"Unpropitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through foreign nations too, that, in order to cover our participation in guilt, and our common interest in the plunder of the East, we have invented a set of scholastic distinctions, abhorrent to the common sense and unpropitious to the common necessities of mankind, by which we are to deny ourselves the knowledge of what the rest of the world knows, and what so great a part of the world both knows and feels. I do not deprecate any appearance which may give countenance to this aspersion from suspicion that any ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... an unpropitious moment for taking counsel with Mr. Shaw about cannibals, I tried another tack with the beautiful youth ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... mountains," as our "little Faresoul" would say, at almost the highest point where, as yet, gold has been discovered, and indeed within fifty miles of the summit of the Sierra Nevada itself. So much, at present, for our local, while I proceed to tell you of the propitious—or unpropitious, as the result will prove—winds which ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... daily, the fracture in the shaft is extending, and so, partially maimed, the old ship drags her 320 feet of length slowly along. The captain is continually in the engine-room, and we know when things are looking more unpropitious than usual by his coming up puffing his cigar with unusual strength of determination. It has been so far a very pleasant voyage. The moral, mental, and social qualities of my fellow-passengers are of a high order, and since ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Captain Baudin, in order to render this hydrographical survey complete, should have followed out his instructions, and penetrated beyond St. Peter and St. Francis Islands. The weather, however, was too unpropitious, and this exploration was reserved ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... vanish like smoke, and the hated lawyer's office become a certainty, if he failed to make money by writing. In deadly fear of this, and with the paralysing consciousness that his present circumstances were peculiarly unpropitious as a literary education, he rebelled against the hard fate which denied him opportunity to work for fame. "Laure, Laure," he cries at this time, "my two only and immense desires—to be loved and to be ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the misfortunes and mishaps of the day. The unpropitious toilet; the aggravation of 'Obin and Ichard'; the delay caused by Jog being sick with his cigar; the divergence into Hackberry Dean; and the long protracted wait at the toll-bar. Reviewing all the circumstances ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... shoulder. Again I was overwhelmed with thankfulness that the N. W. M. P. had no string on me; I never took orders from anybody in that tone of voice, and I wanted to shake a defiant fist under the autocratic major's nose and tell him so. I had sense enough to see that the time and place was unpropitious for starting an argument of that sort, so I kept an unperturbed front ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the Chinaman's sallow features, and his eyes glittered with anger. Had the street been deserted he would have strangled her, then and there, after the pleasing Oriental fashion. But the time and place were unpropitious. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... of all countries exhibits, in a greater or less degree, a prevalence of barbarism. The planting of colonies, or the formation of establishments in new countries, is ever attended with circumstances unpropitious to refinement. The force with which these circumstances act, will be increased or diminished in proportion to the remoteness or proximity of those new establishments, to older societies, in which the arts and sciences are cultivated; and to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... moment Mrs. Glynde was called from the room, and went reluctantly, feeling that the time was unpropitious. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the kingdom. These barbarians have nothing to do with our Great Flowery land. Such vassals may not interfere with our covenant. Weapons are out of place at such a meeting. As before the spirits, such conduct is unpropitious. In point of virtue, it is contrary to right. As between man and man, it is not polite.' The duke of Ch'i ordered the disturbers off, but Confucius withdrew, carrying the duke of Lu with him. The business proceeded, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... familiar motioned the Kamraviona and several officers to draw around him, when, in a very low tone, he gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away. His revelations seemed unpropitious, for we immediately repaired to our boats and returned to our quarters. Here we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... notable absence of the exasperation which it was feared the subject would call forth. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky stated the objections of the minority, and especially of the Border slave States, fairly and temperately. The time seemed to him unpropitious inasmuch as the moving cause of the secession of the States was the apprehension on their part that Congress was likely to take measures for the abolition of slavery. The passage of the bill necessarily ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to the choice of a baneful or impotent saint to recommend to his "noble brother of Burgundy." Disaster to Louis had once followed supplication to Saint Hubert, and the king hoped that the worthy saint might prove equally unpropitious for Charles. Yolanda's wonderful "t" was certainly the most stupendous single letter ever quilled. Here were ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... elegant dissipation ended in matrimony. His first match was unpropitious. Foiled in his attempts upon the chastity of a lady of great beauty and high honor, he was rash enough to marry her; rash, we say, for from that fatal hour all became as darkness; the curtain fell upon ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman. And all communication between the parts of the long- extended territory might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable quebradas,—those hideous rents in the mountain ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Childermass Day, or the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the day on which King Herod slaughtered so many infants (if they were no better mannered than the bulk of the County Council children of to-day, one can hardly blame him), is held to be unpropitious for the commencement of any new undertaking by ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... spirit, Commissioned from above to chastise men, Where'er she moved was death. There was a flash Of scorn that lighted up her fiery eye, A glance of wrath upon her countenance— There was a terror in her frenzied arm That struck dismay into the boldest heart. Alas for her, Fortune was unpropitious! Her fearless valor found an overmatch In the experienced prudence of Aurelian; And scarcely could the desert's hardy sons Cope with the practiced legions of the empire. The battle gained, Palmyra taken, sacked— Its queen a captive, hurled from off a throne, Stripped of her wide ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... lodgings in his house, to wait his return. Two or three men and several females and children spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening with us, hearing sister M. read from the books which have already been written in their language. We, however, soon found that we had arrived in a most unpropitious time; for almost every man in the vicinity was in ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... lackey takes a healthy enough view of the matter, for all his cynicisms. You must not take it too tragically. You have passed through your heart crisis—it comes to most of us—only with you it has happened late, and under unpropitious circumstances. That has tended to make it more severe than is usually the case. But now, let it be past and over, though naturally it will take some little time for your mind to regain its normal ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... found there was a ferry-flat. The ferryman considered our attempt as dangerous, for had we gone much further into the stream we should have shot into the quicksands in the deep current. This day the fates were most unpropitious to us; and had we had, like Socrates, a familiar demon at our elbow, he most assuredly would have warned us not to proceed. We had no sooner got into the ferry-flat, and pushed off from shore, than the horse tumbled overboard, carriage and all, and was ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... This absence was most unpropitious, for an hour's delay might cost a kingdom; Esmond had nothing for it but to hasten to the "King's Arms", and tell the gentlemen there assembled that Mr. George (as we called the prince there) was not ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fortune; while those extremely vicious correspond, at the time of their existence, with an era of calamity. When those who coexist with propitious fortune come into life, the world is in order; when those who coexist with unpropitious fortune come into life, the world is in danger. Yao, Shun, Yue, Ch'eng T'ang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, Chou Kung, Chao Kung, Confucius, Mencius, T'ung Hu, Han Hsin, Chou Tzu, Ch'eng Tzu, Chu Tzu and Chang Tzu were ordained to see light in an auspicious era. Whereas ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen, His azure glowed as a cloud worn thin, Deep as the blue of the king-whale's lair: "The Porphyrogenita Zoe the fair Is about to wed with a Prince much older, Of an unpropitious mien and look—" "Hush!" cried a voice ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... sometimes known, by great accident, last three months, I can tell you that without great attention, infinite politeness, and engaging air and manners, the omens will be sinister, and the goddess unpropitious. Pray tell me what are the amusements of those assemblies? Are they little commercial play, are they music, are they 'la belle conversation', or are they all three? 'Y file-t-on le parfait amour? Y debite-t-on les beaux sentimens? Ou est-ce yu'on y parle Epigramme? And ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... known, perhaps, that balloons have actually been used in war. They were first introduced to this new field of action at Valenciennes in 1793, and the result of the experiment was a failure; not, however, owing to the fault of man, but to the unpropitious nature of the winds. The garrison, being hard pressed by the English and their allies, attached a letter, addressed to the National Assembly, to a small balloon, or parachute, and committed it to a breeze which ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... Under such unpropitious circumstances the impetuous Gauls were met on the banks of the river Allia, ten miles from Rome, on the very day on which the Fabii had been destroyed by the Etruscans the century before (July 16, 390). The result ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... longer pacific; the spirit of Wingina had diffused itself through every bosom, and the unfortunate mistake, which caused the death of a friendly savage, contributed much to the general hostility. But amid so much that was unpropitious, two events occurred to shed a faint light upon their days (August 13th). Manteo, the faithful friend of the early visitors, was baptized with the simple though solemn rites of the Christian faith, and upon him was bestowed the sounding title of Lord ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... but in reality such direct satisfaction was impossible. A total defeat, on the other hand, would have extinguished the will itself and obliterated every human impulse seeking expression. Man's existence is proof enough that nature was not altogether unpropitious, but offered, in an unlooked-for direction, some thoroughfare to the soul. Roundabout imperfect methods were discovered by which something at least of what was craved might be secured. The individual perished, yet not without having segregated and detached a certain portion of ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with dusty snowflakes. All through midsummer the Scotch rivers lose ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... treated it exactly as they treated the Atlantic Cable project when Cyrus Field visited Boston in 1862. They admired and marvelled; but not a man subscribed a dollar. Also, Sanders very soon learned that it was a most unpropitious time for the setting afloat of a new enterprise. It was a period of turmoil and suspicion. What with the Jay Cooke failure, the Hayes-Tilden deadlock, and the bursting of a hundred railroad bubbles, there was very little in the news of the ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... her sprightly chatter going when they sat down, though the temperature of the room and the sight of hot soup might have discouraged a less determined gayety. Moreover, there were details as unpropitious as the heat: the expiring roses expressed not beauty but pathos, and what faint odour they exhaled was no rival to the lusty emanations of the Brussels sprouts; at the head of the table, Adams, sitting low in his chair, appeared to be unable to flatten the uprising wave ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne—who did not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied therein if she had—got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. She was so pale that Diana and Jane, ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May—a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... wishes. The despotic hand of authority tears asunder hearts united by the softest ties, and sacrifices the prospect of felicity to ridiculous and unmeaning prejudices. Let us, my Matilda, pity those whose fate is thus unpropitious, but let us not voluntarily subject ourselves to their misfortune. No voice is raised to forbid our union. Heaven and earth command ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... proper business of Churches; but it is a means, though not an end. And it will be found that all the better Churches have been as literary as they could; and that, if at any time the literature has been defective, it has been rather their circumstances that were unpropitious, than themselves that were in fault. Their enemies have delighted to represent the case differently. Our readers must remember the famous instance in Old Mortality, so happily exposed by the elder M'Crie, in which Sir Walter, when he makes ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the command of the Lord; the apostasy of the people, and especially of the ten tribes, to whom the prophet was sent in the first instance, is typified by the adultery of the wife, by the divine punishment, and the unpropitious names which he gives to the children born by the adulterous wife. In chap. ii. 1-3, there follows the announcement of salvation more directly, and only with a simple allusion ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the birth of Kunti's sons and also of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra the daughter of the king of the Madras privately addressed Pandu, saying, 'O slayer of foes, I have no complaint even if thou beest unpropitious to me. I have, O sinless one, also no complaint that though by birth I am superior to Kunti yet I am inferior to her in station. I do not grieve, O thou of Kuru's race, that Gandhari hath obtained a hundred sons. This, however, is my great grief that while Kunti and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... about a journey for myself, except to try and return all the things, books especially, which I had been borrowing; but about my child I feel anxious lest I should not take what is necessary for his health and comfort on so long a voyage, where omissions are irreparable. The unpropitious, rainy weather delays us now from day to day, as our ship; the Elizabeth,—(look out for news of shipwreck!) cannot finish taking in her cargo till come ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... bird test known to the Romans. Before a battle those people consulted their game fowl to ascertain whether or not victory was about to attend their arms. If the birds picked up briskly the food thrown to them victory was theirs, if they did so sluggishly the omen was unpropitious, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... wealthy yeoman, who resided at Heatherwick (now Stanke), about a mile from Harewood; and who, successful in the cultivation of his paternal acres, sought to extend his interests by renting the farm of Sandygate. His removal was however unpropitious to his domestic happiness; for entering the new house before it was fully fit for occupation, his wife, already in a delicate state of health, took cold and died; leaving him with four children, the eldest of whom was six years old, and the youngest but an infant. Mr. S. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... church and the parsonage was a stretch of lawn, dotted with shrubs and cedars and shaded by two big silver-leaf poplars. It was on this lawn that, provided the night was fair, the strawberry festival was to be held. If the weather should be unpropitious the festival was to ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... added a solid psychological advantage. The success of Buddhism in China was due to the fact that it presented religious emotion and speculation in the best form known there, and when it began to spread the intellectual soil was not unpropitious. The higher Taoist philosophy had made familiar the ideas of quietism and the contemplative life: the age was unsettled, harassed alike by foreign invasion and civil strife. In such times when even active natures tire of unsuccessful ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... whose remains you may study at Monaco and elsewhere, was a fine fellow, without a doubt. He lived rather long ago. Even he, by the way, was a tourist on these shores. And were the air of Mentone not unpropitious to the composition of anything save a kind of literary omelette soufflee, one might like to expatiate on Sergi's remarkable book, and devise thereto an incongruous footnote dealing with the African origin of sundry Greek gods, and another one referring to the extinction of these splendid races ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... accordance with these commands [143] and set out against Amalek, to conquer whom required not only skillful strategy, but also adeptness in the art of magic. For Amalek was a great magician and knew that propitious and the unpropitious hour of each individual, and in this way regulated his attacks against Israel; he attacked that one at night, whose death had been predicted for a night, and him whose death had been preordained for a day ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... generation after Shakespeare's death, common opinion both in Stratford and London recognized that in the actor and dramatist a great man had passed away, that he had been in a worldly sense highly successful, though starting from unpropitious beginnings, that he wrote with great swiftness and ease, and that in his personal relations he was gentle, kindly, genial, and witty. That the bailiff's son who returned to his native town as a prosperous gentleman, is to be identified with the actor and shareholder ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... the alert. It would know, perhaps, that I had better do nothing to-day. I should probably have not the slightest idea of intervention; but it would raise some unforeseen obstacle. I should fall ill; catch a bad cold, be prevented by some secondary event from arriving at the unpropitious hour. Then, when I was actually in the presence of the man who held my destiny in his hands, my vigilant friend would spread its wings over me, its breath would inspire me, its light would dispel my darkness. It would dictate to me the words that I must ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... into the house for something after starting on a journey is unpropitious. To have it brought out ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... ease in a large house, but day by day her riches wane and her house contracts. She explains to her visitor that her condition at any given hour affects the whole lives of all children born at that time, and that he had come into the world at a most unpropitious moment; and she advises him to take his niece Militsa (who had been born at a lucky time) to live in his house, and to call all he might acquire her property. This advice he follows, and all goes well with him. One day, as he is gazing at a splendid field of corn, a stranger asks him to whom ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... extensive journey, having had to act the tradesman on rather an extended scale; conferring and settling with all the booksellers in the respective towns, as to the means of conveyance, allowance, remittances, &c. he thus wrote in a dejected mood, to his friend Mr. Wade,—an unpropitious state of mind for a new enterprise, and very different from those sanguine hopes which he had expressed ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Thoresby became archbishop. The times were unpropitious for building. Yorkshire was suffering much from the black death, there was great poverty among the peasantry, and the diocese was in great need of discipline and reform. Thoresby gave himself up for ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... also out of all patience, and vexed to the soul at the society of the parrot. Bewailing his misfortune, he was railing at the revolutions of the skies; and, wringing the hands of chagrin, was lamenting his condition, and saying: "What an unpropitious fate is this; what ill-luck, and untoward fortune! Could they any way suit the dignity of me, who would in my day strut with my fellow-crows along the wall of a garden:—It were durance sufficient for a good and holy man that he should be made the companion ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... grace of youthful sincerity), whether any statesman—the oldest and the most accomplished in diplomacy—could have acquitted himself better under the same circumstances. Most people, indeed, cannot be addressed on such a business without surveying you with looks as austere and unpropitious as those of ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... soak'd in harbor, tide and tide. On thorns and scratches, till that moment Unnoticed, you begin to comment; You never felt such bitter brambles, Such heavy soil, in all your rambles! You never felt your fleas so vicious! Till, sick of life so unpropitious, You wish at last, to end the passage, That you were dead, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... well—now topped by a graceful Italian canopy—with mud and stones; and one enterprising spirit had already chalked upon the bucket, "We don't want no Dagos to Brook Center." In short, it had begun to seem to the architect that the immediate atmosphere was unpropitious for a serene home-coming. Now, as he faced the eager old farmer, something like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... all persons should kindly treat the savages, and heathen people, in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of God."[D] This expedition left the shores of England, December 19, 1606, and, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by unpropitious winds, which kept them in sight of home for more than "six weeks," reached the capes of Virginia. The southern cape was christened "Henry," and the northern, "Charles," after the King's sons. This was on the 26th day of April, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... parents. This was prepared without their knowledge, and in order that the non-musical Hensel might take part with the rest of the family, Mendelssohn wrote for him a number consisting wholly of one note repeated. Even with this aid the Muses were unpropitious in the performance, and Hensel could not hit the right pitch for this note, while all his neighbours tried to prompt him, and the young composer sat at ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... as long as Lucy is free. Over and over again has he been upon the point of speaking out and learning his fate, and over and over again has he hesitated and closed his lips, deeming the occasion unpropitious, or fearing to learn that which will make the remainder of his life a ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... deadlier enemy than the Bulwan horror, to which he made reference in one of the last lines he was destined to write in this world. He fell ill in that pestilent town, as all the world knows. His constitution was strong enough; he had not lived a life of unpropitious preparation for a serious illness; but his heart was a danger. Typhoid is fatal to any heart-weakness, particularly in convalescence; and he was caught suddenly as he was ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I found myself compelled to climb ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not much above a week after the calculations, in all the glory of the purple of Manor Cross, the new Popenjoy was born. For it was a Popenjoy. The Fates, who had for some time past been unpropitious to the house of Brotherton, now smiled; and Fortune, who had been good to the Dean throughout, remained true to him also in this. The family had a new heir, a real Popenjoy; and the old Marchioness when the baby was shown to her for awhile forgot ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... and patriotism, as I sympathize with your unpropitious gallantry. May Venus make happy your next pursuit of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the south, and came hither from the south, should hear of my rapture hereupon, he would deem me very childish. Alas! what I here express I have long known while I suffered under an unpropitious heaven, and now may I joyful feel this joy as an exception, which we should enjoy everforth as an eternal ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the extraordinary alternations of climate we had experienced for two months, was a circumstance quite unheard-of before in Pau, and we looked on ourselves as singularly unlucky in having, by chance, chosen a season so unpropitious. A few simple persons, who ventured to remark that the winter of last year was very similar, were told that they must have been mistaken; and some who recollected high winds were considered romancers. We looked at the strong contre-vents placed outside ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... considers September as an unpropitious time for the production of novelties, the scheme arranged for the patrons of the Philharmonic Concert last night, under the direction of Sir Henry Peacham, was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently respectable dimensions. The occasion served for the launching ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... who have acquired a reputation to which poor Nash can lay no claim. His one conspicuous dramatic effort is 'Summer's Last Will and Testament.' Nash wrote for bare existence—to use his own words, 'contending with the cold, and conversing with scarcity.' Nash lived in an unpropitious age. A recent French writer has placed him in the foremost rank of English writers. Dr. Jusserand, the author referred to, in his accounts of the English novel in the time of Shakespeare, tells us Nash was the most successful ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... It was an unpropitious beginning for the new term. Glory was obliged to refuse three times to recite, on the plea of her lost books, and double lessons loomed ahead of her dismally. But not for long—Glory never allowed "making up" to dispirit her unduly. Studying, anyway, was a nuisance, ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... to the peril environing her, and almost unconscious of any other presence save that of Richard, now her avowed lover; for, impelled by the irresistible violence of his feelings, the young man had chosen that moment, apparently so unpropitious, and so fraught with danger and alarm, for the declaration of his passion, and the offer of his life in her service. A few low-murmured words were all Alizon could utter in reply, but they were enough. They told Richard his passion was requited, and his devotion fully appreciated. Sweet ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... haymaking is finished at last, and by-and-by, when the leaves have fallen and the hunting commences, a good run drives away for the time at least the memory of so unpropitious a season. Then Mr. George some mild morning forms one of a little group of well-mounted farmers waiting at a quiet corner while the hounds draw a great wood. Two of them are men long past middle age, whose once tawny ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth; whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to a slight degree ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... concisely. I wrote two pages more in the evening. Stayed at home all day. Indeed, the weather—sleety, rainy, stormy—forms no tempting prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I made a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... more conscious than the writer of the inadequacy of this method of presenting an argument of such inherent complexity as the dragon story: but my obligation to the Rylands Library gave me no option in the matter: I had to attempt the difficult task in spite of all the unpropitious circumstances. This book must be regarded, then, not as a coherent argument, but merely as some of the raw material for the study of the dragon's history. In my lecture (13 November, 1918) on "The Meaning of Myths," which will be published ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... slept at Perigny, about a league from the capital of Burgundy, so as to make the last stage of his journey thither in leisurely state. Unpropitious weather on Saturday, January 22d, the appointed day, made postponement of the ducal parade necessary, out of consideration for the precious hangings and costly ecclesiastical robes that were to grace the ceremonies of reception and investiture. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... for one, was relieved when tea was over, and, as he rose from the table, he determined, despite the unpropitious look of things, to end the suspense, one way or another, and speak to Anthea just so soon as she ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... have a few, a very few, people down for that Sunday. They had all a special connection with Bray. Things had happened there before, and it was a party of healed memories that was to gather there. If, after all, the weather turned out to be hopelessly unpropitious, they could all sit in a ring round the fire, holding each other's hands. She felt sure they would like to do that. Probably there would be a great many tete-a-tetes in various corners, or, if it were warm, in various punts. But she felt sure that they would all ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... someone to assume the duty for him; but one day everyone seemed engaged on some pursuit or other, so with every anticipation of a dull evening he went down to hall. He began to read Shelley but the surroundings were unpropitious. All about him sat huddled fragments of humanity scratching half-baked ideas with crossed nibs into dog-eared notebooks. There was a general air of unrest. Gordon tried Sinister Street; some of the episodes in Lepard Street were more in harmony with his feelings, but there was ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... subscription would be sufficient to patronise a History of England." His valuable "History of the Duke of Ormond" had sufficiently announced the sort of man who solicited this necessary aid; nor was the moment unpropitious to his fondest hopes, for a Society for the Encouragement of Learning had been formed, and this impulse of public spirit, however weak, had, it would seem, roused into action some unexpected quarters. When Carte's project was made known, a large subscription was raised to defray the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... chain of lightning seen in the sky appeared to pass from cloud to cloud above, instead of descending to the ground. On the other hand, thunder sounding as if it came from the southward, and lightning striking down to the earth, were both unpropitious omens. As to birds, some were of good omen, as vultures, eagles and woodpeckers. Others were evil, as ravens and owls. Various inferences were drawn too from the manner in which the birds that appeared in the air, were seen to fly, and from the sound of their note at the time ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... him before, and wondered that he had not reminded her of it; but perhaps he had forgotten too? She soon let go that reminiscence, and with a light heart, in anticipation of the future which had appeared in the distance so unpropitious, she talked of it to madame with a thousand random speculations, until madame was tired of the subject. And then she talked of it to Babette, who having no private disappointments in connection therewith, proved patiently ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... S. Swatara, Captain Ralph Chandler, U. S. N., commanding. In astronomical observations all work is at the mercy of the elements. Clear weather was, of course, a necessity to success at any station. In the present case the weather was on the whole unpropitious. While there was not a complete failure at any one station, the number or value of the observations was more or less impaired at all. Where the sky was nearly cloudless, the air was thick and hazy. This was especially the case at Nagasaki and Pekin, where from meteorological observations ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses, Parliaments, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... of. There is no country, however fair, that has not some drawback or other. There are no hopes, however promising, that may not be blighted; no prospects, however encouraging, that may not wither. Unfitness for the new field of enterprise on which a man may enter—unpropitious seasons, the designs of others, or unforeseen misfortunes; one or more of these may combine to bring about results very opposite from those we had anticipated. I would not therefore take upon myself the responsibility of giving ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... this Captain Miggs to accompany me there upon an occasion also, assuring him of equality and a sympathetic reception; but from the moment of our arrival the attitudes of those around pointed to the existence of some unpropitious barrier invisible to me, and when the one with whom I was associated took up an unassailable position upon the central table, and began to speak authoritatively upon the subject of The Virtues, the unenviable condition of the proud and affluent, and the myriads of fire-demons certainly ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... might be, yet its opening to the eyes of Lady Mary Bloxam seemed unpropitious in the extreme. Lionel Beauchamp received her and Blanche with grave courtesy, but no more; indeed, his manner to Miss Bloxam touched upon the ceremonious. It was true that as a host he could hardly be expected to devote much time to any individual guest; but still it is very possible ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union under this Constitution, that almost everything which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has been accomplished in despite of them or forced upon them, and that everything unpropitious and dishonorable, including the blunders and follies of their adversaries, may be traced to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... fancy to a house, they settle down near the gate, and the owner has to support them as long as the whim takes them to stay there. To use force against a dervish would be looked upon as an exceedingly unpropitious affair to the true believer. Then, too, I have little doubt but that they are capable of making good use of their steel bodkins. Why my dervish wished to give up his easy-going profession and take over the charge ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... Falconer was exasperated by Georgiana's ingratitude, that her son Buckhurst was obliged to come to London after his marriage, to settle with his creditors. His bride insisted upon accompanying him, and chose this unpropitious time for being introduced to his family. And such a bride! Mrs. Buckhurst Falconer! Such an introduction! Such a reception! His mother cold and civil, merely from policy to prevent their family-quarrels ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the month and include three-fourths of the fiction of the past. Here is the broadest and most general formula of English fiction as she is wrote for the young person: A young man meets a young woman under unpropitious conditions which delay ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the leaves were, of course, a much darker green. The first picking, usually in April, is when the leaves are very young and tender, commanding a much higher price than those subsequently plucked. The second is a month later, when they have attained maturity; and as unpropitious weather would be likely to ruin them, great expedition is used in getting in the crop, the entire population turning out to assist. A third, and even a fourth, follows; but the quality rapidly deteriorates, and but a small proportion of these last ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... was planned for the Fourth of July; but when the club met, things were found to be unpropitious. Thorny had gone out of town with his sister to pass the day, two of the best players did not appear, and the others were somewhat exhausted by the festivities, which began at sunrise for them. So they lay about on the grass in the shade of the big elm, languidly discussing ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... defects; (2) some hopeful signs. The facts touching these matters are to be gathered not only from secular history but from the life and work of Jesus as they are seen at work either for or against the progress of his work. (1) Unpropitious conditions. Among the signs of decadence or errors that needed correction should be noted: (a) There was a defective view of God. They regarded God as too far away; (b) They laid too much stress upon outward obedience and, thereby, ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... Park. It is worthy to rank as a feat of engineering skill with, any of the great works of modern times. The Commissioners decided to put its powers to the test yesterday afternoon, but owing to the unpropitious weather of the forenoon the trial was postponed. Nevertheless, Commissioners Stranahan, Fiske, and Haynes, with Mr. Martin, engineer in charge, and Mr. John Y. Culyer, his assistant, were at the well. During the last summer some difficulties were encountered in the sinking of the wall, which ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... French language was malleable into poetry. We are behindhand here in books, and elderly ones seem young to us. For instance, we have not caught sight yet of 'Moore's Life,' the extracts from which are unpropitious, I think. I had a fancy, I cannot tell you how it grew, that Moore, though an artificial, therefore inferior, poet, was a most brilliant letter-writer. His letters are disappointing, and his mean clinging to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... round, he perceived close to his elbow a man in no very respectable attire, so far as the obscurity would allow him to judge, but half muffled up in a cloak, and armed with a stout bludgeon. Much as he had just now been wishing for some guide, he yet could not congratulate himself on so unpropitious a rencontre. The stranger's dress and unceremonious greeting were not more suspicious than the abruptness of his appearance: for Bertram felt convinced that he must have way-laid him. Assuming however as much composure as he could, he demanded in a ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... journey had been so unpropitious— he had taken so long a time to recover from it—that she had earnestly hoped he would never attempt another. She expressed this as ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... with my books and instruments at Nkaye, and the inevitable delay was employed in studying the country and the people, and in making a botanical collection. But the season was wholly unpropitious. A naval officer, who was considered an authority upon the Coast, had advised me to travel in September, when a journey should never begin later than May. The vegetation was feeling the effect of the Cacimbo; most of the perennials ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Duchess's dinner-party, Alwyn was strolling one morning through the Park, enjoying to the full the keen, fresh odors of the Spring,—odors that even in London cannot altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. It had been raining, but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly as it ever CAN shine on the English capital, sending sparkles of gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little crocuses, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the moon for the Persians; and that this planet was never in an eclipse, but it threatened them with some mighty disaster: of this they quoted several ancient examples among the kings of Persia, who, after an eclipse, had always found their gods unpropitious in the day of battle. "Nothing," says Quintus Curtius,[125] "is so effectual as superstition for keeping the vulgar under. Be they ever so unruly and inconstant, if once their minds are possessed with the vain visions of religion, they are all obedience to the soothsayer, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... his family for the trial which awaited them. He had forcibly pointed out the defective patience of those, who, though submissive and composed under corrections, which proceeded immediately from the hand of God; such as sickness, loss of friends by death, or any misfortunes arising from unpropitious seasons, or other accidents; are querulous and rebellious, when the same Sovereign Disposer of events corrects them through the intervention of their enemies. Pride, envy, hatred, ingratitude, selfishness, and treachery, are evils permitted against others; as well as plagues ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... a dull day with the street-boys, whatever their business may be. The boot-blacks lose least, but if the day be unpropitious their earnings are small. On such a day the Newsboys Lodge is a great resource. It supplies all that a boy actually needs—lodging and two meals—for the small sum of eighteen cents, and in cases of need will ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... by the Regent with a most unpropitious aspect. "In asking the pardon of the criminal," said he, "you display more zeal for the house of Van Horn, than for the service of the king." The noble deputies enforced the petition by every argument ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... you speak of the past. Time was when the Muses were not unpropitious; but now that I am an old man, they have proved inconstant, and have fled from Sans-Souci forever. The Muses themselves are young, and it is but natural that they should seek your majesty's protection. I am thankful ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... four idle louts, a couple of children, and a farm-laborer were running by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy attempt at ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... made my first visit to Oregon, and remember my surprise at meeting so large a circle of bright, intelligent women. After taking an old stage at Travesty city, and lumbering along two miles or more over bad roads on a dull day in March into a very unpropitious looking town, my heart sank at the prospect of the small audience I should inevitably have in such a spot. Wondering as to the character of the people I should find, we jolted round the town to the home of the editor and his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... probably remain unsolved till the mystery of God contained in them shall have been fulfilled. One thing, however, they clearly reveal to us: that the future triumph of God's kingdom is certain, and that all the great movements in the history of the nations, however unpropitious they may seem at the time, are parts of the mighty plan of divine providence which shall end in making the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and of ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... security. The ice is so thin that it could not hurt by pressure—there are no bergs within reasonable distance—indeed the thinness of the ice is one of the most tantalising conditions. In spite of the unpropitious prospect everyone on board is cheerful and one foresees a merry ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Go-Daigo was not to be moved from his purpose. He gave Yoshisada fair words indeed: "I profoundly praise your loyal services. My wish is to pacify the country by the assistance of your family, but heaven has not yet vouchsafed its aid. Our troops are worn out and the hour is unpropitious. Therefore, I make peace for the moment and bide my time. Do you repair to Echizen and use your best endeavours to promote the cause of the restoration. Lest you be called a rebel after my return to Kyoto, I order the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... poetry.'" If he cannot say this of himself to-day, still less can he say it of himself to-morrow. He cannot tell whether the illusions of youth will forsake him wholly; whether the joy of creation will cease to thrill; what unpropitious blight he may encounter in an enemy or a creditor, or harbour in an uncongenial mate. Milton, no doubt, entirely meant what he said when he told Diodati: "I am letting my wings grow and preparing to fly, but my Pegasus has not yet feathers enough to soar aloft in the fields of air." ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... coupled with the numbers of American vessels protected by licenses, and the fewness of the American ships of war, may have indisposed the admiral and his officers to watch very closely an inhospitable shore, at a season unpropitious to active operations. Besides, as appears from letters already quoted, the commander-in-chief's personal predilection was more for the defensive than the offensive; to protect British trade by cruisers patrolling its routes, rather than by preventing egress from ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... degree of irritation in such troubles which adds a whole armoury of small knife-cuts to intensify the agony of the evil from which we suffer. It is more dreadful to be moaning over our own mistakes than over the inscrutable perversity of an unpropitious fate. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... lowered, her closed lips quivered, her bony fingers twitched. She never addressed a word to Gordon directly; and, he decided, when she did, it would be monumental, dumbfounding. The present moment was more than usually unpropitious; and, discovering General Jackson at his heels, he picked the dog up and departed for the stable, where he saw Sim Caley putting ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... like cherries. It is possible that this may be read by some gentle spirit, some anxious inquirer after a brighter pathway through a checkered life, some one of my own sex whose aspirations may be in harmony with mine, and whose fortunes may have been infinitely more unpropitious, in the hope of gathering from my humble experience sufficient light to guide her in a similar undertaking. I doubt not there are thousands in our country whose tastes would lead them in the same direction, did opportunity offer, and were the requisite knowledge at hand. I therefore ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... to the spot endeared to him by his early associations. It is quite possible that these particular salmon when on their way to the purlieus of marine fashion were somewhat discouraged at the jar and shock incident to their transit over the Falls. They may have concluded that the locality was unpropitious for the return trip, and then, consulting with salmon whose lines had been cast in more pleasant places, they may have ascended rivers of more conspicuous natural attractions and more agreeable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... disappeared. I stood, at the bottom of the steps, confounded at such strange and unexpected treatment. I could not withdraw till my purpose was accomplished. After a moment's pause, I stepped to the door, and pulled the bell. A negro came, of a very unpropitious aspect, and, opening the door, looked at me in silence. To my question, Was Mrs. Maurice to be seen? he made some answer, in a jargon which I could not understand; but his words were immediately followed by an unseen person within the house:—"Mrs. Maurice can't be seen by anybody. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... immediately, and with taste that did his sagacity credit, that his footing in this quarter was only to be obtained by unusually slow and cautious means. Still, Mr. Bragg was a man of great decision, and, in his way, of very far-sighted views; and, singular as it may seem, at that unpropitious moment, he mentally determined that, at no very distant day, he would make ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... ascertained that about one in ten of these letters is dictated either by honest sympathy, the warm, uncritical recognition of youth (which I don't suppose any author would diminish, if he could), or the craving for encouragement, under unpropitious circumstances of growth. But how was I, in the beginning, to guess at the motives of the writers? They offered sugar-plums, which I swallowed without a suspicion of the drastic ingredients so many of them contained. Good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... again! You should see how lovely the campus is. I think you might come and look at it for yourself. Master Jervie dropped in again last Friday—but he chose a most unpropitious time, for Sallie and Julia and I were just running to catch a train. And where do you think we were going? To Princeton, to attend a dance and a ball game, if you please! I didn't ask you if I might go, because I had a feeling that your secretary would say no. But it was entirely regular; ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... received no other education than that of a mechanic, and his outset in life was unpropitious. Young Hogarth was bound apprentice to a silversmith (whose name was Gamble) of some eminence; by whom he was confined to that branch of the trade, which consists in engraving arms and cyphers upon the plate. While thus employed, he gradually acquired ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the very Gordon that of old Was wont to preach, now once more preaching; I know well, that all sublunary things Are still the vassals of vicissitude. The unpropitious gods demand their tribute. This long ago the ancient pagans knew And therefore of their own accord they offered To themselves injuries, so to atone The jealousy of their divinities And human sacrifices bled to Typhon. [After a pause, serious, and in a more subdued manner. I too have sacrificed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... hadst no luck in wheat? But thou wouldst not give ear to my speech, and now it behoveth thee to go to the astrologer and question him of thy star.' Accordingly the merchant betook himself to the astrologer and questioned him of his star, and the astrologer said to him, 'Thy star is unpropitious. Put not thy hand to any business, for thou wilt not prosper therein.' However, he paid no heed to the astrologer's words and said in himself, 'If I do my occasion,[FN103] I am not afraid of aught.' Then he took the other part of his money, after he had spent therefrom ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the Carthaginian armies in Spain for some time, with varying but generally unpropitious fortune. He had not the full authority over the Punic forces in that country which his brother and his father had previously exercised. The faction at Carthage, which was at feud with his family, succeeded in fettering ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... magnitude as those of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn in proportion to their magnitude, they could be descried by any human observer. The patient, persevering, reverent temper of Herschel took no account, however, of any discouraging or unpropitious circumstances. What he did was to substitute for telescopes of the ordinary construction the new and gigantic forty-foot tube already described; and, thus, with unremitting vigilance and intense zeal, ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... unpropitious as they set out together again soon after six. Rain had fallen in the night, yet not all the rain that there was overhead. There were still clouds hanging, mixed with the smoke from the chimneys; the hedges seemed dulled and black in spite of their green; the cinder ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... in which immense and diversified interests were involved, scattered throughout different states of the Union, but it was also burdened with obligations to the extent of eight millions of dollars. The times were most unpropitious, the country being just on the eve of a great financial panic when immense properties were crumbling to pittances. He undertook the Herculean task of rescuing at this time this estate from threatened ruin, and of vindicating the good name of his father from undeserved censure. He had ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited. ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... bids the youth beware 30 How he accosts the man of many years. But him the Goddess answer'd azure-eyed, Telemachus! Thou wilt, in part, thyself Fit speech devise, and heav'n will give the rest; For thou wast neither born, nor hast been train'd To manhood, under unpropitious Pow'rs. So saying, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps attending, soon arrived Among the multitude. There Nestor sat, And Nestor's sons, while, busily the feast 40 Tending, his num'rous followers roasted, some, The viands, some, transfix'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... unobservant of all rules of angling, in her indiscriminate enthusiasm, and "took to the water" whether the wind blew, the sun shone, or the rain fell; fishing—under the most propitious or unpropitious circumstances—was not, indeed, necessarily, catching fish, but still, fishing; and she was almost equally happy whether she did or did not catch any thing. I have known her remain all day in patient expectation of the "glorious nibble," stand through successive showers, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... court with frantic haste Oppression's rushing woes?— Oft have our sires the work of war delay'd, 'Till signs aerial promised heavenly aid; Oft pitch'd their idle lances in the plain, While south-winds held their unpropitious reign. Remember too the word disclosed from high, The sacred word of ancient prophecy,— "When gather'd mists from Denmark's sky shall crowd, And blot the North with one continued cloud, Then shall a second sun to Sweden rise, And with unchanging glory gild her skies." Reflect on this, and ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... it is, firmly believing that no good reason exists for its change, and that an honest adherence to its wise provisions is our surest guarantee for real or supposed grievances, and that the present of all times is the most unpropitious moment to attempt any change or modification. Party politics in all their embittered madness rule the hour, but calm times and cool heads will be required whenever the American people desire to enter upon so hazardous an experiment. Let ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... situation to guide me. Hadn't she recognized him before? Had her thick veil, and his position, and the general slight flurry of the misadventure, intercepted recognition until she heard his voice when he addressed Charley. Or had she known her lover at once, and rapidly decided that the moment was an unpropitious one for a first meeting after absence, and that she would pass on to Kings Port unrevealed, but then had found this plan become impossible through the collision between Charley and John? It was not until certain incidents of the days following brought Miss Rieppe's nature a good deal further home ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... hunger, to see my children deprived of bread, to permit me to stain my whole existence with a crime? The child is gone to Heaven. Aye! there her sinlessness and innocence might give her a welcome, and she may be happy, but the blank left in my heart, the darkness of my mind, the cheerless and unpropitious future that unveils itself before my aching eyes, can never be obliterated until I am laid in the grave beside her, and my spirit has winged its flight to the home where she ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... wife, was incapable of managing a home, and as their means were uncertain to start with, they were soon involved in a sea of monetary troubles, from which there seemed to be no prospect of their extricating themselves. An unpropitious note had been struck on the very day of the wedding, when it must have appeared to Mozart that he had committed a crime in robbing the family of one of its members. 'As soon as we were married,' he wrote to his father, 'my wife and I both began to weep. All present, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... that curled the waters of the river, the blue sky and fair sunlight, the bright and beautiful of the scene around them, those two saw and tasted; with hopeful though very grave hearts. The other poor lady saw nothing but a dirty steamboat and a very unpropitious company. Among these however were Eleanor's fellow-voyagers, Mr. Amos and his wife; and she was introduced to them now for the first time. Various circumstances had ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... however, has been so little understood of lovers, that husbands have, in genuine ignorance of the cruelty they were committing, raped their wives on their wedding night. Judging by what one knows of wedding-days, it could hardly be supposed that there could be a more unpropitious moment for the consummation of marriage. And when to the fatigue and strain of the day is added—as is still quite often the case—blank though uneasy ignorance as to what marriage involves, or the thunderbolt of knowledge (sic) launched by the bride's mother the night before, ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos [Fr.], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c 24; inexpedient &c 647. unpunctual &c (late) 133; too late for; premature &c (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty-twenty hindsight. Adv. inopportunely &c adj.; as ill luck would have it, in an evil ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having fallen on an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the happy times so responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world prepared to dance to their music. However, he must toil and be satisfied if he can make a ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... He recollected their unpropitious journey—the exposure to cold and rain—that he had hurried on the invalids, till he had accomplished his own purposes. One had already gone; the other was fast following. Speculators have consciences and affections, and ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... unpropitious moment for any one to address Royal; therefore, when he heard himself spoken to, he whirled with a scowl upon his face. A tall French-Canadian, just back ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... He might have been a bedizened citizen's wife craning her neck over a gutter swollen by the rain. But the hour was not unpropitious for the indulgence of some discreditable whim. Earlier, he might have been detected; later, he might find himself cut out. Tempted by a glance which is encouraging without being inviting, to have followed a young and pretty woman ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... defences of our provinces were much exposed, and the armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount Etna. The imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already illustrious for their past achievements in war: but nevertheless, as if some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being Count of Thrace, the other a leader notoriously wicked—and ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... are not to be obtained; for though there are some hundreds of trees in the village, all the fruit is eaten green, to supply the place of the vegetables the people are too lazy to cultivate. Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous weather being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on what few eatable birds we could shoot, with an occasional cuscus, or eastern opossum, the only quadruped, except pigs, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... "Spring"); religious, as in the Sixtine Chapel frescoes or in the "Coronation of the Virgin"; political, as in the recently discovered "Pallas Taming a Centaur"; or even crudely allegorical, as in the Louvre frescoes,—no matter how unpropitious, how abstract the idea, the vivid appeal to our tactile sense, the life-communicating movement is always there. Indeed, at times it seems that the less artistic the theme, the more artistic the fulfilment, the painter being impelled to ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... her from making it in eighteen days less, for she was then in sight of the harbour's mouth, when an unpropitious gale of wind blew her off. Otherwise she would have reached us one day sooner than the 'Lady Juliana'. It is a curious circumstance, that these two ships had sailed together from the river Thames, one ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... orderly, that he was highly gratified, and exchanged personal tokens of friendship and hospitality with Xenophon. But when sacrifices came to be offered, for beginning the march homeward, the signs were so unpropitious, for three successive days, that Kleander could not bring himself to brave such auguries at the outset of his career. Accordingly, he told the generals, that the gods plainly forbade him, and reserved it for them, to conduct the army into ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious; the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay; gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic mass—thus division will arise. Such is the Muses' answer to our question. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... course of this lull, Leonidas and I had some thought of resuming our unfinished game of chess," said Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire, "but the time is really unpropitious and too short. It may be that we shall have to wait until the war is over to conclude the match. The enemy is pressing us hard, and I need not conceal from you lads that he ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to a well beaten foot-path of the natives, which brought us in a short time to a good supply of drinkable, though very brackish water. The sandstone hills before us and to the northward, were covered with low shrubs and the broad-leaved tea-tree, with wiry and stiff grasses, and looked very unpropitious. The rock was composed of quartz pebbles of different colours, imbedded in ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt |
