along a narrow street with several companions in earnest discourse, he suddenly stopped, and turned another way, warning his friends to do the same. Some yielded to him, and others went on, who were ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... in common, and if almost all speak German—the language of the Congress—it is only because they are all masters of three or four tongues. Yet some subtle instinct links them each to each; presage, perhaps, of some brotherhood of mankind, of which ingathered Israel—or even ubiquitous Israel—may ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then, go not far to dine: You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of the rubber-tree where the cobra slips in peace Are wonders that he has waved from the earth as a presage of his power. And the giant stems of the bamboo-grass, the pool astounded, sees, Are a marvel to keep ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... you bring me death, or life, I know not. But, if strict friendship, and remembrance past, May aught presage to my afflicted heart, Sure mercy only from those lips should flow, And grace be utter'd from that ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... of such a one is at rest. The circumstances attending death presage in a measure the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... most admirably...." In the next letter, of the early part of August 1796, Mornington sends a quatrain of Latin Elegiacs which he had composed at Dundas's house, on the exploits of Wurmser in relieving Mantua, of Davidovitch at Roveredo, and Quosdanovitch at Brescia (not Verona), which seemed to presage the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... this letter, the presage of Lord Carrick was verified; he was seized in the night with spasms, and died in the arms ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of dark, thread-like clouds, looking like immense cobwebs drifting under the stars, darkened the sky with the presage of the coming thunderstorm. From the invisible hills the first distant rumble of thunder came in a prolonged roll which, after tossing about from hill to hill, lost itself in the forests of the Pantai. Dain and Nina stood up, and ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... and the spirit which prompted it has been worthily embodied in the enlarged and enlightened temper with which it has been communicated. In the midst of much error, there are many features prominent which presage the birth of a love of mankind more expansive and generous than any that ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... come these dreamful memories departed. There was to be no rest for her mind. All she had thought and felt seemed only to presage a tumult. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... the well-known sound, poured out in a tumult of joy; and, understanding that their young master was returned, raised such a peal of acclamation, as astonished the commodore and his lady, and inspired Julia with such an interesting presage, that her heart began to throb with violence. Running out in the hurry and perturbation of her hope, she was so much overwhelmed at sight of her brother, that she actually fainted in his arms. But from this trance she soon awaked; and Peregrine, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... were deep in snow. The fall had begun two hours before light; gently, and with large flakes—the presage of what was to come. Snow was still falling in the afternoon; but now the wind had sprung up, and each large flake was torn into a dozen as the wind played with them, driving them upwards like dust, then catching them and sending them horizontally and at speed over the ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... extorted by either party. In 1235 the church was struck by lightning and set on fire, but fortunately a tank of rainwater was close at hand, and the fire was soon extinguished. As the Abbot died eight days afterwards, the accident was looked upon as a presage ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... bridal-day, When festive pleasures meet, The presage, but of swift decay, Within ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... examine their faces. Hexford's mouth had settled into a stiff, straight line and the other man's wore a cynical smile I did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me, I felt one strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf of shame and ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in the past!—a staff on which to lean in such ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... an instant for this important information to sink in. Several slight, little sighs of relief escaped the students, especially from the girls' side of the great room. This speech did not presage anything very ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... within their own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of joy and gratulation and happy presage of the days ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... aspect' | De'crease decrease' | Per'fume perfume' At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| Dis'cord discord' | Pres'ent present' Col'lect collect' | Dis'count discount' | Prod'uce produce' Com'ment comment' | Ef'flux efflux' | Proj'ect project' Com'pact compact' | Es'cort escort' | Prot'est protest' Com'plot complot' | Es'say essay' | Reb'el ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... of evil presage, To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... coincidence of circumstances which led to this auspicious crisis, the confidence reposed in me by my fellow-citizens, and the assistance I may expect from counsels which will be dictated by an enlarged and liberal policy, seem to presage a more prosperous issue to my administration than a diffidence of my abilities had taught me to anticipate, I now feel myself inexpressibly happy in a belief that Heaven, which has done so much for our infant nation, will not withdraw its providential influence before ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... unseasonably with change, A cloud in one and billow of battle, a surge High reared as heaven with monstrous surf of spears That shake on us their shadow, till men's heads 490 Bend, and their hearts even with its forward wind Wither, so blasts all seed in them of hope Its breath and blight of presage; yea, even now The winter of this wind out of the deeps Makes cold our trust in comfort of the Gods And blind our eye toward outlook; yet not here, Here never shall the Thracian plant on high For ours his father's symbol, nor with wreaths A strange folk ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... mortal moon hath her eclipse endured And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured And peace proclaims ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... robbers and murderers, because he wanted to abolish the only means of compelling them to a confession, the torture. But Cesare Beccaria had on his side the magic power of truth. He was truly the electric accumulator of his time, who gathered from its atmosphere the presage of the coming revolution, the stirring of the human conscience. You can find a similar illustration in the works of Daquin in Savoy, of Pinel in France, and of Hach Take in England, who strove to bring about a revolution ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... to happiness. It is, in our panegyric of polished ages, the parent of arts, the support of commerce, and the minister of national greatness, and of opulence. It is, in our censure of degenerate manners, the source of corruption, and the presage of national declension and ruin. It is admired, and it is blamed; it is treated as ornamental and useful, and it is proscribed as ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... possessions. Plainly this was no flying visit. You do not pop over to London for a day or two with a steamer trunk, another trunk, a black box, a suit-case, and a small brown bag. Lady Underhill had evidently come prepared to stay; and the fact seemed to presage trouble. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a small speck increase to a prodigious size. This is particularly observable at the summit of Lebanon; and mariners have usually found that the appearance of a cloud on this peak is an infallible presage of a westerly wind, one of the "fathers of rain" in the climate ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... of a city, as is that of man, is formed by experience, chiefly adverse, and is made evident by the work the city has done for humanity, its creator and its care. From the study of a city's character may you look into its future and presage whether it be likely to achieve success or doomed to failure. For there have been failures among cities as among men, some pathetic owing to inherent weakness, others as a consequence ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself with threatening phantasmagoria ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... easily picture sixteen-year-old Hannah, in silk bedight, inwardly rejoicing at the unusual opportunity to fully and publicly display her rich attire, and we can easily read in her offensive flaunting in court a presage of the waning of magisterial power which proved a truthful omen, for in six years similar prosecutions in Northampton, for assumption of gay and expensive garments, were quashed. The ministers of the day note sadly the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... a flushed, tear-stained face to look at her daughter standing before her, lovely and slender in the blue muslin gown which had been Cornelia's gift. The daintiness of the dress, its unaccustomed smartness and air of fashion, seemed at the moment a presage of the threatened separation. At the sight, and the sound of the softened voice, the tears streamed afresh, and she ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... coffee, as if there were nothing else in the world that wanted doing. A tone of high courtesy, of great refinement, coupled with an all-pervading cheerfulness, distinguishes Longhi's pictures from the works of Hogarth, at once so brutal and so full of presage of change. ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... the year 1696, he returned home, and settled at Stepney, in the neighbourhood where he was born: the success, he met with in his practice here, established his reputation, and was a happy presage of his future fortunes. If it be remembered, that our author was, when he began to practise, no more than twenty-three years old, that only three years, including the time taken up in his travels, were appropriated to ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... the sky, Or gave the earth its harmony, His first command was for thy light; He view'd the lovely birth, and blessed it: In purple swaddling bands it struggling lay, Old Chaos then a chearful smile put on, And from thy beauteous form did first presage ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... congratulation, and show that under a wise organization and efficient direction the Army is destined to a glory not less brilliant than that which already encircles the Navy. The attack and capture of York is in that quarter a presage of future and greater victories, while on the western frontier the issue of the late siege of Fort Meigs leaves us nothing to regret but a single act of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... cowed, seeking compromise. A fool woman with a gun: every one knew it was a dangerous combination, and, except for himself, no South had ever been a coward. He knew a certain glitter in their eyes. He knew it was apt to presage death, and this girl, trembling in her knees but holding that muzzle against his chest so unwaveringly, as steady as granite, had it in her pupils. Her voice held an inexorable monotony suggestive of tolling bells. She was not the Sally he had known before, but a new Sally, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... it is desired to do a man honour, how gladly, in like manner, is his name seized on, if it in any way bears an honourable significance, or is capable of an honourable interpretation —men finding in that name a presage and prophecy of that which was actually in its bearer. A multitude of examples, many of them very beautiful, might be brought together in this kind. How often, for instance, and with what effect, the name of Stephen, the ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... inordinately with trash and hagg. Let not the Lord impute it! 9 Oct.—My heart challenged me that I could so freely lay out money on books, plenishing, clothes to myself, and was so loth to lay out for the Lord. Oh, what does this presage and witness but that I am of the earth and that my portion is not blessed, but that my goods are rather accursed! 4 Nov.—Neil Campbell staid with me. I found my niggardly nature still encroaching upon me, and made my supplication for escape. July 1.—Because I ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... town Damascus and the lands about Ruled Hidraort, a wizard grave and sage, Acquainted well with all the damned rout Of Pluto's reign, even from his tender age; Yet of this war he could not figure out The wished ending, or success presage, For neither stars above, nor powers of hell, Nor skill, nor art, nor charm, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Queene ore my selfe: and euen now, but now, This house, these seruants, and this same my selfe Are yours, my Lord, I giue them with this ring, Which when you part from, loose, or giue away, Let it presage the ruine of your loue, And be my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... your zeal; She—died at Holy Isle."— Lord Marmion started from the ground, As light as if he felt no wound; Though in the action burst the tide In torrents from his wounded side. "Then it was truth!" he said,—"I knew That the dark presage must be true.— I would the Fiend, to whom belongs The vengeance due to all her wrongs, Would spare me but a day! For wasting fire, and dying groan, And priests slain on the altar stone, Might bribe him for delay. It may not ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... character; Erzrum taken by; harries Balkh; captures Talikan; ravages Badakhshan; his respect for Christians; subjugates Kutchluk Khan; his campaigns in Tangut; Rubruquis' account of; made king of the Tartars; his system of conquests; and Prester John; divining by twigs—presage of victory; defeats and slays Prester John; his death and burial-place; his aim at conquest of the world; his funeral; his army; defeats the Merkits; relations between Prester John's and his families; the Horiad ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... re-christened New York in honour of the King's brother, afterwards James II. It would perhaps be straining the suggestion already made of the persistent influences of origins to see in the varied racial and national beginnings of New York a presage of that cosmopolitan quality which still marks the greatest of American cities, making much of it a patchwork of races and languages, and giving to the electric stir of Broadway an air which suggests a Continental rather than an English city, but it is more plausible to note that New York had no ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... excited my ponderings and inquiries. There was a conflict of emotion in that mother's face, and shadowed mysteriously in the child's, of which I queried, "Was it fear? was it sorrow? was it adoration and faith? was it a presage of the hour when a sword should pierce through her own soul? Yet, with this, was there not a solemn triumph in the thought that she alone, of all women, had been called to that baptism of anguish? And in that infant face there seemed a foreshadowing of the spirit which said, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... other so exactly, that the scale would turn on neither side. She refused to give any decided answer, but requested a day or two for reflection; and the vicar, who recollected the adage, that, in an affair of the heart, "the woman who deliberates is lost," left her with a happy presage that his endeavours would be crowned with success. But Mrs Rainscourt would not permit her own heart to decide. It was a case in which she did not consider that a woman was likely to be a correct judge; and she had so long been on intimate terms with McElvina, that she resolved to lay ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... beams having been sawn asunder, the ceiling gave way and fell, burying every one beneath the ruins. Jacques de Bourbon, Seigneur de Preaux, died in consequence, several others were grievously wounded, but the king, by a good fortune, almost miraculous, escaped. This was a certain presage, that, after great danger, Divine Providence, in the end, would save him, and draw him forth from the ruins of his ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... birds forbore their notes, Leaping from tree to tree, as she along The panting bosom of the current floats, Rapt with the music of her dying song: When from a thick and all-entangled spring A neatherd rude came with no small ado, Dreading an ill presage to hear her sing, And quickly struck her tender neck in two; Whereat the birds, methought, flew thence with speed, And inly griev'd for ...
— 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)
... despatched. Padre Francisco and Don Miguel reach the glens of Mariposa in the lovely days when bird, bud, and blossom make Lagunitas a fairyland. In the mind of the veteran but one care lingers—future war. Already the feuds of Alvarado and Micheltorrena presage a series of domestic broils. Don Miguel hears that foreigners are plotting to return to the coast; they will come back under the protection of foreign war-ships. As his horse bounds over the turf, the soldier resolves to keep out of this coming conflict; ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of Syracuse, with so much rapidity that he owned he was conquered before he saw the enemy. In the consulship of Duilius and Cornelius, they likewise had courage to engage at sea, and then the expedition used in equipping the fleet was a presage of victory; for within sixty days after the timber was felled, a navy of a hundred and sixty ships lay at anchor; so that the vessels did not seem to have been made by art, but the trees themselves appeared to have been turned into ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Roman reign, A. D. 945, two male children were brought from Armenia to Constantinople for exhibition. They were well formed in every respect and united by their abdomens. After they had been for some time an object of great curiosity, they were removed by governmental order, being considered a presage of evil. They returned, however, at the commencement of the reign of Constantine VII, when one of them took sick and died. The surgeons undertook to preserve the other by separating him from the corpse of his brother, but he died on the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none, under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Prophecy; Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity; which was called Horoscopy, and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology: Sometimes in their own hopes and feares, called Thumomancy, or Presage: Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches, that pretended conference with the dead; which is called Necromancy, Conjuring, and Witchcraft; and is but juggling and confederate knavery: Sometimes in the Casuall flight, or feeding of birds; called Augury: Sometimes in the Entrayles of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then, go not far to dine: You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine. A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old a-ches[2] throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... partly seen from under the folds of the robe. The little lady's countenance was of a lively and expressive character, in which spirit and wit seemed to predominate; and the quick, dark eye, with its beautifully formed eyebrow, seemed to presage the arch remark, to which the rosy and half-smiling lip appeared ready to give utterance. The pedestal on which she stood, or rather was perched, would have appeared unsafe had any figure heavier than her own been placed there. But, however she had been transported thither, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our fellow-soldiers," he eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of the bank; see—they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to emulate and assist their courage." The united and rapid motion of a great fleet broke the violence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... mighty rockings that portend its overturn, so the barbaric industrial and social system, which has come down to us from savage antiquity, undermined by the modern humane spirit, riddled by the criticism of economic science, is shaking the world with convulsions that presage its collapse. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... sad infirmities That use to undo the limb and sense of age; It hath pleased Heaven to break the dream of bliss Which lit my onward way with bright presage, And my unserviceable limbs forego. The sweet delight I found in fields and farms, On windy hills, whose tops with morning glow, And lakes, smooth mirrors of Aurora's charms. Yet I think on them in the silent night, Still ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and Clery and the increasing concentration of troops now began to presage an important and, it was hoped, decisive movement. Visual communication was being held nightly with General White, and a combined action seemed quite possible. It was recognised, however, that the Boer position at Colenso could not be taken by direct frontal attack, and that some ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... who should have no other care. The innate tact, courtesy, and thoughtful consideration which distinguished Nelson, when in normal conditions, removed all other misunderstandings. "The delicacy you have always shown to senior officers," wrote St. Vincent to him, "is a sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give umbrage to Admiral Dickson, who seems disposed to judge favourably of the intentions of us all: it is, in truth, the most difficult card we have to play." "Happy should I be," he said at another time, "to place the whole of our offensive and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. The night was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardens Domini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how he passed his solitary evenings when he ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... with cases richly decorated, and filled with the most exquisite models of workmanship in bronze and various metals, classed in exact order. Here are crowds of diminutive deities and tutelary lars, to whom the superstition of former days attributed those midnight murmurs which were believed to presage the misfortunes of a family. Amongst these now neglected images are preserved a vast number of talismans, cabalistic amulets, and other grotesque relics of ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford |
