"Portent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a strange repulsion and unattainableness in the very spell that made her beautiful. At her side, and familiarly attentive to her, sat a gentleman of whom I remember only a hard outline of the nose and forehead, and such a monstrous portent of a beard that you could discover no symptom of a mouth, except, when he opened it to speak, or to put in a morsel of food. Then, indeed, you suddenly became aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome shrubbery. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The profound Etruscan read off to the believer his future fortunes in detail from the lightning and from the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice; and the more singular the language of the gods, the more startling the portent or prodigy, the more confidently did he declare what they foretold and the means by which it was possible to avert the mischief. Thus arose the lore of lightning, the art of inspecting entrails, the interpretation of prodigies—all of them, and the science of lightning especially, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... portent The greatness of the sixteenth century Artists, scholars, reformers, religious defenders Maritime discoveries Literary, ecclesiastical, political achievements Youth of Galileo His early discoveries Genius for mathematics ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... more. The Austrians gave way, turned to flight, and one of the great victories of the epoch had been won. In a few hours the glorious news had reached Paris, and in Paris it was interpreted as an evil portent for Robespierre. ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... startling or affright, and cried out, "Protect me, O Chief and Lode-star of the Hallows, for I have thrown myself upon thine honour and am under thy safe-guard." So saying and setting hand on brand he advanced and confronted the portent swiftlier than an eye-glance, raising his elbow till the blackness of the armpit appeared; and he cried out with a loud outcry whereto the whole city re-echoed, and which was audible even to the Sultan. Then he smote the monster upon his neck[FN571] and caused head to fly from body for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his father, he, too, insisted upon "governing the people of England in the seventeenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth," while in reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one; he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans, as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in his policy; he made promises without intending ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... air with hideous profanities. He cursed everything in nature and beyond it, and no amount of clouts on the head would stem the torrent. Sometimes he would fall to howling like a wolf, and folk ran to their cottage doors to see the portent. Groups of children followed us from every wayside clachan, so that we gave great entertainment to the dwellers in Lothian that day. The thing infuriated the dragoons, for it made them a laughing-stock, and the sins of Gib were visited upon the more silent prisoners. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... arm extended along the back of the sofa, the white gleam of the big eyeballs setting off the black, fathomless stare of the enlarged pupils, impressed Razumov more than anything he had seen since his hasty and secret departure from St. Petersburg. A witch in Parisian clothes, he thought. A portent! He actually hesitated in his advance, and did not even comprehend, at first, what the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... his distant and repellent attitude, Mlle. Blaye de Tartas made him her sole heir, to the violent wrath of a questionable old party known to infamy as the Sar Torrevieja, the "King of the Sorcerers." This malevolent old portent, whose gray and crafty face was often seen in the Rue M. le Prince during the life of Mlle. de Tartas had, it seems, fully expected to enjoy her small wealth after her death; and when it appeared that she had left him only the contents ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... Day, Day of Festival and Frolic,—once. Now Day of Portent, of Threats and the Evil Eye. Such is the miracle worked by Steam ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... rounded a point of timber, and came upon a small party of men whose attitudes even in the dimming light conveyed a subtle suggestion of portent. Some sat their horses, with one leg thrown across the pommel. Others stood in the road, and a bottle of white liquor was passing in and out among them. At the distance they recognized the gray mule, though even the fact that it ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... that the old shepherd had merely seen one of those shooting lights that in mountain districts so frequently startle the night traveller; but the apparition now filled his whole mind, as one vouchsafed from the spiritual world, and of strange and frightful portent:— ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... it called in these days. A little withdrawn from our national fleet lay two French frigates, and, in another direction, an English sloop, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red portent in the air, wherever there is strife. In pursuance of our official duty, (which had no ascertainable limits,) we went on board the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... deep solemnity of the vast woods and plains amid which their savage lives were passed; nor could one fail to feel the deep gravity with which they gathered in this council of life or death. To them it was evident that the meeting was of most serious portent. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... at no time taking an active interest in politics or giving expression to party bias of any kind, his personal associations led him into a familiar knowledge of the trend of political opinion and the portent of public affairs, and I can truly say that during the fifty years that passed thereafter I never discussed any topic of current interest or moment with him that he did not throw upon it the side lights of a luminous understanding, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... said that all French civilians were forced to salute the Germans, and each Sunday every one was compelled to appear in the market-place for general muster. The description of the departure of their hated oppressors was vivid—the men behind the lines knew the full portent of events and were sullen and crestfallen, but the soldiers fresh from the front believed that Germany had won and was dictating her own terms; they came through with wreaths hung on their bayonets ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... Conchobar to Sencha son of Ailill: "Come, O Sencha my master," said Conchobar; "stay the men of Ulster, and let them not go to the battle till there come the strength of a good omen and favourable portent, till the sun mounts to the roof-tree of heaven and sunshine fills the glens and lowlands and ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... jusques a celle de saint Jean, il pent y avoir quarante a quarante cinq lieues; la premiere riviere que l'on rencontre le long de la coste, est celle des Etechemins, qui porte le nom du pays, depuis Baston jusques au Port royal, dont les Sauvages qui habitent toute cette etendue, portent aussi le mesme nom."—Description Geographique et Historique des Costes de L'Amerique Septentrionale, par Nicholas Denys, Paris, 1672, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... confirmed by a vision. Thus doubtfully, amidst rumour and portent, cloud and spiritual light, comes Arthur: "from the great deep" he comes, and in as strange fashion, at the end, "to the great deep he goes"—a king to be accepted in faith or rejected by doubt. Arthur ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... him, for, in truth, I only asked with a half hope that he might have some other interpretation of this portent than that of violent death, which seemed the plain meaning of it—that is, if he saw aught, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I tried to think that his glance had met the sun for a moment before he looked on the king; ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... to Tresler, was full of portent. True, the rustlers had been quiet, but the effect of their recent doings was very apparent. The sheriff was now in constant communication with the ranch. Fyles visited Julian Marbolt frequently, holding long consultations with him; and a significant fact ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Papous, he proceeds thus: "Ils nous presenterent plusieurs especes d'oiseaux, aussi elegants par leur forme, que brillants par l'eclat de leur couleurs. La depouille des oiseaux sert a la parure des Chefs, qui la portent attachee a leurs bonnets en forme d'aigrettes. Mais en preparant les peaux, ils coupent les pieds. Les Hollandois, qui trafiquent sur ces cotes, y achetent de ces peaux ainsi preparees, les transportent en Perse, a Surate, dans les Indes, ou ils ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the dutiful brother of his fair lost love." Such a sneer rested on the face of the French maid. "Well! Mr. Davlin must come and, unfortunately, I can't be present at this interview. However, I shall be able to judge pretty accurately by their future movements what was its portent." ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... again, as once we had known it. The security of our own place had been based on the goodwill or indifference of our fellow-creatures everywhere. To-night, over that obscure and unimportant street, we had seen a celestial portent illuminate briefly a little of ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... danger was to their own nation or to some other, to their ruler or to his enemy. Now and then, as in the case of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, there was a cynical attempt to apply some reasoning to the portent. That emperor, in alluding to the comet of A.D. 79, is reported to have said: "This hairy star does not concern me; it menaces rather the King of the Parthians, for he is hairy and I am bald." Vespasian, all the ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... sought to give a sinister meaning; what lapses, faults or wrongs may be discovered are given exaggerated portent ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... her: 'I am the one praised in the Koran, and the Compassionate hath described my complexion and its excellence over all other hues in His manifest Book, where Allah saith, 'A yellow, pure yellow, whose colour gladdeneth the beholders.'[FN377] Wherefore my colour is a sign and portent and my grace is supreme and my beauty a term extreme; for that my tint is the tint of a ducat and the colour of the planets and moons and the hue of ripe apples. My fashion is the fashion of the fair, and the dye of saffron outvieth all other dyes; so my semblance is wondrous and my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman's system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba's motive ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... upon portent! a cock philosopher! But proceed, son of Mnesarchus: how came you to change from man to bird, from Samos to Tanagra? [Footnote: See Notes.] 'Tis an unconvincing story; I find a difficulty in swallowing it. I have noticed two things about ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... to the State, And Echo hardly less. Vain-glorious crime; That pestilent portent of a morbid time, Would flourish less could sense or law avail To strangle coarse Sensation's clamorous tale, Silence the "Noisy Nymph," for half crime's ill Would end were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... with the burning of the Esmeralda; while others went almost wild with terror, fancying that the end of the world was come—or that, at all events, the natural display we saw of the greatest wonder of the arctic and antarctic worlds, was a portent of fresh disasters to us, greater than all we ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... or their portent, the effect was startling. Steele's bulky assailant paused, remained stock-still, his purpose arrested, all his anger ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... environment: no wish was left in it for the assertion of its freedom. To this day, the south-east, save where leavened and permeated by Celtic influences, hugs its chains and loves them. It produces the strange portent of the Conservative working-man, who yearns to be led by ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... and again continued his hegira, a frosty sparkle in the air had succeeded the drowsy warmth of the day, and as this portent of a chilly night translated itself to the brain of Sir Peregrine, he lengthened his stride and bethought him of shelter. He travelled a road that faithfully followed the convolutions of the levee, running along its base, but whither he knew not. Bushes and rank grass crowded it to the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... that which may be made sound and real knowledge to our boys and girls, he would not only have been what he was, the greatest physiologist of his age, but he would have loomed upon the seventeenth century as a sort of intellectual portent. Our "little knowledge" would have been to him a great, astounding, unlooked-for vision of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... birth are called upon to rise, together with their fellow-citizens of all races, to free not only this country but the whole world from the oppression of the rulers of Germany, an oppression far less capable of being endured and of far graver portent. ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... night on the roof! What a revel there was of brave scout doings, of gentlemanly conduct!—all witnessed by a large, fat moon. He wigwagged messages of great portent to phantom scouts who were in dire need. He helped blind men across streets that ran down the whole length of the roof. He held back pressing crowds while the police were rendered speechless with admiration. He swept off his scout headgear to scores of motherly ladies ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... mournful procession. He, be it remembered, was somewhat of an idealist and a poet; it grieved his spirit that those two women, the quick and the dead, should meet on the bridge. He took it as a portent, almost a menace, he knew not of what. He might have foreseen that unhappy eventuality, and prevented it, but his brain refused to work clearly that morning. A terrible and bizarre crime had bemused his faculties. He seemed to be in a state of ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... died in 1877, America's first great industrial combination had become an established fact. In that year the Standard Oil Company of Ohio controlled at least ninety per cent of the business of refining and marketing petroleum. A new portent had appeared in our economic life, a phenomenon that was destined to affect not only the social and business existence of the every-day American but even ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... very day of his death, May 8th, 1819, the women of the court ate of forbidden food, and some of the men sat down with them to meat. Infidelity must have been deep-seated in the circle of Kamehameha; for no portent followed this defiance of the gods, and none of the transgressors died. But the priests were doubtless informed of what was doing; the blame lay clearly on the shoulders of Kaahumanu, the most conspicuous person in the land, named by the dying Kamehameha for a conditional ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Antiquities, ed. 1849, iii. 132, where Brand cites Melton's Astrologaster, or the Figure-Caster, 1620, to show that to dream of the devil and of gold was deemed an equally lucky portent. To dream of gold is also pronounced a happy omen in the ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... cross, and within that distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained winding-sheet. {5a} Many thought that this apparition was a portent of the deaths connected with the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... realized the full portent of the soldiery and the mob. When it was approaching it had occurred to her that it might be another triumphal escort, such as she had once seen surround him on his way to a feast. As it advanced, the ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... queen dispenses with thy fair daughter's service, the damsel accompanies thee. A boat awaits ye at the stairs; a guard shall attend ye to your house. Think what has passed within these walls has been a dream,—a dream that, if told, is deathful, if concealed and forgotten hath no portent!" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the beginning of what would be demanded later. The antislavery party had not begun with demanding the abolition of slavery, but merely its limitation. The slaveholders were not, however, deceived as to the significance of the new political portent, and the capitalists would have been less wise in their generation than their predecessors had they not seen in the political situation the beginning of a confrontation of the people and the capitalists—the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the proffered hand with his own, and as he had recoiled from Snap Naab so now he received another shock, different indeed but impelling in its power, instinctive of some great portent. Hare was impressed by an indefinable subtlety, a nameless distrust, as colorless as the clear penetrating amber lightness of the eyes that bent ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... some remedy full of pain and blood. The medieval plan of burning heretics alive had not yet been invented. But the history of uncivilized man, if it were written, would provide a vast list of victims, all of them innocent, who died or suffered to expiate some portent or monstrum—some reported teras—with which they had nothing whatever to do, which was in no way altered by their suffering, which probably never really happened at all, and if it did was of no consequence. The sins of the modern world in dealing with heretics ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... regard to the anchors, Pauthier's text has just the opposite of the G.T. which we have preferred: "Les nefs du Manzi portent si grans ancres de fust, que il seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes" De Mailla says the Chinese consider their ironwood anchors to be much better than those of iron, because the latter are subject to strain. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the leaning headstones beyond. There is no trumpet sound. But from a mouth at the grave-yard's side the earth belches forth a host which springs quick into the new day. It is a remarkable spectacle to contemplate, fraught with portent and symbol, though the mouth is a subway ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the eve of such mighty events, so deeply affecting the destiny of the nation which worshipped them in a thousand temples; and an earthquake, which had recently occurred at Delos, the sacred island of Apollo, where such a visitation had never been known before, was interpreted as a portent of ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... suavity had all but vanished: his voice was harsh and stern. His eyes glittered under his shaggy brows as he looked at me. Had I been less agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the coming storm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... I believe, is the first application of the celestial portent to this particular comparison. Yet Milton's "imperial ensign" waves defiant behind his impregnable lines, and even Campbell flaunts his "meteor flag" in Waller's face. Gray's bard might be sent to the lock-up, but even he would ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... battered casements shook in the storm, and the stately decay of the place was unrelieved by a particle of furniture. Pemberton's spirits were low, and it came over him that the fortune of the Moreens was now even lower. A blast of desolation, a portent of disgrace and disaster, seemed to draw through the comfortless hall. Mr. Moreen and Ulick were in the Piazza, looking out for something, strolling drearily, in mackintoshes, under the arcades; but still, in spite of mackintoshes, unmistakeable men of the world. ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... gave signs of breaking. The sky, which had been of a steel blue, harbored great piled thunder-heads. Occasionally athwart the heat shot a streak of cold air. Towards evening the thunder-heads shifted and finally dissipated, to be sure, but the portent was there. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... a cloud of black and deadly portent was thickening over France. Surely and swiftly she glided towards the abyss of the religious wars. None could pierce the future; perhaps none dared to contemplate it: the wild rage of fanaticism and hate, friend grappling with friend, brother with brother, father with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... us to it as to a promised land. We sat upon our horses, spellbound, gazing upon what seemed at once too grand and too beautiful to be real. Had we been superstitious like soldiers of an ancient time, we might have seen a miraculous portent in it; and even as it was, such sentiment as may be permitted in the sceptical spirit of our own day could find a happy omen in the scene. We were entering upon a new chapter in our military lives, and it was cheering to us, in entering East Tennessee, through the great gate that opened before ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that, when she tried to admire an old Florentine cabinet near it, she still saw its portrait; and when, in desperation, she turned away to look out of the window across the sky and sloping park, the shadow of the cow hung like a portent. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... France et ailleurs, celles-ci l'ornent et l'entourent d'une cordeliere ou cordon a divers neuds. Quant aux femmes mariees, elles accollent d'ordinaire leurs armes avec celles de leurs epoux; mais quelquefois elles les portent aussi en lozenge." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... the hand they hold worth two in the bush; and though your birds may be winged on strong desire, and your bush the burning portent of Moses, they will have none ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... to ring a bell for silence; seemed to carry with it some hidden portent that stopped idle conversation as a striking clock that marks ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... with it!" ordered the sergeant as the soldier hesitated. "D'ye think the service has gone to the devil and officers are runnin' errands for enlisted men? An' get back inside two minutes, too," he added with portent in his tone. The subaltern of hardly two months' service felt the implied rebuke of the soldier of over twenty years' and meekly accepted the amendment, but—a thought occurred to him: He had promised Morton paper, envelopes ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... Bayle has well put this in his account of Aesop. "Il n'y a point d'apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd'hui son nom soient les memes qu'il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la plupart, quant a la matiere et la pensee; mais les paroles sont d'un autre." And again, "C'est donc a Hesiode, que j'aimerais mieux attribuer la gloire ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... ominous. She bade him have a care for the welfare of Egypt before he refused her. Her words were dark and full of evil portent. The air seemed to winnow with bat-wings and to reek with vapors from witch-potions and murmur with mystic formulas. Every man of us crept, and drew near to his neighbor. When she paused for an answer, the king hesitated. She had menaced Egypt and it ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... occurred of which the second change was only a portent, all remained fairly peaceful in the big burrow under the whins and brambles. Occasionally, in the brief winter days, Brock was awakened from his comfortable sleep by the music of the hounds, as they passed by on the scent of Vulp, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... have been honoured with a quarter of a line in the Dunciad. But it attracted some notice on account of the situation of the writer. For, a hundred and twenty years ago, an eclogue or a lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent, [372] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cavalier, who forthwith pawned it, and expended the money in liquor, which speedily brought him to the grave. We next catch the sparkle of the magic diamond at various epochs of the merry reign of Charles the Second. But its sinister fortune still attended it. From whatever hand this ring of portent came, and whatever finger it encircled, ever it was the pledge of deceit between man and man, or man and woman, of faithless vows, and unhallowed passion; and whether to lords and ladies, or to village-maids,—for ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had they met in noble battle, and three times had Billy been the conqueror, but somehow the spirit of young McMasters did not seem particularly broken, nor did he become a serf. Billy felt that the air was full of portent, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... Ferris was Secretary of Utah Territory, in 1852-1853, he found that the Mormons were still expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date forward to 1870. All through Smith's autobiography and the Millennial Star will be found mention of every portent that might be construed as an indication of the coming disruption of this world. As late as December 6, 1856, an editorial in the Millennial Star said, "The signs of the times clearly indicate to every observing ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... toward definite outline; and following hard upon them crept a tingling apprehension. The reappearance of this rattish youth, casual as was the air with which he strove to invest it, began to assume, for me, the character of a theatrical entrance of unpleasant portent—a suggestion just now enhanced by an absurdly obvious notion of his own that he was enacting a part. This was written all over him, most legibly in his attitude of the knowing amateur, as he surveyed ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... clambered up the cliff and found myself in a thicket not a stone's throw from the door. The house was in darkness. My heart sank at a possibility which hardly framed itself to a thought. Was the apparition in the Mandane lodge some portent? Had I not read, or heard, of departed spirits hovering near loved ones? I had ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... in an official or diplomatic post, who handles vast sums of money, adheres to his duty through the mere moral obligation of the oath which he has sworn"; that "amongst the Romans the corrupt official is as rare a portent as is the financier with clean hands amongst other peoples".[112] When the elder Africanus tore up the account books of his brother—books which recorded the passage of eighteen thousand talents from an Asiatic king to a Roman general and from ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... preparations in Tuscany for a second war against the Romans, it is said a great portent occurred. When Tarquin was king, and had all but completed the buildings of the Capitol, designing, whether from oracular advice or his own pleasure, to erect an earthen chariot upon the top, he entrusted the workmanship to Tuscans of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... portent la meme date de 1541, mais celle qui a ete publiee a Bale a paru avant celle donnee a Lyon par Seb. Gryphe. Cette derniere, en effet, contient la dedicace datee." The title page of our copy is inscribed by three ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... thought it quite enough to damn a man that he bore the name of Lyco, which is said to signify a greedy-wolf; and Livy calls the name Atrius Umber abominandi ominis nomen, a name of horrible portent."—Nares' Heraldic Anomalies.] ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of change and of portent, and a day well fitted to the mood of Randall Byrne. He, also, had altered, and there was about to break upon him the rain of life, and whether it would destroy him or make him live, and richly, he could not guess. But he was naked to the skies of ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... a Portent in the face of the moon—a huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the same. The toga, table-cloth, or ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... while her body shivered under a sudden cold. She thought of George, but not as an actor in last night's scenes; her memory swung back, as his had often done, to the autumn night when they sat together in the heather, and his figure and hers became huge with portent. She had thought he was the tinker, and so, indeed, he was, and he no doubt had mistaken her for Miriam, as latterly he had mistaken his own needs. No, she was not altogether responsible. And why had Rupert told her that tale? And why, if she must have a tinker, could she not desire him as ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... watch on the path to Whisper Cove—the taste of it, salty and cool, the touch of it upon my cheek and in my hair, the sunlight and scampering wind: the simple haps and accidents, the perception, awakening within me, and the portent. 'Twas blowing high and merrily from the west—a yellow wind from the warm west and from the golden mist and low blue line of coast at the other side of the bay. It rippled the azure floor between, and flung the spray of the breakers into the sunshine, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... the demon and his lake of fire, Sluiskin's portent of hardship proved to be a literal, even a modest, prophecy. At five o'clock in the evening, after eleven hours of struggle with precipices and glaciers, exhausted, chilled, and without food, they faced a night of zero gales upon the summit. The ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... astonished, but disgusted the First Consul, and gave him a very mean opinion of Livingston's talents. The critical Mr. Dennie caused his "Portfolio" to give forth this solemn strain: "If, during the present season of national abasement, infatuation, folly, and vice, any portent could surprise, sober men would be utterly confounded by an article current in all our newspapers, that the loathsome Thomas Paine, a drunken atheist and the scavenger of faction, is invited to return in a national ship to America by the first magistrate of a free ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... no avail; they seem one and all to be laboring under the impression that my appearance is of evil portent to themselves. Perchance some social calamity they have just been visited with, is attributed in their superstitious minds to the fell influence of the foreign devil, who has so suddenly bobbed up in their midst just at this unhappy, inauspicious moment. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... si singulierement constitues doivent necessairement s'exprimer autrement que les hommes ordinaires. Il est impossible qu'avec des ames si differemment modifies ils ne portent pas dans l'expression de leurs sentiments et de leurs idees l'empreinte de ces modifications. Si cette empreinte echappe a ceux qui n'ont aucune notion de cette maniere d'etre, elle ne peut echapper a ceux qui la connoissent, et qui en sont affectes eux-memes. ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... been observed in those ages we might not recognize the description of it. Thus in the fourth year of the 101st Olympiad, the Greeks were startled by a celestial portent. They did not draw fine distinctions, and posterity might have remained ignorant that the terrifying object was possibly a comet, had not Aristotle, who saw it as a boy at Stagira, left a rather more scientifically worded ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... night—a night the superstitious might well associate with the portent of the downfall of the house around which the storm seemed to rage. The rain beat upon the windows, and the wind with its invisible arms clasped the old farmstead as if to wrench it from its foundations and scatter broadcast its gray stones over the wild moor on the fringe of ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... the wakening thunders of the heart, —The small lost Eden, troubled through the night, Sounds there not now,—forboded and apart, Some voice and sword of light? Some voice and portent of a dawn to break?— Searching like God, the ruinous human shard Of that lost Brother-man Himself did make, And Man ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... Aiolians; and after he had put out to sea from thence, Delos was moved, not having been shaken (as the Delians reported to me) either before that time or since that down to my own time; and this no doubt the god 8601 manifested as a portent to men of the evils that were about to be; for in the time of Dareios the son of Hystaspes and Xerxes the son of Dareios and Artoxerxes the son of Xerxes, three generations following upon one another, there happened more evils to Hellas than during the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... dog," declared his wife; "and I thought 'twas a portent, an' the great fear came o'er me again. But as I prayed 'twas unfolder to me that the portent was no' for yersel' but for her—the puir weak hairt ye ha' ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... over sea and land. Some of the faint-hearted," adds Antonio Agapida, "looked upon this torment of the elements as a prodigious event, out of the course of nature. In the weakness of their fears they connected it with those troubles which occurred in various places, considering it a portent of some great calamity about to be wrought by the violence of the bloody-handed El ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Paul noticed that Peter's eyes often rested with a troubled look upon his sister. In fact, it seemed to Paul that a black shadow of direful portent hung ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... Mrs. Brook's dolorous drop that yet presented the news as a portent so great that he was moved again to mirth. "Ah that's where she is? Then I confess she has scored. He has never taken ME to the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... that the howling dog, or wish-hound of Hermes, whose appearance under the windows of a sick person is such an alarming portent, is merely the tempest personified. Throughout all Aryan mythology the souls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their howling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying as they pass by their houses. [73] Sometimes ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... written: "He who thinks that he is raising a mound may only in reality be digging a pit." In his continual search for a celestial portent among the solitudes Wong Ts'in had of late necessarily somewhat neglected his earthly (as it may thus be expressed) interests. In these emergencies certain of the more turbulent among his workers had banded themselves together ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... was because he was a small poet that he came to his strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in literature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... that I attempted to argue the honest fellow out of his belief that their appearance was a portent of disaster, for his mind was deeply imbued with all those superstitious notions which appear to take such peculiarly firm hold on the ideas of sailors; and against superstitions of lifelong duration, argument and reason ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... had elapsed since Jeanne Lacombie had burst into the room. Moments so tense—so laden with terrible portent—that, although every person in the room heard each spoken word, brains failed to grasp their significance; and Appleton, from his bench near the door, as he saw Bill Carmody turn from his fainting wife, for the first ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... apparently fulfilled, it settles to earth, and finally ends its career in the Lake Bracciano. Regarded from whatever point of view, the flight was certainly extraordinary, and it is not surprising that in that age it was regarded as nothing less than a portent. Moreover, little details of the wonderful story were quickly endowed with grave significance. The balloon on reaching the ground rent itself. Next, ere it plunged into the water, it carefully deposited a portion ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... were quoted from his master who had studied in Athens. They had escaped from his burdened soul when he heard of another portent, of which a ship from Ostia had brought tidings. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to reproach myself with. Our forces had never been in smarter trim, public spirit in Olympus never more patriotic and national; and as to the personal bravery of our forces, it was simply a portent of moral splendour. ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... Mangi, et le autre por le Catai. Et si voz di por verite que ceste ville a si grant navile, ce est si grant quantite, qe ne est nul qe ne veisse qe peust croire. Ne entendes qe soient grant nes, mes eles sunt tel come besogne au grant fluns, et si voz di qe ceste naville portent au Mangi e por le Catai si grant abondance de mercandies qe ce est mervoille; et puis quant elles revienent, si tornent encore cargies, et por ce est merveieliosse chouse a veoir la mercandie qe por celle fluns se porte sus et jus." (Marco Polo, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... than human. "It was the arm of God, not of man," said Hadrian when he saw at last the corpse encircled by a serpent, "that could alone strike down the giant." Flame and smoke were seen to issue from his lips in speaking, a portent which was rationalized centuries later into a mere conjurer's artifice. The concourse of the Jewish nation at his summons was symbolized, with a curious reference to the prevalent idea of Israel as a school and the Law as a master, by the story that at Bethar, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... work of my life. I have, naturally, gone through strange difficulties in accomplishing my mission. I propose in these pages to relate the histories of certain queer events, enveloped at first in mystery, and apparently dark with portent, but, nevertheless, when grappled with in the true spirit of ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... dream, and full of sad portent; Avert it, heaven, if it from heaven were sent! Let on thy foes the dire presages fall; To us be good and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... dementir: c'est le costume officiel d'un senateur venitien, et qui par suite ne saurait avoir ete porte par un medecin. Le tableau est incontestablement de la meme main que les deux 'Concerts' du Palais Pitti et du Louvre, qui portent tous deux le nom de Giorgione. Si l'on attribue ces deux tableaux au Giorgione, c'est a lui aussi qu'il faut attribuer le portrait de Vienne; si, comme feu Morelli, on attribue le tableau du Palais Pitti au Titien, il faut approuver l'attribution ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... evergreen trees of dark northern forests seems to come out of the skies like the malediction of an evil spirit. Without uttering the words of any language — Poe's "Nevermore" was, of course, a poetic license — people of all nationalities appear to understand that some dire calamity, some wicked portent, is being announced every time the unbirdlike creature utters its rasping call. The superstitious folk crow with an "I told you so," as they solemnly wag their heads when they hear, of some death in the village after "the bird of ill-omen" has made an unwelcome visit to the neighborhood—it ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... thy awakening, king," said his stout old follower. "'Twas the great Olaf, thine uncle, Olaf Tryggvesson the king, that didst call thee. Win Norway, king, for the portent is that thou and thine shall ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... on all men and return one to him; seeing that for such characters death is the only remedy, and that he who never will return to himself, had best leave himself. However, such wickedness as this is uncommon, and is always regarded as a portent, as when the earth opens, or when fires break forth from caves under the sea; so let us leave it, and speak of those vices which we can hate without shuddering at them. As for the ordinary bad man, whom I can find in the marketplace of any town, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... or I'll smash you to smithereens!" said Tim, who, although his words were of such dire portent, spoke as gently as if he were seeking to quiet ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... something and the sun will be farther up. But nothing of a topographical nature ensues. The hills remain to obscure the sun. And the brute has to be saddled. The mood of that grim breakfast, voiceless, tense, high with portent, is still ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... for the next week Sally heard enough revolutionary doctrine to revive her Sunday-night enthusiasm; the flame of "successful rebellion" had spread; the country began to stir and hum ominously; people assembled in groups, on corners, by church steps, around tavern-doors, with faces full of portent and expectance; ploughs stood idly in the fields; and the raw-boned horses, that should of right have dragged the reluctant share through heavy clay and abounding stones, now, bestridden by breathless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... buy a tree at Brook Ridge. There was no need. Across the road, partway up the slope, was a collection of green and shapely little cedars—a regular Santa Claus grove—and on the afternoon before Christmas, a gray, still afternoon, heavy with mystic portent, Elizabeth and I took a small ax and climbed up there, and picked and selected, just as we had done in those earlier years, and came home with our tree, stealthily carrying it in the back way, to the wood-house, and fitting it to the small green stand that we had used and preserved ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the news is, its effect is almost dazing, for this audience feels that its portent is without measure or limit. These men of culture and intelligence, detached from the affairs of the world and almost from the world itself, whose faculties are deepened by suffering and meditation, as far remote from ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... I think," said Ruth exasperated at the little prattler. It seemed so awful for a girl with brains—or hadn't she brains?—to chatter on interminably in that inane fashion about a matter of such awful portent. And yet perhaps the child was only trying to cover up her fears, for she all ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... for the theme of my lay Is a portent "conspicuous even to-day," For, though she was freely condemned and abhorred, She was never suppressed and she can't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... not loathe and detest a boy that is 'wicked before his time', when he sees you, like some frightful portent, old in sin but young in years, with the bodily powers of a boy, yet deep in guilt, with the bright face of a child, but with wickedness such as might match grey hairs? Nay, the most offensive thing about him is that his pernicious ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... in Christ, And Ethelbert, and Bertha. All was changed: King Eadbald, new-crowned and bad of life, Who still, whate'er was named of great or good, Made answer, 'Dreams! I say the flesh rules all!' Hated the Cross. His Queen, that portent crowned, She that with name of wife was yet no wife, Abhorred that Cross and feared. A Baptist new In that Herodian court had Laurence stood, Commanding, 'Put the evil thing away!' Since then the woman's to the monarch's hate Had added strength—the serpent's poison-bag Venoming ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... chance once Jeff had happened upon her secret, and now, all in one illuminating flash, recalling the conditions governing this discovery, he gave vent to a low anticipatory chuckle. It was the first chuckle he had uttered in a fortnight, and this one was edged with a sinister portent. He had his idea now. He had at hand the agency for bringing the scheme to fruition. But yet there remained much of preliminary detail to be worked out. His plan still was like a fine-toothed comb which has seen hard ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... think it trivial, but it was certainly a portent. One of the acolytes had half his head clean shaved! A most extraordinary sight! I could not take my eyes from it, and I heartily wished I had an Omen-book with me to tell ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... la largeur de l'Asie. Ptolemee a laisse intacte, dans l'evaluation de la terre habitee, selon Posidonius, la distance des iles Fortunees au passage de l'Euphrate a Hierapolis. Les reductions de Ptolemee ne portent que sur les distances de l'Euphrate a la Tour de Pierre et de cette tour a la metropole des Seres. Les 225 deg. de Marin de Tyr deviennent, selon l'Almagest (lib. ii., p. 1) 180 deg., selon la Geographie de Ptolemee (lib. i., p. 12) 177-1/4 deg.. Les cotes des Sinae[4] reculent donc du meridien ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... three miles off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A negro fisherman, living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Florentines ceased to look on Tedaldo as a portent, as if he were risen from the dead; and a shadow of doubt whether he were really Tedaldo or no continued to lurk in the minds of not a few, including even his brothers: they had no assured belief; and in that frame had perchance long continued, but for a casual occurrence that shewed ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Tudors, a ship from England, seeking a north east passage to the land of silk and spice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt on the shores of that dreary gulf had never before seen such a portent as a vessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled in terror; and, when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated themselves before the chief of the strangers and kissed his feet. He succeeded in opening a friendly communication with them; and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of disappointment from Drake showed he had divined its full portent. It was now merely a question of speed. The race went on. The houses on the outer edge of the village flew past as if blown by a hurricane. Children in the yards looked up and cheered what they took for sport on the part of ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the paved ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... from M. Guizot refers to an incident which caused a tremendous sensation at the time, and—judged by the later events—may be considered as a portent of the downfall of the Empire. Prince Pierre Bonaparte had challenged M. Henri Rochefort, the editor of a violent Republican journal which had published a scurrilous and abusive article. M. Grousset, the writer of the article, took the responsibility, ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... across it and upon our hero, who, entirely unprepared for such an extraordinary attack, was flung back against the wall, with an arm as strong as steel clutching his throat and a knife flashing in his very eyes with dreadful portent of instant death. ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... also to record the transfer of troops, the return of fugitives, the pursuit of deserters, any chance scuffle between soldiers and natives, as well as the punishment inflicted on the rebellious, the appearance of a portent in the heavens, or omens noticed by the augurs. There were plenty of envious or officious tongues among their followers to report to headquarters the slightest failure of duty, and to draw attention to their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... prophecies are often the causes of their own fulfillment, and this portent led Zopyrus to endeavor to devise some means to accomplish the end in view. He went first, however, to Darius, to converse with him upon the subject, with a view of ascertaining how far he was really ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the appearance of so large a comet as is now interesting the astronomical world, almost contemporaneously with our victory in Egypt, would have been looked upon as an omen of great portent, and it is a curious coincidence that the first glimpse Sir Garnet Wolseley had of this erratic luminary was when standing, on the eventful morning of September 13, 1882, watch in hand, before the intrenchments of Tel-el-Kebir, waiting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... remained a little while after my comrade had left. I soon went out, having made up my mind to have nothing to do with the hog affair. I did not know how to act. I was in a bad fix. I had heard the gun fire and knew its portent. I knew the hog was dead, and went on up the road, and soon overtook my two comrades with the hog, which had been skinned and cut up, and was being carried on a pole between them. I did not know what to do. On looking back I saw the ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... Christmas-eve; the gale of last night continuing, with rain and a densely overcast sky. The barometer is rising, however, which is a portent that the gale will not last long. I have abandoned the idea of attempting to run into Fayal. These Azores seem to be so guarded by the Furies of the storm, that it would appear to be a matter of great difficulty to reach them in the winter season. ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... cloud over Newark, where there shone a tiny constellation of three green lights. And the sound of New York's jubilation was forgotten. With murmured exclamations we stood with our faces raised towards this new yet familiar portent. And as we gazed the green rays were borne beyond the cloud bank and were seen moving more and more rapidly against the dark blue of the star-lit heavens. Moved as by one impulse, we plunged into the snow and took a few steps, as ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Arispe and I were drawing water from a well on the border of the encinal I felt a breeze spring up, that started the windmill. Casting my eyes upward, I noticed that the wind had veered to a quarter directly opposite to that of the customary coast breeze. Not being able to read aright the portent of the change in the wind, I had to learn from that native-born son of the soil: "Tomas," he cried, riding up excitedly, "in three days it will rain! Listen to me: Pasquale Arispe says that in three ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... to be sure, or rather to many of them, not to all, merciful helps were granted. The unseen and the hoped-for was sometimes, not always, made more tangible to them by the grant of some sign and token, some portent or miracle, by the way. But the careful Bible-reader knows how very little such things are represented in the holy histories as being the "daily bread" of the life of the old believers. Even in the lives where they occur most often they come ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... their being rich," he said at last, "and powerful, and clever, and friendly, and elegant, and interesting, and generally delightful! Tu vas voir." And he bent forward and kissed his sister. "Look there!" he went on. "As a portent, even while I speak, the sky is turning the color of gold; the day ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Helen Cameron had hard work to keep back her own sobs; even Jennie Stone, the stout girl, was past turning the matter into a joke. And Madge Steele was unable to suggest a single cheerful portent. ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... is the Milky Way just now! F. True. In addition to the regular stars I saw a number flash and disappear. E. I too. A heavenly portent, let us hope, Presaging triumph to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... sermon to the servants, supper, they all run into one another like dissolving views. For the first time in my life, my sleep is broken. I fall asleep in a fever of irresolution. I awake in one. I walk about in one. I feed the jackdaw in one. I box Bobby's ears in one. My appetite (oh, portent!) flags. In intense excitement, who can eat yards of bread-and-butter, pounds of oatmeal-porridge, as has ever been my bucolic habit? Shall I marry Sir Roger, or shall I not? The birds, the crowing ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... between them to-day was incalculably greater. She ate as much as she could swallow and pushed the rest away. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking again, here and there, aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked at. There was a shadow over her, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark and sharp out of the age-long hour. She leaned against the balsam and then she rested in the stone seat, and then she had to walk again. It might have been long, that time; she never knew how long or short. There came a strange flagging, sinking ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... fait un recueil de ces derniers, je prends la liberte de lui offrir un petit recueil de nos betises qui meritent le nom qu'elles portent aussi bien que les Irish bulls. J'ai fait autrefois une dissertation ou je recherchois quelle etoit la cause du rire qu'excitent les betises, et dans laquelle j'appuyois mon explication de beaucoup d'exemples ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Dean Stanley,—"the chief work of the Confessor's life,—was the portent of the mighty future. When Harold stood beside his sister Edith, on the day of the dedication, and signed his name with hers as witness to the Charter of the Abbey, he might have seen that he was sealing his own doom, and preparing for his own destruction. The solid ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... passed a trio of youth, a girl and two young fellows. One of the lads gave the other a shove that identified the bridegroom. The girl was holding her left hand up and staring at her new ring. A pessimist might have seen a portent in the cynical amusement of her smile, and another in the aweless speed with which Gilfoyle and Kedzie hustled toward the awful mystery of such a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... shelter of the thicket before black clouds overspread the heavens, and it seemed as if in a twinkling the rain came down in torrents; sharp flashes of lightning zigzagged across the ominous-looking sky, and more than one around me declared it was a portent, a sign, a token of the tempest which was about to ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... The MOTHER kisses his hand. The PORTER returning with the Sanitatsmachine, turns it on from behind, and its pinkish shower, goldened by a ray of sunlight, falls around the LITTLE MAN's head, transfiguring it as he stands with eyes upraised to see whence the portent comes.] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... alone is resolute and rational. Nothing can exceed the imbecility of the angelic guard to which Man's defence is entrusted. Uriel, after threatening to drag Satan in chains back to Tartarus, and learning by a celestial portent that he actually has the power to fulfil his threat, considerately draws the fiend's attention to the circumstance, and advises him to take himself off, which Satan judiciously does, with the intention ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... too well do I understand the dream's portent and monition: my DOCTRINE is in danger; tares want to ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... greater omen, and of worse portent, Did our unwary minds with fear torment, Concurring to produce the dire event. Laocoon, Neptune's priest by lot that year, With solemn pomp then sacrific'd a steer; When, dreadful to behold, from sea we spied Two serpents, rank'd abreast, the seas divide, And smoothly ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Thirty Years' War, and asserted that no intelligent man ever entertained the wish that Germany should attain world-domination. There was a time when this frank reflection on the Hohenzollern intelligence would have constituted lese-majeste. Coming from a Minister it amounts to a portent. Now he has gone, but the growing belief that military operations cannot end the war has not been scotched by his fall, and Herr Erzberger vigorously carries on the campaign against Chancellor Hertling and the generals. Austria has been at last goaded into resuming the offensive ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch |
