"Portentous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... business matters." Hildegarde wondered what was coming; her mother looked very grave; she held in her hand a square grey envelope. "I shall be greatly obliged, therefore, my dear," her mother continued, with the same portentous gravity, "if—you would—read that"; and she gave the ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... almost home. Before them lay the frozen waterway. Beyond that, and above, rose the hill, on the face of which stood their shack; and about them was the brooding silence, still and portentous, but familiar. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... and Badenoch were the first that obeyed the call. They started at sight of Helen, but Wallace in a few words related the cause of her appearance, and the portentous letter was laid before them. All were acquainted with the handwriting of Lord March, and all agreed in attributing to its real motive his late solicitude to obtain the command of the Lothians. "What!" cried Bothwell, "but to open his castle gates ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... novel, which is curious enough, coming at a time when he was doing some of his best work. He wrote this while his mind was busy with a great masterpiece, "The Karamazov Brothers," and in this book we get nothing but the lees. It is a novel of portentous length and utter vacuity. I have read many dull books, but it is hard to recall a novel where the steady, monotonous dulness of page after page is quite so oppressive. For it is not only dull; it ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... explains his purpose, and sends the seven sages to make the formal request for Parvati's hand. The seven sages fly to the brilliant city of Himalaya, where they are received by the mountain god. After a rather portentous interchange of compliments, the seven sages announce their errand, requesting Parvati's hand in behalf of Shiva. The father joyfully assents, and it is agreed that the marriage shall be celebrated after three days. These three days are spent by ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... intolerable, and a residence in this country incongenial. They sought the service of the Imperial cause in war-begrimed Mexico; they went to Cuba, Australia, Egypt, and to Europe. Second, those who returned to their homes after the "affair at Appomattox," and sitting down under the portentous clouds of defeat, refused to take any part in the rehabilitation of their States. Third, those who accepted the situation and stood ready to aid in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... speaking a deep, portentous rumbling began and continued for several seconds. The distant mountain sides seemed to reverberate with it, and at the end the whole forest shook with heavy, jarring sounds. We both leaped out ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... the empire of the clergy would be diminished, and the sovereign would have a less portentous rival; he would, without opposition, be assured of all rational and enlightened citizens; the riches of the clergy would in part reenter society, and be of use in benefiting the people; institutions now useless would be put to advantageous ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... a full moon and straw limbs to it and armed the spreading fingers with a portentous ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from the other side of the Atlantic reveals the portentous nature of the machinery with which Mr Hazlewood conducted his editorial labours. The following is taken from the book on the Private Libraries of New York, already so ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... shaken foundation: and the boat rowed out and delivered the heroic Frenchman. The sinking in of the turret roof satiated the destroyer, so that the further wing of the house was preserved. Its master lived unharmed, to rouse himself from his portentous slumber and face his calamity, while the lover lay writhing and raging in the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien. He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and addressed ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... cloud gathering in the South grew darker and more portentous; and after the election of President Lincoln the lightning of hate and passion began to strike from it directly at the nation's life. The old major was both wrong and right in regard to the most prominent leaders of the day. Many whom he deemed the worst fanatics ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... were excited to new and terrible energy by the combination of stimulants which, in any other society, would have counteracted each other. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of Jacobinism, irreconcilable antagonists every where else, were for once mingled in an unnatural and portentous union. Their joint influence produced the third and last rising up of the aboriginal population against the colony. The greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to the greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt again looked ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy. Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk. Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh had not previously observed ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... long for rain. Day after day vast clouds rose above the horizon, swift and portentous, domed like aerial mountains, only to pass with a swoop like the flight of silent, great eagles, followed by a trailing garment of dust. Often they lifted in the west with fine promise, only to go muttering and bellowing by to the north or south, leaving the sky and plain as beautiful, as placid, ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... Beholding the forest burning in innumerable places and Krishna also ready to smite them down with his weapons, they all set up a frightful roar. With that terrible clamour as also with the roar of fire, the whole welkin resounded, as it were, with the voice of portentous clouds. Kesava of dark hue and mighty arms, in order to compass their destruction, hurled at them his large and fierce discus resplendent with its own energy. The forest-dwellers including the Danavas and the Rakshasas, afflicted ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... now through rough and savage glens and among hills crowned with a dreary growth of pines. We encamped among these solitudes on the night of the 16th of August. A tempest was threatening. The sun went down among volumes of jet-black cloud, edged with a bloody red. But in spite of these portentous signs, we neglected to put up the tent, and being extremely fatigued, lay down on the ground and fell asleep. The storm broke about midnight, and we erected the tent amid darkness and confusion. In the morning all was fair again, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... came, led by an elderly negro, whose face wore a look portentous of mystery, a big horse covered with a sheet. A set of clean legs appeared below the sheet, and the head set on the long, muscular neck was fine ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... "There's a portentous cloud, isn't there? An inky cloud, if ever there was one! Take care, inhabitants below; growl, growl, there's the thunder; now comes the rain; hail, hail, all hail, like the ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... State does not thereby evade that law of conflict of which I have spoken, but becomes subject to that law in the life of the greater State, national or imperial, of which it now forms a constituent and organic part. And looming already on the horizon, the wars of races rise portentous, which will touch to purposes yet higher and more mystic the wars of empires—as these have greatened the wars of nationalities, these again the wars of feudal kings, of principalities, of cities, ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... after they come in, sometimes the same day." Then pointing to the upper shelves, "But I've plenty of the older books"; and there in the dust and neglect of the top shelves Canon Barnes surveyed the works of grave and portentous theologians who wrote, some before the days of Darwin, and some in the first heyday of Darwinism. He said to me, "Lightfoot is still consulted, but ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... courtyard in which he had met with the runaway Job Trotter; and curiosity was exchanged for a feeling of the most gleeful astonishment, when the all-important Mr. Grummer, commanding the sedan-bearers to halt, advanced with dignified and portentous steps to the very green gate from which Job Trotter had emerged, and gave a mighty pull at the bell-handle which hung at the side thereof. The ring was answered by a very smart and pretty-faced servant-girl, who, after holding up her ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to a score of ragged urchins, now it meant two hundred boys and girls, the spirits of a thousand gone before and the hopes of thousands to come. In her imagination the significance of these half dozen gleaming buildings perched aloft seemed portentous—big with the destiny not simply of a county and a State, but of a race—a nation—a world. It was God's own ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... last had the privilege of addressing you on the state of the Union the war of nations on the other side of the sea, which had then only begun to disclose its portentous proportions, has extended its threatening and sinister scope until it has swept within its flame some portion of every quarter of the globe, not excepting our own hemisphere, has altered the whole face of international affairs, and now presents ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the boy Borrow being taken twice every Sunday to the fine parish church at East Dereham, where, from a corner of a spacious pew, he would fix his eyes on the dignified high-Church rector and the dignified high-Church clerk, "from whose lips would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High." The rector was the Rev. F. J. H. Wollaston, B.D., who was himself patron of the living, which reverted to the Crown in 1841. At East Dereham, too, ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... increase the overwhelming, almost panic terror which suddenly came upon our local authorities and the society of the town, till then so persistently frivolous in its attitude, on the discovery of the mysterious and portentous murder of the student Shatov—the climax of the long series of senseless actions in our midst—as well as the extremely mysterious circumstances that accompanied that murder. But the order came too late: ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of many open-air rehearsals, transferred, when the weather grew colder, to Willie Giertz's, where there were no near neighbors to whom the portentous secret might leak out. There was not one defective voice in the class save Harry's, and he was at first a puzzle; but that difficulty vanished when it was learned that his fondest ambition was satisfied by striking the tuning-fork. Thereafter all went smoothly, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... knowledge that for a long time the situation had been inevitable—inevitable if we kept on being so much in each other's company. Passages between us of words and looks now recurred to my memory filled with portentous meaning. Oh, I thought, how could I have been so blind! A fool must have seen it coming. I ought to have seen it coming. I ought to have run from it as a man runs from a conflagration. When Lucy told me that she no longer loved ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... glow of happiness which had taken him down to Westminster with the bearing of a young man, felt occasional little shivers of doubt as he leaned back in his seat during the intervals of a brief but portentous debate and let his mind wander back to that short hour when he seemed to have emptied out all the hidden yearnings which had been lurking in the dark corners of his heart and soul. His love for Jane had no longer the boyish characteristics of a vague worship. He made no further pretences ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the starry wing, that canst not soar, Confused power, still seeking, still unblest; For ever clutching to a braggart breast The hope portentous and the worldling's lore. Furiously futile, with a raucous roar Thy dizzy moments mock th' eternal quest; To feverish ends, by factions fierce distrest, Toiling, a sanguine ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... round in vast returning circles. The thoughts catch hold of nothing, but are heaved and tossed like masses of cloud by the wind. An incident of trivial import is turned and turned to catch the light of every possible consequence, and so magnified as to become portentous and terrible.' ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... those who would exploit race prejudices for their profit and those who feel that grave danger lurks in a mixed civilization, keep the baser passions of the people so inflamed that such horrible outrages take a place that the future often seems overshadowed with a cloud dark, portentous and riftless. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... Then in deep portentous tones she said: "I came down to pay a surprise visit to your cats' home. I always do. It's the only way I can make sure that the poor dear things are receiving proper treatment." The frown on her face grew rhadamanthine. "And last night I ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... has told the world, in sentences of portentous length and complication, that "the petty trader's instincts which form the most typical characteristic of the British race" came notably to the fore in our treatment of the German prisoners of war who were held under military surveillance ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... still had some right, some enjoyment. By means of the Law of Parochial Settlement, as Thorold Rogers repeatedly points out,[110:2] they "consummated the degradation of the labourer"; and made him, as it has left him, what the same impartial authority well terms "the most portentous phenomenon in agriculture, a serf without land." By means of their Financial Policy they rid themselves of the duties which originally accompanied the privilege of land-holding, viz. to provide the necessary public revenues for all defence purposes, and converted themselves from ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... of the United States depicted a vast region west of the Missouri River stippled with dots, which were supposed to imitate sand, and marked with the portentous legend, "Great American Desert." As sturdy pioneers pushed their settlements farther and farther westward, the great American desert began to shrink in size until the roseate descriptions of prospectors and land speculators led one to believe ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... upon the Christian Church, 1891, that the domestication of Greek philosophy in the Church signified a defection from the Sermon on the Mount. The centre of gravity of the Gospel was changed from life to doctrine, from morals to metaphysics, from goodness to orthodoxy. The change was portentous. The aspect of pessimism is, however, removed when one recognises the inevitableness of some such process, if Christianity was ever to wield an influence in the world at all. Again, one must consider that the process of the recovery ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... lead closer and more thrillingly up to the climax. But at the end of the seventh, with the score tied six and six, with daring steals, hard hits and splendid plays, enough to have made memorable several games, it seemed that the great portentous moment ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... over-cultured parents. His slender body, with its narrow shoulders and sunken chest, frail as it was, seemed almost too heavy for his feeble legs. His thin face, bloodless and sallow, with a sparse, daintily trimmed beard and weak watery eyes, was characterized by a solemn and portentous gravity, as though, realizing fully the profound importance of his mission in life, he could permit no trivial thought to enter his bald, domelike head. One knew instinctively that in all the forty-five or fifty years of his little life no happiness or joy that had not been scientifically ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... to India.—From the days of Sir John Mandeville, until a comparatively recent period, how portentous of danger, difficulty, and daring has been the "Waye to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... "ahem! we're all born under a cuss!" persisted Grandpa, with irate satisfaction. "I've steered through a good many oceans," he continued, more softly, "but thar' ain't none so—misty—as this—a—" (portentous nudge from Grandma,) "as this pesky ocean of Life! We've got to keep a sharp look-out" (another nudge from Grandma), "ahem, steer clear of the rocks," (persistent nudges from Grandma), "ahem! ahem! trust in God Almighty!" admitted Grandpa with telling ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... expedition were worse than nothing. Denonville made no attempt to destroy the other nations of the confederacy. Returning to Lake Ontario he built a fort at Niagara, which he had promised Dongan he would not do, and then returned to Montreal. The net results of this portentous effort were a broken promise to the English, an act of perfidy towards the Iroquois, and an insignificant ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... poems. The parleying With Daniel Bartoli is a story of love and loss, admirable in its presentation of the heroine and the unheroic hero. We are interested in Francis Furini, "good priest, good man, good painter," before he begins to preach his somewhat portentous sermon on evolution. And in the case of Christopher Smart, the question why once and only once he was a divinely inspired singer is the question which most directly leads to a disclosure of his character as a poet. The volume, however, as a whole, while Browning's ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... announcement made a serious impression, but when I added that the Government of France had dismissed me without credentials, recommendation, or pension, official sympathy with officialism at once turned the tables against me. And here I may be pardoned for pointing out another portentous dissimilarity between the two lands which I think is not at all to ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Agesilaus had to be summoned home: and after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus, recovered the supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened Spartan influence in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends, in the year B.C. 393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous spectacle of a Persian fleet in Greek waters was once more seen—this time in alliance with Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the Peloponnese, and the island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long walls of Athens were rebuilt with Persian money, and all ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... time. But, Lord bless you, it's her way of pleasuring herself. She's a queer un is Miss Beatrice, and she gets queerer and queerer, what with their being so tight screwed up at the Vicarage, no tithes and that, and one thing and another. Not but what I'm thinking, sir," he added in a portentous whisper, "as the squire has got summut to do with it. He's a courting of her, he is; he's as hard after her as a dog fish after a stray herring, and why she can't just say yes and marry him I'm ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... dormitory, looking out into the green court or herbarium, lies the "pisalis'' or "calefactory,'' the common room of the monks. At its north-east corner access was given from the dormitory to the necessarium, a portentous edifice in the form of a Norman hall, 145 ft. long by 25 broad, containing fifty-five seats. It was, in common with all such offices in ancient monasteries, constructed with the most careful regard to cleanliness and health, a stream of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... jaundiced light that swathed the skies from end to end. The coach bearing Katherine and Janet left the causeway and entered a thick forest. The great trees seemed even larger; their silence becoming portentous. There was not a breath of air. Katherine fanned herself with Janet's hat, but hardly did her efforts create a breeze large enough to move the threads of hair that ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... sweetest simplicity, invited two lady authoresses of note to meet at one of her "at homes,". . . she welcomed both the masculine-looking ladies with a radiant smile, and introduced them, saying gently,—"You will be so pleased to know each other!" But the stony stare, stiff nod, portentous sniff, and scornful smile with which these two eminent females exchanged cold greetings, were enough to daunt the most sympathetic hostess that ever lived—and when they at once retired to different corners of the room and sat apart with their backs turned to one another for the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... father, that hedge is part of Swann's park." And then I would be obliged to pause for breath; so stifling was the pressure, upon that part of me where it was for ever inscribed, of that name which, at the moment when I heard it, seemed to me fuller, more portentous than any other name, because it was burdened with the weight of all the occasions on which I had secretly uttered it in my mind. It caused me a pleasure which I was ashamed to have dared to demand from my parents, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... much more it was than that! Was it not the most portentous symbol of modern history? Think what the word "Paris" means to the emancipated intellect, to the political government, to the humanised morals, of the world; not to speak of the romance of its literature, the tradition ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... in camp on the San Miguel water-hole a solitary horseman on the regulation fiery steed dashed in among them. The newcomer was of a portentous and devastating aspect. A beak-like nose with a predatory curve projected above a mass of bristling, blue-black whiskers. His eye was cavernous and fierce. He was spurred, sombreroed, booted, garnished with revolvers, abundantly ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... frantic chase Jambres (late 'the Mage') paused, breathless, in front of a building of portentous proportions. ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... exhibit the glory of their house. To the first-born, Piero, came the great inheritance of his father's place and power, and no man ever entered into a greater possession,—a possession, so firm, so unquestioned and so portentous, that nothing seemed likely to disturb its equilibrium or to ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... events transpired through a thickening miasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures, and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen's photo-bulbs, bulking with strange shapes, and emitting stranger noises. There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements, and the hollow thumps of denials. There were soft murmurs of, "Now, this is strictly off the record ..." followed by sibilant whispers. The unseen screws of political pressure ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing of it. He was embarrassed by thinking ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... peering through the vivid green of the freshly sprung grass, the birds had come, and the silence of the year had passed. It was a day to enjoy outdoor life, to indulge in hope and happy thoughts. The sky was so blue between the rolling white clouds that one forgot they could ever become portentous of storm. The tents of the Indians, dotted along the banks of the stream, stood like tall white flowers among the trees. Women and children were chatting and calling to each other. Men moved sedately about, busy with preparations for the coming summer days. Young ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... very sad business,' he said, still with the same portentous air of solemnity. 'I am sorry to say ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... until by the time he had cooked and eaten breakfast it was glowing red. When he sat with his feet cocked up on the stove front and gave himself up to the sober business of thought, it seemed to him that he was passing a portentous milestone. To his unsophisticated mind the simple fact that Sophie Carr had permitted him to kiss her, that for a moment her head with its fluffy aureole of yellow hair had rested willingly upon his shoulder, created a bond between them, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... ground that the invader was at hand, some foolish person had caused the massive portcullis of the city gate to be let down, several recruiting parties were parading the streets, two of these she met, and the shrill blasts of a few mounted trumpeters, together with a dense and portentous cloud, which just at the moment spread itself upon the horizon, completed her dismay. She reached home in tears. Her mother, whose solicitude was awakened, inquired the cause. She replied, "Mother, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... of night did sit Even at noon-day upon the market-place, Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 'These are their reasons; they are natural;' 30 For, I believe, they are portentous things Unto the climate ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... first sojourn at Auxonne (June, 1788—September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous task. The history, geography, religion, and social customs of the ancient Persians, Scythians, Thracians, Athenians, Spartans, Egyptians, and Carthaginians—all furnished materials for his encyclopaedic note-books. Nothing came amiss to his summarizing genius. Here it was that he gained ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to fight to a finish, this indifference to the political consequences of his determination, Lincoln beheld arising like a portentous specter, a fury of pacifism. It found expression in Greeley. Always the swift victim of his own affrighted hope, Greeley had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost heart for the war; ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... grave descends the sensual sot, Unnamed, unnoticed, let his carrion rot. When paltry rogues, by stealth, deceit, or force, Hazard their necks, ambitious of your purse: For such the hangman wreaths his trusty gin, And let the gallows expiate their sin. 140 But when a ruffian, whose portentous crimes, Like plagues and earthquakes terrify the times, Triumphs through life, from legal judgment free, For Hell may hatch what law could ne'er foresee: Sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest?— Judas, though dead, though damn'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Nature's voice— In mingled chorus to the skies! The waters in their depths rejoice. Hark! on the midnight air A frantic cry uprose; The yell of fierce despair, The shout of mortal foes; And mark yon sudden glare, Whose red, portentous gleam Flashes on rock and stream With strange, unearthly light; What passing meteor's beam Lays ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... practical navigation. His life as a mariner got him the habit of meditation, and this favored the espousal of theories, which, upon occasion, he could expound with volubility or defend with passion, as his Italian temperament prompted. His imagination was portentous, and the Fifteenth Century was hospitable to this faculty; there was nothing—except plain but unknown facts—too marvelous to be believed; and that Columbus was even more credulous than his contemporaries is proved by the evidence that even facts were ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... flowing stream, grave and round as the deep tone of a temple bell. It increased in volume until the hollow vibrated; the sound, rather than coming from a single throat, seemed to dwell in the air, to be the harmony of evening made audible. The simple melody rose and fell; the simple words became portentous, burdened with the tragedy of vain longing, lost felicity. The dead past rose again like a colored mist over the sordid reality of the present; it drifted desirable and near across the hill; it soothed ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the year eighteen hundred and eleven, were indeed among the most stressful in the whole stormy history of Kentucky. And through her—since her fate was to be the fate of the Empire of the West—they were as portentous as any that the nation has ever known. On that very day in truth, and not very far off, there had already been enacted one of the mightiest events that went to the shaping of the national destiny. Over the river on the banks of ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... solemnity of night brooded over the place. Monsieur mockingly, but unsteadily, inquired what child's game I was playing,—he was too tired to be fooled with. He spoke hotly and quickly, as he never had spoken to me before,—like one who has long been ill at ease, and deems a slight circumstance portentous. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... to change established laws and customs that have wrought beneficially in the past and contributed to the welfare of the country; in practical politics often a very different thing, and regarded by Carlyle in his time "a portentous enbodied sham; accursed of God, and doomed to destruction, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... counted ill to dream of Elks, But always thought portentous of Success, Of happy Life, and Victories in War, Or fortune good when we ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... powder-horn—that on the left-hand side, this on the right—he then slung over his shoulders by two wide leathern straps, crossing each other on breast and back. Last, he doffed his coon-skin cap and donned another of bear-skin, more portentous still in its dimensions; and with Betsy Grumbo—his long, black rifle; the longest, so said, in the Paradise—gleaming aslant his shoulder, the Fighting Nigger sallied from his cabin, completely armed and rigged for war. Giving a loud, fife-like whistle, he was instantly ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... on him dimly, and he saw her face was attuned. It made him, with what she had just before said, know all, and he took the thing in while he met the air of portentous, of almost functional, sympathy that had settled itself as her medium with him and that yet had now a fresh glow. "So you have ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... prejudice of Mr. Marston. Those vague and intangible hints, the meaning of which, for an instant legible and terrific, seemed in another moment to dissolve and disappear, tortured Mrs. Marston like the intrusion of a specter; and this, along with the portentous change, rather felt than visible, in mademoiselle's conduct toward her, invested the beautiful Frenchwoman, in the eyes of her former friend and patroness, with an indefinable character that was ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... paradise to that I was destined to endure with my father's mistress, jealous of her illegitimate authority. My father's former occasional tenderness, in spite of his violence of temper, had been soothing to me; but now he only met me with reproofs or portentous frowns. The house-keeper, as she was now termed, was the vulgar despot of the family; and assuming the new character of a fine lady, she could never forgive the contempt which was sometimes visible in my countenance, when she uttered with pomposity her bad English, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... notice of this portentous junction and this audacious surrender. The effect is no less than the total subversion of the balance of power in the West Indies, and indeed everywhere else. This arrangement, considered in itself, but much more as it indicates a complete ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "Ecco," she cried, "Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions—and ecco, he flies away. Won't you—won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back from the departing bird; and a motion ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... dark clouds portentous lower, And quench the light of day, No effort, none, of human power, Can chase the gloom away. Arrows may fly a countless shower, Amidst the desperate fray; But not to sword or arrow death is given, Unless decreed ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... vast value to humanity as incentives to repentance and improvement of life-warnings, indeed, so precious that they could not be spared without danger to the moral government of the world. And this belief in the portentous character of comets as an essential part of the Divine government, being, as it was thought, in full accord with Scripture, was made for centuries a source of terror to humanity. To say nothing of examples in the earlier periods, comets in the tenth century especially increased ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... one thing by night and another by day. The Sibyls were females, and so were the Gorgons, the Harpies, the Furies, the Fates, and the Teutonic Valkyrs, Nornies, and Hela herself; in short, all representations of ideas obscure, inscrutable, and portentous, are ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Humanity in all its moods expecting light could not be better represented than here by this young girl, this man in the vigor of his age, and these old men, of whom one was learned enough to doubt, the other ignorant enough to believe. Never was any scene more simple in appearance, nor more portentous in reality. ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... whisk of the tail worthy of her best days, she lashed out behind and planted both her pretty little feet on the ribs of the grey chief with such a portentous whack that he succumbed at once. With a gasp, and a long-drawn wail, he sank dead upon the snow; whereupon his amiable friends—when quite sure of his demise—tore him limb from ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to him the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and events through which he had become invested with that character. To all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous manner as he became more interested, listened with great attention; appearing to derive the most agreeable sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and particularly to be quite charmed by the account of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... rain had ceased for a time to give place to a fearful gale which tossed the maddened waters higher and higher, there appeared upon the horizon a dim, portentous shape. At first it was only a form, indistinct and uncertain. As we watched longer, it gradually assumed the semblance of a ship. Keen eyes soon discerned a huge, black hulk, of monstrous size when riding the crest of the breakers, smaller and partially lost to sight when buried at intervals ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... all things were made ready for the moment of revelation. At times a subdued light has filled the broad arch of heaven, and, later, a fringe of rain has moved gently across the low hills and fallow fields, rippling like a wave from that upper sea which hangs invisible in golden weather, but becomes portentous and vast as the nether seas when the clouds gather and the celestial watercourses are unlocked. One day I thought I saw signs of a falling out between the conspirators, and I set myself to watch for some disclosure ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... him in my own way," with portentous significance; "but I want you to understand my rights ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... getting food and clothing, in keeping body and soul together, to have any time for the fine arts. Most of the New England divines tried their hands at limping and hob-nail verse, but prior to the Revolution, American literature is remarkable only for its aridity, its lack of inspiration and its portentous dulness. In these respects it may proudly claim never to have been surpassed in the history of mankind. In fact, American literature, as such, may be said to date from 1809, when Washington Irving gave to the world his inimitable ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... hear, amid the hush, The restless current's rush, The Neva murmuring through his crystal zone: A voice portentous, deep, To charm a monarch's sleep With dreams of power resistless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... gave presents, as tokens of good-will; and with that the assembly dispersed. The mission had gained a triumph, and its influence was greatly strengthened. The future would have been full of hope, but for the portentous cloud of war that rose, black and wrathful, from where lay ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... tell you this is somehow becoming strangely portentous. I've got the funniest sensation that something is going to happen ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... indeed, my wonder ceases—Aboukar! Oh the sweet creature! with his pretty lobster eyes, and most awful and portentous proboscis, which seems for all the world like a fine ripe tomato displayed on ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... retrogression. But, be the incentives what they may, it might not be amiss on our [127] part to suggest to those impelled by them that the ignoring of Negro opinion in their calculations, though not only possible but easily practised fifty years ago, is a portentous blunder at ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... begging," said Mr. Jefferson Edwards, producing a portentous-looking roll of paper from an inner pocket. "Know I've come to the right place for charity. The Aboriginal Evolution Society, my dear boy. All it wants are a few hundreds to float it off. Noble ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the interpretation of this sudden and startling development most European writers and critics show themselves seriously at fault. Even some of the more intelligent among them find the solution of this portentous enigma in the very superficial and facile formula of "imitation." But the Japanese still retain their own unit of social organization, which is not the individual, as with us, but the family. Furthermore, the resemblance of the Japanese ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... day was fast closing, and the portentous heaven gave promise of a stormy night. Thick, black layers of shapeless cloud hung over the whole firmament, save at the western point; and here lay a streak of pale, yellow light, enclosed on all sides by the firm, ungraduated, irregular edges of the masses of gloomy vapour around it. A deep silence ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... personal statement. House instantly alert, and attentive; baulked of its fun with PATRICK, here is promise of fresh larks. HANBURY, his profound base notes sometimes trembling with emotion, proceeds to unfold his story; reads long letter from Dartmouth; Members, discovering that the portentous business relates to some trumpery correspondence in the newspapers, begin to cough, shuffle their feet, and even cry "Agreed!" HANBURY stops aghast. Can it be possible? When he has been vindicating privileges ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... the least interesting, subject we have to notice is the birth of a "new star." This is an event which astronomers now announce every few years; and it is a far more portentous event than the reader imagines when it is reported in his daily paper. The story is much the same in all cases. We say that the star appeared in 1901, but you begin to realise the magnitude of the event when you learn that the distant "blaze" had ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... solemn act which succeeded this preliminary manifestation is the most portentous event to be found in the annals of the world. Two millions of persons, ranged around the skirts of a mountain, witness a majestic supernatural vision; and amid thunder and lightning, dense vapour and blazing fire, the whole ground trembling and the mountain echoing, ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... unusually stormy, dark clouds rested upon the adjacent high land, while others no less portentous hurried past us on the wings of the tempest. Soon after breakfast, we bade adieu to the wild scenery of Port Usborne, and stood across the Sound, for our old anchorage on the north side of Point Cunningham, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... his baubles from the sea." If quite agreeable to her he would make an appointment with the jeweller for 3.30 and would call for her in person. After that, he continued, the signing of a contract for life would not seem such a portentous undertaking, and they could go to the meeting with hearts as light as air. It was a cheerful, even gay little missive, but she was not for an instant blind to the irony ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... could be but one answer, but, for some almost occult reason, he hesitated. The tone, grave, portentous, almost menacing, the paternal, kindly attitude, the pleading that unconsciously crept through the other's words; all these gave Donald to know that some crisis was at hand. For an instant, he thought of the silent, heavy moment before the breaking of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... through the hall. "Cary!" she screamed, and far aloft there was a shout of "Coming!" and, six steps at a bound, that exuberant specimen of Young America came thundering down the broad spiral of the stairway. The portentous butler, too, hove suddenly in sight. Elmendorf dropped the subject—and her wrist, whisked his hat off the hall table, and was out of the house and into his cab before the wrathful brother ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... A more portentous looking document bearing the heading of the "State Republican Committee Headquarters" bore the concise statement that unless an immediate, full, and public apology was forthcoming from one James Gollop ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... intended for the entertainment of Irish-Americans and German-Americans in the constituencies—the two Houses proceeded to the really serious business of voting. The House quickly passed the bill by 216 to 71, and the Senate by 50 to 35. Apparently the amount of Anglophobia was not portentous, when it came to putting this emotion to the test of counting heads. The bill went at once to the President, was signed—and ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... moreover, always present in the school a larger or smaller group of girls who consciously accepted this heritage and persistently endeavored to fulfill its obligation. We worked in those early years as if we really believed the portentous statement from Aristotle which we found quoted in Boswell's Johnson and with which we illuminated the wall of the room occupied by our Chess Club; it remained there for months, solely out of reverence, let us hope, for the two ponderous names associated with it; at least I have enough confidence ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... when behold; the hands of all were loosed upon the booty and everywhere plucked up the shining treasure. There you might have marvelled at their disposition of filthy greed, and watched a portentous spectacle of avarice. You could have seen gold and grass clutched up together; the birth of domestic discord; fellow-countrymen in deadly combat, heedless of the foe; neglect of the bonds of comradeship ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... instead of relaxing, became portentous. Holderness suddenly showed he was ill at ease; he appeared to be expecting arrivals from the direction of Seeping Springs. Snap Naab leaned against the side of the door, his narrow gaze cunningly studying the rustlers before him. More than any other he had caught a foreshadowing. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... umbrella has meant to me to-day," returned Miss Upton with no abatement of the portentous in her tone. "Let me have my bag, Ben. The top don't shut very good and ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... deliberately, without haste the great white flakes zigzagged down from the soft gray above, obscuring and softening the landscape, rendering dear and mysterious the commonest things. Then sounds came, subdued as in a sanctuary, and people approaching showed portentous as through a mist, and the boys, looking upward, caught big wet flakes on their lashes as they tried in vain to determine the point at which the snowflakes became visible. There existed no such point. The snowflakes did not approach as other things approach, beginning small with ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... meditated their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition. [32] Every hour produced some horrid tale of strange and portentous accidents; the Pagans deplored the neglect of omens, and the interruption of sacrifices; but the Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... prodigious scale, and with long-studied skill, can only be met by similar military force, and this resisting force is summoned more slowly than that of Austria-Hungary and Germany, although the ultimate battalions will be heavier. In this portentous physical contest the American people have no part; their geographical position, their historical development, and their political ideals combine to make them for the present mere spectators, although their ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... A portentous revolution was taking place. Before 1820 nearly all the wool of the country had been made into cloth by hand in the homes of the people, and the ratio of home manufactures to population was about the same in most of the States. Now the sheep-raisers sold their wool to the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... ridiculous suit of clothes, and caring nothing for the real interests of life, torments itself about frivolities, about neckcloths, and the passionate desire to appear a man. Then the young fellow swells himself out; his swagger is all the more portentous because it is exercised on nothings. Yet if he envies a fool who is elegantly dressed, he is also capable of enthusiasm over talent, and of genuine admiration for genius. Such defects as these, when ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words, too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture, written out into verse from the original prose, have been found to have a very happy effect upon those readers to whom they have the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... living to this day in comfortable and old-maidish sobriety in the Potteries, hardly conscious of the fact that aeroplanes are an innovation. It is Mr. Bennett, not the Sophias, who makes us conscious of the strange, portentous progress of evolution; of the lapse of time; the changing mind of man; the desperate love of what has been; the inevitableness of what is to come, of what is to replace us, and put us, too, on the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... gentlemen's fingers by the peck or bushel,—everything lost in battle, and a great revolt through the Southern provinces as a natural consequence. What then? Rome was not to be Africanized as yet. The great leader who had threatened the capital, and scored these portentous victories, had at last to pay for them all in defeat and humiliation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... and then he attacked the Thessalians by night, telling the Phokians beforehand to slay every man whom they should see not coloured over with white. So not only the sentinels of the Thessalians, who saw these first, were terrified by them, supposing it to be something portentous and other than it was, but also after the sentinels the main body of their army; so that the Phokians remained in possession of four thousand bodies of slain men and shields; of which last they dedicated half at Abai and half at Delphi; and from ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... be indeed. A grey head, covered with short, close hair, strangely full behind the ears, and drawn out in the face to a portentous length, the narrowness of his forehead up to its summit widening over the eyebrows, which were shaggy and met, pointing downwards over the bridge of the nose, imperfectly shading with their sable outline the cold and inexpressive eyes; the short, rough ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... I got up and went down to the shore. The mouth of the stream was shallow, but as I moved south I came to a place where two small capes enclosed an inlet. It must have been a fault in the volcanic rock, for its depth was portentous. I stripped and dived far into its cold abysses, but I did not reach the bottom. I came to the surface rather breathless, and struck out to sea, where I floated on my back and looked at the great rampart of crag. I saw that ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... brilliantly clear and his step resilient, but Paul, whose delicate nature possessed a quality approaching the clairvoyant, divined that his great brother was exalted by some prospect of portentous moment, and that it might mean triumph—or reverse. Timidly the younger ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... battle of Actium to this portentous change in the fortunes of Octavius was formally recognized by him on the scene where it took place. Nicopolis, the City of Victory, was founded upon the site of his camp, with the beaks of the captured ships as trophies adorning its forum. The little temple ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... hands. To get even a glimpse of the character and meaning of our own time, we must, therefore, see it in relation to all time; to master it in any sense we must set it in its true historical relations. That which to the uneducated mind seems portentous is lightly regarded by the mind which sees the apparently isolated event in a true historic perspective; while the occurrence or condition which is barely noticed by the untrained, seen in the same perspective, becomes tragic in its ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... head heavy and made me feel languid, but did not affect my chest at all. To-day is a soft gray day; there was a little thunder this morning and a few, very few, drops of rain—hardly enough for even Herodotus to consider portentous. My donkey came down last night, and I tried him to-day, and he is very satisfactory though alarmingly small, as the real Egyptian donkey always is; the big ones are from the Hejaz. But it is wonderful how the little creatures run along under one as easy as possible, and ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... peoples, exhausted by their vices, have sunk into such a state of depression and decline, that, unable any longer to supply the inevitable waste of nature, they have dropt into extinction. And such may have been the condition of the human race during that period of portentous evil and violence which preceded the deluge. We know that the good came at length to be restricted to a single family; and even the evil, instead of being numbered, as now, by hundreds of millions, may have been ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... was portentous silence on the part of Colonel Ashley. He gazed at his dangling line and at the straightened pole. Then ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who had been looking sharply at the old man, put ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... it some pale reflection of this Oriental philosophy which took form in the ode of Horace, "Integer vitae" (i. 22), in which he describes the portentous wolf which ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... believe, that any opinion which tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether it substitute for Him an idol, an occult agency, or a formal creed, can be nothing better than a vain and portentous shadow projected from the selfish ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... fall keeps my heart in almost abiding sadness. For the second growth gives no promise of a stock which shall be worthy successors to these noble pioneers, the conquering gladiators of Canada's shadowy forests, the real makers of her great and portentous national life. And yet, strange to say, I never knew their real greatness while I lived among them, sharing in the varied chase, but only ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Despotism and License, mingling in unblessed union, engendered that mighty Revolution in which the lineaments of both parents were strangely blended. The long gestation was accomplished; and Europe saw, with mixed hopes and terror, that agonizing travail and that portentous birth. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... openings of dark sheds that, on so sunny a day, were stored with cool night and cubes and planks of gold, he found his ship, the Mulatto Girl. She was for the Brazils. Now it is clear that one even wiser in shipping affairs than a boy would have expected to see a craft that was haughty and portentous when bound for the Brazils, a ship that looked equal to making a coast of that kind. There she was, her flush deck well below the quay wall. A ladder went down to her, for she was no more than a schooner of a little over one hundred tons. If that did not look like the beginning of one of those ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... tell old legends of what the Thames was in ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn't built, and Waterloo-bridge had never been thought of; and then they would shake their heads with portentous looks, to the deep edification of the rising generation of heavers, who crowded round them, and wondered where all this would end; whereat the tailor would take his pipe solemnly from his mouth, and say, how that he hoped it might end ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... movements; and that movements are mere phases of the tradition from which they spring and in which they are swallowed up. We shall then be armed, on the one hand, against the solemn bore who requires us to admire his imitation of an old master because it is in the tradition; on the other, against the portentous "Ist," whose parthenogenetic masterpiece we are not in a state to relish till we have sucked down the pseudo-philosophic bolus that embodies his eponymous "Ism." To each we shall make the same reply: "Be so good as to remove your irrelevant label and ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... several books called by that title. He would regard me with a glassy-eyed grin as I hurried on. He had no more faith in me than he had in himself. Sometimes he would pretend not to see me, but go stalking down the avenue, his fists twisted in his pockets, his head bent, his brows portentous with thought ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... portentous, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... away captive out of his land; Isaiah announces the same thing in the southern kingdom, and declares that only a remnant shall return. These men are in no doubt as to the impending political annihilation of Israel, and they set themselves to find some reason for an occurrence so portentous, so impossible to harmonise with ordinary religious faith. They account for it by a view of the nature of Jehovah far exalted above that of their people. He is punishing them for their iniquities, they say, he is so righteous ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... the events of that memorable day came to a conclusion. How little did any of the actors of the scene suspect that a portentous Fate was overhanging them, and was so soon to transform all their present circumstances into others that were ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... came early—gentlemen, both Spaniards and Mexicans. Senor A—-z, decidedly the ugliest man I ever beheld, with a hump on his back, and a smile of most portentous hideosity, yet celebrated for his bonnes fortunes; Senor de G—-a, Ex-Minister of the Treasury, extremely witty and agreeable, and with some celebrity as a dramatic writer; Count C—-a, formerly attached to the bedchamber in Spain, married to a pretty Andalusian, and entirely ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... of Christmas presents is Ella buying?" said Cousin Tom, as the waiter handed in a portentous-looking package, which had been just ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... me. But expect no revelations! Enough was revealed when man was assured of judgment after death, and the means of salvation were afforded him. I neither come to discover secret things nor hidden treasures; but to discourse with you concerning these portentous and monster-breeding times; for it is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics of the world. And I come to you, rather than to any other person, because you have been led to meditate upon the corresponding changes whereby ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... Thus commenced a portentous notice which appeared in a Bristol newspaper, and had reference to the Bristol Water Works premises being acquired for the further enlargement of the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... these things can be—how a religion with such attributes as he freely ascribes to the Gospel, so grand, so pure, so lasting, can have sprung up not merely in but from a most corrupt and immoral time, and can have its root in the most portentous and impossible of falsehoods. It must be said ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church |
