"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doth presage his harm, See how he glories at his own decay, See how he triumphs at his proper loss; O fortune wild, ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 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 in the treatment of the insane. This episode interests us especially, ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... prevailing in the western counties, are supposed to presage good luck, and are therefore most carefully preserved. Their presence is believed to be a sure omen of prosperity; while, on the other hand, their sudden departure from a hearth which has long echoed with their cry, betokens approaching misfortune, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... that Gervaise, forgetting her own agony, joined her hands and fell on her knees near the bed. For the last month she had seen the girl clinging to the walls for support when she went about, bent double indeed, by a cough which seemed to presage a coffin. Now the poor child could not even cough. She had a hiccough and drops of blood oozed from the corners ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... with a zeal and rapidity never before dreamed of, 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
... excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... that he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the door, was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepp'd in betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... chose a piece of pure organ music—the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement—the presage ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... over words, as with blast and forge and hammer, which startle us in the two battle-pieces. The lines "Annus Memorabilis," dated Jan. 6th, 1861, read like prophecy in 1865. "Wood and Coal" (November, 1863) gives a presage of the fire which the flame of the conflict would kindle. "The Burial of the Dane" shows the true human sympathy of the writer, in its simple, pathetic narrative; and the story of the "Old Cove" had a wider circulation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Saturday morning seemed to presage failure for the girls' plans at the very start. It was always dismal, Marjorie thought, to go anywhere in the rain, but especially to a new town. Frieda would receive a bad impression of the place from the beginning, ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... Back past the church with its white gravestones so curiously peaceful in the midst of it all; past the inn, jovial with light and the clamour of village oracles; past the forge, with its lifeless fires a presage of things to come; past the cross-roads, where the sign-post, silhouetted against the sky, seemed no longer a gibbet, but a crucifix; past cottages stirring with unaccustomed life, unconscious of the unbidden guest that was ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... in Edith's voice when she again spoke, it might be from mere excitement or anger. At any rate Gus grew more and more uncomfortable. He had a vague feeling that Edith suspected his falseness, and that her seeming calmness might presage a storm, and he found it impossible to meet her full searching gaze, fearing that his face would betray him. He was bad enough for his project, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... their intention might be more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, 'proceeded from the presage of fore-feeling of immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, then called of him Aelina, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... 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, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... 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 ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... diamonds and other precious gems. Prominent in the group of mounted princes was the German Crown Prince Frederick, who succeeded to the throne as Emperor Frederick III. in the following March and died in the following June, in less than a year from his appearance in the Jubilee. But there was no presage of his quick-coming death in his present appearance, his white uniform and plumed silver helmet attracting general admiration, while he sat his horse as proudly as a knight of old and was covered with medals and decorations significant of his prowess in battle. A gorgeous cavalcade of natives of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... catalogue of his mother's 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
... could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the way—of the guard at the Gate, even—they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain,— Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptized ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... diffuse pigmentation or darkening there are often the black spots, the pigmented birth marks, or the lighter ones of freckles. The latter signify some permanent or transitory adrenal inadequacy in the past, ante-natal or post-natal, of the individual, and presage the same in his future. These spots have been frequently observed to appear after an attack of diphtheria or influenza. There seems to be more tuberculosis among those who have them than those who do not. We therefore say that diphtheria, influenza and tuberculosis ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... When Louis XV. passed through the town, and the Pompadour was seen smiling by his side, the citizens' reception of the doubtful honour was a very cold one. And when Louis XVI. paid his call of ceremony upon the Mayor, a still more melancholy presage broke the harmony of the peal that welcomed him from the Cathedral belfry, for the great bell Georges d'Amboise—which weighed 36,000 pounds, and had rung in every century since the great minister of Louis XII. gave him to the town—cracked suddenly, and was never ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... foliage was marked by the approach of early frosts, which had already seared their verdure, and left those rich and varied tints that charm the eye in an autumnal landscape, while yet too brilliant to seem the presage of decay. The river flowed on its still smooth course, receiving on its waves the reflection of nature, in her quiet but ever glorious array, and mingling its faint murmurs with the busy sounds which breathed from those countless ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... prodigy, prognostic, augury, foretoken, presage; mark, token, indication, symptom, index, emblem, symbol; trace, vestige, ensign, signal, beacon; gesture, motion; signature. Associated Words: ominous, portentous, augurial, semeiology, semeiological, sematology, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... it she half rose from her place, for there was the witch-face, twilight on the grim features, yet with the aid of memory so definitely discerned that they could hardly have been more distinct by noonday,—a face of inexplicably sinister omen. "Oh, why did I see it to-day!" she exclaimed, the presage of ill fortune strong upon her, with that grisly mask leering at her from across the valley. But the day was well-nigh gone; only a scant space remained in which to work the evil intent of fate. She seated herself anew, for in the shadowy labyrinth of the woods her ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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
... listening to her; abruptly left her. When Harriet went into the house she saw nothing of him. But she knew he had not gone away for the usual golf, and was conscious still of that odd fluttering of mind and soul, that presage of ill. She made her usual little round, spoke briefly to a maid about some fallen daisy petals, consulted with the housekeeper as to the new cretonne covers. A man was to come and measure those covers this very afternoon—perhaps this was he, modestly waiting ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... Chaleur that had allured Jacques Cartier 265 years before, the might of the noble river and the glorious vista of the citadel and frowning heights of Quebec, where Wolfe and Montcalm fell—the ancient Stadacona framed in the sunset—amazed him. A presage of coming ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... sleepeth." "They thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep." They understood it as the indication of the crisis-hour in sickness when the disease has spent itself, and is succeeded by a balmy slumber—the presage of returning health; but now He says unto them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." How gently He thus breaks the sad intelligence! And it is His method of dealing still. He prepares His people for their hours of ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... even of affection for the king and queen regent, began to be tumultuous. Reports were whispered about, like certain sounds which announce, as they whistle from wave to wave, the coming storm—and when they pass athwart a multitude, presage an emeute. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... force, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke with resignation to the People assembled to see him die. "I fear only one thing," said he, "and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood is a bad presage for the liberty of my country!" (Alas! why did not the Convention recall these words among us, in '93?) Stafford continued:—"Now," said he, "I draw near my end. One blow will make my wife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... 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 ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... Throne, and the first Year in which that Day was solemnly observed, (for, by some Accident or other, it had been overlook'd the Year before;) and every one will see, without the date of it, that it was preached very early in this Reign, since I was able only to promise and presage its future Glories and Successes, from the good Appearances of things, and the happy Turn our Affairs began to take; and could not then count up the Victories and Triumphs that, for seven Years after, made it, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... nature and time of the apparition, the circumstance is conceived to be supernatural, although the coincidence is one which must frequently occur, since our dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most probable events. Such a concatenation, therefore, must often take place when it is considered "of what stuff dreams are made," and how naturally they turn upon those who occupy our mind when awake. When a soldier is exposed to death in battle; when a sailor is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... very ill-paid, owing to the distractions in the heart of the Moghul Empire, which have prevented the Court from attending to their concerns in those distant provinces." Although nothing came of these proceedings, they are here noted as the presage of future events. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... Thebans willingly decreed this, but when all was ready and the general was about to march, the sun was eclipsed and darkness fell upon the city. Pelopidas, seeing that all men were disheartened at this, thought that it was useless to force frightened men full of presage of evil, to march with him, nor did he like to risk the lives of six thousand citizens, but he offered his own services to the Thessalians, and took with him three hundred horsemen, volunteers and men of other states. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... lord of himself, gained for him "that heritage of woe." He confessed himself the bird's unhappy master, the stricken sufferer of this poem. But his was a full share of that dramatic temper which exults in the presage of its own doom. There is a delight in playing one's high part: we are all gladiators, crying Ave Imperator! To quote Burke's matter of fact: "In grief the pleasure is still uppermost, and the ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... firmly bound in the fetters of a personal fascination never entirely dispelled. Twice on the long, swift journey efforts were made by disenchanted German officers to assassinate Napoleon, but he escaped by the secrecy of his flight. Such conspiracies were the presage of what was soon to happen in Germany. They were trivial, however, when compared with the state of public opinion in Paris as displayed by the Malet conspiracy. In spite of all that he had done ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... length of making me believe in the possibility of his committing such an atrocity. "As you doubt what I tell you," replied Prince Louis, "I will send you the Moniteur, in which you will read the sentence." He left me at these words, and the expression of his countenance was the presage of revenge or death. A quarter of an hour afterwards, I had in my hands this Moniteur of the 21st March, (30th Pluviose), which contained the sentence of death pronounced by the military commission sitting at Vincennes, against the person called Louis d'Enghien! It ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... water and no one believed it would be found. However, the divers plunged into the river and found the ring in the very place where he had thrown it in, whereat Haroun rejoiced with an exceeding joy, regarding it as a presage ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 have not employed ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... critical events (the ascension, filling the balloon, rising and falling, ballast); use of dialogue to convey scientific information (the history of ballooning); use of scientific instruments (barometer, compass); chapter heads to presage the story; escapes from perilous events caused by ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... 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, a very important old ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... that it was the same formula she had used on a previous memorable occasion. What could it presage? Was it possible that his soul and her soul had but a single thought? Had he betrayed himself by his shuttle-like performance of the past four mornings? Had she observed ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... may trust the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand; My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead, (Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think) And breath'd such life with kisses ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of the cause of ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... been stranded at Scheveningen, one of them more than sixty feet long, and men wagged their beards gravely as they spoke of the event, deeming it a certain presage of civil commotions. It was remembered that at the outbreak of the great war two whales had been washed ashore in the Scheldt. Although some free-thinking people were inclined to ascribe the phenomenon to a prevalence of strong westerly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, defenceless so far from the specious wiles ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... these proceedings the king discharged his new ministers; recalled Necker; sent away the foreign troops, and threw himself into the arms of the nation. Joy and acclamation succeeded, and a festival of reconciliation was celebrated at Paris, between king and people, which seemed to presage the return of harmony. But there were two parties in the state who were far from being satisfied with the reconciliation thus brought about—the aristocrats and the democrats. The former saw their downfall therein, and rather than submit to such a state of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he vanished from among 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 ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... appearance, resembling a half moon, moved round the mansion in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and continued its revolution until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition appeared every night for a week, and was pronounced by certain wise sages as a presage of pestilence and death. A herdsman at the mansion was, shortly after the lady's death, persecuted by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed. One Thorer, who himself had predicted that the apparitions were come to give warning of approaching calamities, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... have the Fates your path prepared, And sure presage your future sway declared: When westward, like the sun, you took your way, And from benighted Britain bore the day, Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore, The ready Nereids heard, and swam before To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... hob, and muttered to herself an Irish charm or prayer against the evils which crickets are often supposed by the peasantry to bring with them, and requested, still in the words of the charm, that their presence might, on that occasion, rather be a presage of good fortune to man and beast belonging ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... Hiero, king 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 ships by the aid of the gods. The aspect of the battle, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... know more of the conditions which surrounded her, and there was only one way to do that—talk to her. He must persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so, anyhow, for truly ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... wandered in the streets of Galway-town, When night had let her dusky curtains down, And in a doorway, tall and fair and slight, Framed by an inner beam of golden light, Beheld a maiden of madonna face, Pensive and sad, yet with a nameless grace, Presage, I thought, of the unfolding years, That hide some things that are too ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... earth seemed to shake. A great awe fell upon all, within and without the city. To all, it seemed a sign of the wrath of God at the civil discords; but though, doubtless, it was the voice of the Almighty, it was rather a presage ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... six or eight thousand livres a year, and constituted the general's entire fortune. Roland's departure on this adventurous expedition deeply afflicted the poor widow. The death of the father seemed to presage that of the son, and Madame de Montrevel, a sweet, gentle Creole, was far from possessing the stern virtues of a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... in letters of fire before her eyes as the presage of coming misfortune, and telling her that the hour of retribution had now come, and that she must be prepared to suffer, as an atonement for her crimes. Then it was that she felt all was lost, and she must go to her husband for aid, unless she ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... avenger remained in safety. But finding that none supported her in these sentiments, and that force, in case of refusal, was threatened by the council, she at last complied, and produced her son to the two prelates. She was here on a sudden struck with a kind of presage of his future fate: she tenderly embraced him; she bedewed him with her tears; and bidding him an eternal adieu, delivered him, with many expressions of regret and reluctance, into ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... is a Well that is credibly reported to drum as a presage of very great alterations to publick affairs." M.S.S. dated 1703, of the ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... directed to making head against the ever rising flood of barbarians, which had already before his time burst the dykes that restrained it, and though once driven back, continued to dash itself on every side against the outer borders of the empire, and to presage its speedy overthrow. His efforts were, on the whole, successful; he was able to uphold and preserve for some considerable time longer the territorial greatness which the nineteenth dynasty had built up a second time. The monumental temple of Medinet-Abou, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... country lanes; it was very still, and through the soft haze that filled the air, the distant trees and fields lost their remoteness, and stood stiffly and quaintly as though painted. There seemed a presage of storm in the church-tower, which showed a ghostly white among the elms. A fitful breeze stirred at intervals. Hugh drew near the hamlet, and all of a sudden stepped into a stream of inconceivable sweetness and fragrance; he saw ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to be the nucleus of a larger army, it was believed, by which the land was to be reduced to a state of servile subjection to Spain. A low, constant, but generally unheeded murmur of dissatisfaction and distrust upon this subject was already perceptible throughout the Netherlands; a warning presage of the coming storm. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... hurried along the road to seek shelter under a bluff in our front, along the base of which ran a small streamlet. The greater portion of the brigade was here huddled together in a jam, to avoid the shells flying overhead. The enemy must have had presage of our position, for they began throwing shells up in the air from their mortars and dropping them down upon us, but most fell beyond, while a great many exploded in the air. We could see the shells on their ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... takes 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
... dye for griefe: I cannot see him frowne, it may not be: Armies of foes resolu'd to winne this towne, Or impious traitors vowde to haue my life, Affright me not, onely AEneas frowne Is that which terrifies poore Didos heart: Nor bloudie speares appearing in the ayre, Presage the downfall of my Emperie, Nor blazing Commets threatens Didos death, It is AEneas frowne that ends my daies: If he forsake me not, I neuer dye, For in his lookes I see eternitie, And heele make me immortall ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... the frame of the visionary as he paused in his meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion—solemn as the presage of a disaster—terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence—the presence of an unseen visitant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Still that unexplainable softness in her voice, that strange expression on her face. Being a sailor, he looked on this calm as being ominous presage of a storm. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... in the storm of unrest which has lately swept over India is happily beyond doubt. Does this lull indicate a gradual and steady return to more normal and peaceful conditions? Or, as in other cyclonic disturbances in tropical climes, does it merely presage fiercer outbursts yet to come? Has the blended policy of repression and concession adopted by Lord Morley and Lord Minto really cowed the forces of criminal disorder and rallied the representatives of moderate ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... even her dress betrayed a certain intention of coquetry; and her splendid violet eyes flashed ever and anon with a mischievously mutinous expression that made their glance a challenge. Such a frame of mind the Scotch describe when they speak of a person being "fey," holding it to be a sure presage of impending disaster. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... their Prayers, or their Despair, and with all imaginable Speed, unlash'd the Rudder, and hoisted all their Sails. Never sure in Nature did one Minute produce a greater Scene of Contraries. The more skilful Sailors took Courage at this happy Presage of Deliverance. And according to their Expectation did it happen; that heavenly Point of Wind deliver'd us from the Jaws of those Breakers, ready open to devour us; and carrying us out to the much more wellcome wide Sea, furnished every one in the Ship with Thoughts, as ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... me poore Dame, O you amase me Vncle, Is this the wondrous fortune you presage? What ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... grimly. Her worry was not confined to this particular phase of Elsa's imperious moods; it was general. There was that blond man with the parrot. Martha was beginning to see him in her dreams, which she considered as a presage of evil. There was also the astonishing lack of interest in the man who was waiting at home. Elsa rarely spoke of him. Nobody could tell Martha that chance had thrown the blond stranger into their society. Somewhere it had been written. (As, indeed, it had!) How to keep ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... echo Rochefoucauld's words as he entered Mazarin's carriage,—'everything happens in France;' and, like Goethe, cast ourselves on the waves of accident with a more than Quixotic presage,—if not of actual adventure, at least of adventurous observation; for it is a realm where Fashion, the capricious tyrant of modern civilization, has her birth, where the 'vielle femme remplissait une mission importante et tutelaire pour tous les ages;' where the raconteur exists ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Rocks, where she had stood on that misty autumn day, and seen the vision of her coffined mother's face. Surely it was a presage of her fate. There beyond was the Bell Rock, where in that same hour Geoffrey and she had met, and behind it was the Amphitheatre, where they had told their love. Hark! what was that sound pealing faintly at intervals across the deep? It was the great ship's bell that, stirred from time ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... his attendants had failed in their attempts to seize the extraordinary fish, he stretched out his hand and caught it with the greatest ease. The simple fact of his dreaming of a bird and a fish, he was informed by flattering astrologers, was a certain presage of his attaining imperial power; and his historian has had a less difficult task in discovering, from subsequent events, that the four horns of the fish were types of the kingdoms of Persia, Khaurizm, India, and Tartary, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... he, "to send thee thus alone. And, indeed, I felt a presage of ill. So I got my men-at-arms, and swore that I would be thy convoy ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... goodnesse of the Deities, who still with grace preuents our ill presage, This groue was hallow'd to no Hiadres, but chast Diana, who with violent rage Discending from her towre of Christalline, To keepe the place still sacred and diuine: against her rites, brought with her thereupon white Poplar ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... astrologers, "since the event forces from you an acknowledgment of the truth of our presage, we must congratulate you now on being beyond the reach of an inevitable death, which he whose loss you deplore would have brought upon you. Your son, falling under his destiny, has died in innocence and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... night the divisions of Augereau and Massena retired through Verona. Officers and soldiers were alike deeply discouraged by this movement, which seemed to presage a retreat towards the Mincio and the abandonment of Lombardy. To their surprise, when outside the gate they received the order to turn to the left down the western bank of the Adige. At Ronco the mystery was solved. A bridge of boats had there ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... ("I wish'd for ease, a moment's ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious—I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... to account it the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself by every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to this task might with such diligence as they used embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my share would herein best appear, and best value itself, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... sick lowered over decks. Many of the scurvy stricken had not been out of their berths for six weeks. The fearful depression and weakness, that forewarn scurvy, had been followed by the pains, the swollen limbs, the blue spots that presage death. A spongy excrescence covered the gums. The teeth loosened. The slightest noise was enough to throw the patient into a paroxysm of anguished fright; and some died on the decks immediately on contact with the cuttingly cold ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... know, except from printed page, The pain of litter love, of baffled pride, Or sickness shadowing with a long presage. ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... of king James, in 1685, he was chosen for parliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of the Downfal of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king, on his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator, Fenton, that, in reading Tasso, he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the holy war, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... army under the command of General Wayne is a happy presage to our military operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio. From the advices which have been forwarded, the advance which he has made must have damped the ardor of the savages and weakened their ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... long-lost heir by the convenient and time-honoured "strawberry mark." These promising materials are handled in a childish fashion. The faintly pencilled outlines, the characterless figures, the nerveless structure, give little presage of the boldly effective scenery, the strong delineations and the dexterously managed plots of the later novels. The gradual, steady advance in skill and power is one of the most interesting features of Mrs. Radcliffe's work. Few could have guessed from the slight sketch ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Protestant Normal School. Its buildings, like itself, have been growing by a process of accretion, and the latest, that in which we are now assembled, [the Peter Redpath Museum], is far in advance of all the others, and a presage of the college buildings of the future. We have five chairs endowed by private benefactors, fourteen endowed scholarships and exhibitions, besides others of a temporary nature, and eight endowed gold medals. More than this, ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... 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
... from the springs, and paws the earth With ceaseless hoof: low droop his ears, wherefrom Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry, And rigidly repels the handler's touch. These earlier signs they give that presage doom. But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow, Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath, At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams Black blood; a ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... mingle my tears with his. Some incidents in reference to him in that early period, and some interesting and useful conversations I had with him, then deeply impressed on my mind, and which the lapse of near half a century has not yet obliterated, afforded no doubtful presage of his future greatness and celebrity. On my going into the family, as far as I can judge, he might be in his twelfth or thirteenth year, a boy in the rector's class. However elevated above the other boys in genius, though generally in the list of the duxes, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... being an automaton, his bright eye and full-rounded head presage higher things. Occasionally his mind breaks through the mist of instinct and reaches ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... once more lifting his voice above 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 country's resurrection. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the beaker breath'd abroad A scent celestial, which whoever smelt, Thenceforth no pleasure found it to abstain. 240 Charged with an ample goat-skin of this wine I went, and with a wallet well supplied, But felt a sudden presage in my soul That, haply, with terrific force endued, Some savage would appear, strange to the laws And privileges of the human race. Few steps convey'd us to his den, but him We found not; he his flocks pastur'd abroad. His cavern ent'ring, we with wonder gazed Around on all; his strainers ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... evolution. Nor certainly is there any signs of the disappearance of this race, since every day its intellectual and territorial achievements, added to the instruments of a powerful material civilization, invigorate its strength and presage its indefinite duration in forms we are not able to foresee, unless indeed fatal astral or telluric catastrophes should hinder its progress or bring ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... her countenance a pale and delicate hue, which I afterwards found to be a presage of consumption; and the idea then occurred to me that she would ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... reflect upon the opposite reputation of his accusers, and I venture to say malingers, though in truth there is but one, not sustained by the other. Men are murmuring at your sentence, and holding your justice for naught, a sure presage of troublous times; and be assured, that a commonwealth not founded in righteousness cannot stand, for on it rests not ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... criminals they were very superstitious, and Colonel Tod records that the partridge and the maloli or wagtail were their chief birds of omen. A partridge clamouring on the left when he commenced a foray was a certain presage of success to a Mina. Similarly, Mr. Kennedy notes that the finding of a dried goatskin, either whole or in pieces, among the effects of a suspected criminal is said to be an infallible indication of his identity as a Mina, the flesh of the goat's tongue being indispensable in connection ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... me. I perused the book in the hope of one day being able to do a little fortune telling. Harry Mac and Jack Kay had done very well out of the book, and their knowledge of it; but my object in learning to presage events, was not as a means of livelihood, but in order to appease my appetite for a bit of fun. It was while I was "reading, learning, and inwardly digesting" the contents of the book that Professor Fowler, the well-known phrenologist, came to Keighley and gave lectures on the science of bumps, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... disaster to 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 ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... with many tears and kisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle of her carriage broke, and all cried out 'Alack!' which was interpreted by some as a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distance from the city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty men arose and, having taken a hundred of the best horses, and as many golden bits and bridles, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... found, what was constantly verified by all our observations in these high latitudes,* that fair weather was always of an exceeding short duration, and that when it was remarkably fine it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm; for the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from the south-west as the night came on, and increasing its violence continually till nine in the morning ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... 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 ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Phoenix, Japanese H[o]-w[o], the second of the incarnations of the spirits, is of wondrous form and mystic nature. The rare advent of this bird upon the earth is, like that of the kirin or unicorn, a presage of the advent of virtuous rulers and good government. It has the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the features of the dragon and fish. Its colors and streaming feathers are gorgeous with iridian sheen, combining ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... now a-gathering, but our horizon is covered over with blackness, and great drops are a-falling, that presage a terrible overflowing deluge of error, and apostacy from the truth and profession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be at hand, if the Lord wonderfully prevent it not. And behold (O wonderful!) ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... to decide between us. For I maintain that the true life should neither seek for pleasures, nor, on the other hand, entirely avoid pains, but should embrace the middle state (compare Republic), which I just spoke of as gentle and benign, and is a state which we by some divine presage and inspiration rightly ascribe to God. Now, I say, he among men, too, who would be divine ought to pursue after this mean habit—he should not rush headlong into pleasures, for he will not be free from pains; nor should we allow ...
— Laws • Plato
... else I desire not to expound at this present, seeing that the time is not favourable for interpretation." The King rejoiced in these words with exceeding joy and great was his contentment; his trouble departed from him, his mind was at rest and he said, "If the case be thus of the happy presage of my dream, do thou complete to me its exposition when the fitting time betideth: for that which it behoveth not to expound to me now, it behoveth that thou expound to me when its time cometh, so my joy may be fulfilled, because I seek naught in this save the approof of Allah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... "The 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 our ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... float; And yet, from childhood up familiar with the note, To Life it now renews the old allegiance. Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss Upon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy; And, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell slowly, And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss. A sweet, uncomprehended yearning Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free, And while a thousand tears were burning, I felt ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... their fresh enthusiasm and fervent zeal, giving new impulse of activity all along the line. This long list of names represents years of self-denying attention and steady effort; it speaks of large progress in the past and is the presage of still greater progress in the future, for the list grows year by year. Our resources and forces were never before so large as during the past year, and we are encouraged to hope that they will be increased during ...
— American Missionary, Vol. 45, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... her as wicked as 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, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in London, and Oxford entertained the Parliament, as six hundred years before she had received the Witan. There seemed something ominous in all that Charles did in his earlier years—the air, or men's minds, was full of the presage of fate. It was observed that the House of Commons met in the Divinity School, and that the place seemed to have infected them with theological passion. After 1625 there was never a Parliament but had its ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... not long ignorant that these monsters continued to be bred up in Jotunheim, and, having had recourse to divination, became aware of all the evils they would have to suffer from them; their being sprung from such a mother was a bad presage, and from such a sire was still worse. All-father therefore deemed it advisable to send one of the gods to bring them to him. When they came he threw the serpent into that deep ocean by which the earth is engirdled. But the monster has grown to such an enormous size that, holding ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... feet from the unconscious stranger, was regarding him with the gentle speculative look which Bowers knew to presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary. His eyes, however, had the fondness of a doting parent who takes a secret pride in his offspring's naughtiness ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... your immortal weal! In vain for Constance is 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 be!—this dizzy trance,— Curse on yon base marauder's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... assurance of the approaching return of her husband. Xenophon was haranguing his troops; when a soldier sneezed in the moment he was exhorting them to embrace a dangerous but necessary resolution. The whole army, moved by this presage, determined to pursue the project of their general; and Xenophon orders sacrifices to Jupiter, the preserver. This religious reverence for sneezing, so ancient and so universal even in the time of Homer, always excited the curiosity of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... event has been accompanied by a presage or prognostic, has been observed by Lord Bacon. "The shepherds of the people should understand the prognostics of state tempests; hollow blasts of wind seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Harlequin to storm in tragick rage. Britons, attend; and decent reverence shew To her, who made th' Athenian bosoms glow; Whom the undaunted Romans could revere, And who in Shakespeare's time was worshipp'd here: If none of these can her success presage, Your hearts at least a wonder may engage: Oh I love her like her ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... this oppression, she too gathered a freshness, a convalescent pleasure in what they saw; everything had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak trees, tender and curative. In the broad early light that lay over the tanks there was a vague allurement, almost a presage, and the wide spaces of the Maidan made room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if he would mind driving to the market; she wanted some flowers for that night. I think she wanted some flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily into the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... King Henry's presage rose;— De Brehan link'd him with our foes: Yes! ours! the Brehans us'd to be Patterns of faith and loyalty: And many a knightly badge they wore, And many a trace their 'scutcheons bore, Of noble deeds in days of yore,— Of royal bounty, and such trust As suits the generous ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... 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 overwhelming love of fashion that was crescent throughout ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... hundreds were crushed to death by the fall of a temporary building, the sensibility of the Dauphiness, the eagerness with which she sent all her money to the lieutenant de police for the families of those who had perished, conciliated the people, and turned even the evil presage to good. Again, during a severe frost, her munificence to the suffering poor excited such gratitude, that the people erected to her honour a vast pyramid of snow—Frail memorial!—"These marks of respect were almost as transitory ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... of the projected sweeping of the English into the sea. This was a hugged delusion until some fool dispelled it by discovering the gun to be a "creuzot" which had been purchased in France by the Transvaal. But it mattered little where it had been purchased; it was a tangible reality, a presage of sanguinary import. It was a time for action; and maybe the picks and shovels did not rise to the occasion! Fort-making was the rage; the men worked with a will—the women acting as hod-carriers—to make the graves in which they hoped ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... from physical and moral daring to the field of theological and political speculation, it is easy today to select, among the writings of the earliest colonists, certain radical utterances which seem to presage the very temper of the late eighteenth century. Pastor John Robinson's farewell address to the Pilgrims at Leyden in 1620 contained the famous words: "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry |
