"Unpropitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... history of the Union under this Constitution, that almost everything which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has been accomplished in despite of them or forced upon them, and that everything unpropitious and dishonorable, including the blunders and follies of their adversaries, may be traced to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... into the house, shut the door after her, and disappeared. I stood, at the bottom of the steps, confounded at such strange and unexpected treatment. I could not withdraw till my purpose was accomplished. After a moment's pause, I stepped to the door, and pulled the bell. A negro came, of a very unpropitious aspect, and, opening the door, looked at me in silence. To my question, Was Mrs. Maurice to be seen? he made some answer, in a jargon which I could not understand; but his words were immediately followed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Literature is not the proper business of Churches; but it is a means, though not an end. And it will be found that all the better Churches have been as literary as they could; and that, if at any time the literature has been defective, it has been rather their circumstances that were unpropitious, than themselves that were in fault. Their enemies have delighted to represent the case differently. Our readers must remember the famous instance in Old Mortality, so happily exposed by the elder M'Crie, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... public for true poetic drama is to educate the public's faith in its right to be bored in the theatre by poetry that is not dramatic. Performances of Pippa Passes and The Sunken Bell exert a very unpropitious influence upon the mood of the average theatre-goer. These poems are not plays; and the innocent spectator, being told that they are, is made to believe that poetic drama must be necessarily a soporific thing. And when this belief is once ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... truly say, that, with a very few exceptions, he has found them candid and liberal; prompt to discover merit, and just in applauding it. If there have been exceptions, he has also generally been able to trace their cause to the unpropitious coincidence of narrow circumstances, a defective education, and poverty of intellect. Is it then surprising, that in the hands of such a triumvirate the art should be degraded to an imposture, to the trick of a juggler? but it surely would be a cause of wonder, if, with such leprous members, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... "Scientific Theism," I said of that book: "It is a mere resume of a small portion of a comprehensive philosophical system, so far as I have been able to work it out under most distracting, discouraging, and unpropitious circumstances of many years; and for this reason I must beg some indulgence for the unavoidable ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... hope. Some of them derived comfort from a report that the King had taken physic, and that this was his only reason for not going to Richmond. If it were so, the blow might still be struck. Two Saturdays had been unpropitious. But Sunday was at hand. One of the plans which had formerly been discussed and abandoned might be resumed. The usurper might be set upon at Hyde Park Corner on his way to his chapel. Charnock was ready for any enterprise however desperate. If the hunt was up, it was better to die biting and scratching ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... no alarming interlude, like a herald of evil, to shake the nerves of the company—nothing more unpropitious than the contretemps to an unlucky lady of being overcome by the heat and seized with a fainting-fit, which caused her over-zealous supporters to remove her luxuriant powdered wig in order to give her greater air and coolness, so that she was fain, the moment ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I found myself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and he offered to subscribe "twenty pounds per annum towards so good an object." "Minimus," another writer to the same paper, with reference to missionary enterprise, says:—"The soil which it is proposed to cultivate is remarkably barren and unpropitious; of course, a plentiful harvest must not be soon expected;" and finishes his letter by saying, "Let us arise and build; let us begin; there is no fear of progress and help." "H.," a clergyman, writes again and says:—"Surely, when our charity is flowing in so wide a channel, conveying the blessings ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... I knew him, Ryecroft had reached his fortieth year; for twenty years he had lived by the pen. He was a struggling man, beset by poverty and other circumstances very unpropitious to mental work. Many forms of literature had he tried; in none had he been conspicuously successful; yet now and then he had managed to earn a little more money than his actual needs demanded, and thus was enabled to see something of foreign ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... moon, beneath whose tranquil rays The hares dance in the groves, and at the dawn The huntsman, vexed at heart, beholds the tracks Confused and intricate, that from their forms His steps mislead; hail, thou benignant Queen Of Night! How unpropitious fall thy rays, Among the cliffs and thickets, or within Deserted buildings, on the gleaming steel Of robber pale, who with attentive ear Unto the distant noise of horses and Of wheels, is listening, ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... to the Red Wing Club. But he found Caesar wary, and he dared not be too abrupt. Time and again he was upon the verge of speaking out, but something invariably prevented, some inner voice warned him that the man's mood was unpropitious, that his extravagant caution was not yet satisfied. He allowed the Sicilian to feel him out to his heart's content, and, at last, seeing that he made no real progress, he set out one evening resolved to risk all in an effort to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... beyond expression by the unpropitious weather. Everything had gone so well till now! Earth and sea had seemed to be at his master's service; steamers and railways obeyed him; wind and steam united to speed his journey. Had the hour of adversity come? Passepartout was as much excited as if the twenty thousand pounds ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... by a formidable band of Tuaricks; and Laing, having received twenty-four wounds, was left for dead. He afterwards recovered by the care of his companions, though several splinters of bone were extracted from his head. Undismayed by this unpropitious accident, he after a short delay resumed his journey, and reached Tombuctoo on the 18th August, 1826. There he resided for a month, during which several letters from him reached England. He described the city as every way equal, except in size, to his expectation. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... the time out of which all that is great and good in England and America has proceeded, in letters and in arms, in religion and in politics, we can easily understand how vast must have been the change, had not the winds of the North been so unpropitious to the purposes of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... saved the English commander-in-chiefs ship from an early defeat. It took the crew of le Pluton, her new adversary, by surprise; for they had not been able to distinguish the precise position of their enemy; and, besides doing vast injury to both hull and people, drew her fire at an unpropitious moment. So uncertain and hasty, indeed, was the discharge the French ship gave in return, that no small portion of the contents of her guns passed ahead of the Plantagenet, and went into the larboard quarter of le Temeraire, the French admiral's ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... A more unpropitious commencement for a great career could hardly be conceived. Wesley returned to England in bad health and low spirits. He redoubled his austerities and his zeal in teaching, and he was tortured by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... black calico, and wore grey felt slippers. Her head was lowered, her closed lips quivered, her bony fingers twitched. She never addressed a word to Gordon directly; and, he decided, when she did, it would be monumental, dumbfounding. The present moment was more than usually unpropitious; and, discovering General Jackson at his heels, he picked the dog up and departed for the stable, where he saw Sim Caley putting the horse into ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... from his purpose. He gave Yoshisada fair words indeed: "I profoundly praise your loyal services. My wish is to pacify the country by the assistance of your family, but heaven has not yet vouchsafed its aid. Our troops are worn out and the hour is unpropitious. Therefore, I make peace for the moment and bide my time. Do you repair to Echizen and use your best endeavours to promote the cause of the restoration. Lest you be called a rebel after my return to Kyoto, I order the Crown Prince ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of putting the Southern States wholly and the General Government partially into the hands of negroes is proposed at a time peculiarly unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil war. Industry must be reorganized, justice reestablished, public credit maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these ends would require all the wisdom and virtue of the great men who ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... situation, in fact, had become so critical, and the bank manager's demeanour so unpropitious, that in the previous year more than once the dawn had found her trying to decide between the Scylla of the thankless post of lady companion to some wealthy parvenu on the Riviera, and the Charybdis of raising money enough to allow her to harbour paying guests ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... inadequacy of this method of presenting an argument of such inherent complexity as the dragon story: but my obligation to the Rylands Library gave me no option in the matter: I had to attempt the difficult task in spite of all the unpropitious circumstances. This book must be regarded, then, not as a coherent argument, but merely as some of the raw material for the study of the dragon's history. In my lecture (13 November, 1918) on "The Meaning of Myths," which will be published in the Bulletin ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... an unpropitious moment, for the colonel was in a cold fury, and the object of his wrath was Crewe, who sat with folded arms and tense face, looking down at ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... at Perigny, about a league from the capital of Burgundy, so as to make the last stage of his journey thither in leisurely state. Unpropitious weather on Saturday, January 22d, the appointed day, made postponement of the ducal parade necessary, out of consideration for the precious hangings and costly ecclesiastical robes that were to grace the ceremonies of reception and investiture. Fortunately, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... The sun, however, was unpropitious for jokes. Even the East Ender, who had worked an edging of red and white wool into his pony's mane and hung rosettes of red, white, and blue at its ears, was too busy perspiring and hating his hundred thousand neighbours to smile. He was also busy weighing ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... unpropitious, for an hour's delay might cost a kingdom; Esmond had nothing for it but to hasten to the "King's Arms," and tell the gentlemen there assembled that Mr. George (as we called the Prince there) was not at home, but that Esmond would go fetch him; and taking a General's ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... in accordance with these commands [143] and set out against Amalek, to conquer whom required not only skillful strategy, but also adeptness in the art of magic. For Amalek was a great magician and knew that propitious and the unpropitious hour of each individual, and in this way regulated his attacks against Israel; he attacked that one at night, whose death had been predicted for a night, and him whose death had been preordained for a day did ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... cartridges left and some had not even one. Therefore, that same night—I think it was the 21st of January although I had lost count of dates—the Government, whom I accompanied, departed and proceeded to the Kloof Oshoek, between Dullstroom and Lydenburg. The weather was very unpropitious, rain falling in torrents, and as may be understood, we were in a sad plight. We were protected by nothing except our mackintoshes, and greatly envied a member of the party who was the proud possessor of ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... Constanze, though a devoted wife, was incapable of managing a home, and as their means were uncertain to start with, they were soon involved in a sea of monetary troubles, from which there seemed to be no prospect of their extricating themselves. An unpropitious note had been struck on the very day of the wedding, when it must have appeared to Mozart that he had committed a crime in robbing the family of one of its members. 'As soon as we were married,' he wrote to his father, 'my wife and I both began to weep. All present, even the priest, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... dog-star's unpropitious ray, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay; 10 Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bower, The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour: Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Of dull and venal a new world to mould, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... It was an unpropitious moment for any one to address Royal; therefore, when he heard himself spoken to, he whirled with a scowl upon his face. A tall French-Canadian, just back ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... reputation as a chronicler of the birds and beasts (especially the less approachable birds) of his native Highlands. The present volume is chiefly the result of spare-moment activities during his service as coast-watcher among the Hebrides. Despite its unpropitious title, I must describe it without hyperbole as a production of wonder and delight. Of its forty-eight photographic illustrations not one is short of amazing. We are become used to fine achievement in this kind, but I am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... prosper in a soil so unpropitious and amid such hostile circumstances might well have quickened the faith of a man much colder and more sceptical than ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Mgussa's familiar motioned the Kamraviona and several officers to draw around him, when, in a very low tone, he gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away. His revelations seemed unpropitious, for we immediately repaired to our boats and returned to our quarters. Here we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden their approaching ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... the Carthaginian armies in Spain for some time, with varying but generally unpropitious fortune. He had not the full authority over the Punic forces in that country which his brother and his father had previously exercised. The faction at Carthage, which was at feud with his family, succeeded in fettering and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... described as a city consisting of comparatively insignificant parts greatly exaggerated, and almost infinitely multiplied. It may be want of taste; but on the whole, I was better pleased with Chicago. The season of my visit was doubtless unpropitious. Who could admire the beauties of the noble Central Park in the dead of winter? Perhaps, too, I was not in a good humour to judge of New York, as it was there that I met with my first and only misfortune during my two years' absence from ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... midst of plenty. At night, when the kettle was slung, and the savage crew made merry around their fire, he crouched in a corner of the hut, gnawed by hunger, and pierced to the bone with cold. They thought his presence unpropitious to their hunting, and the women especially hated him. His demeanor at once astonished and incensed his masters. He brought them fire-wood, like a squaw; he did their bidding without a murmur, and patiently bore ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... which the prophet contracted at the command of the Lord; the apostasy of the people, and especially of the ten tribes, to whom the prophet was sent in the first instance, is typified by the adultery of the wife, by the divine punishment, and the unpropitious names which he gives to the children born by the adulterous wife. In chap. ii. 1-3, there follows the announcement of salvation more directly, and only with a simple ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Before a battle those people consulted their game fowl to ascertain whether or not victory was about to attend their arms. If the birds picked up briskly the food thrown to them victory was theirs, if they did so sluggishly the omen was unpropitious, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... propitious fortune; while those extremely vicious correspond, at the time of their existence, with an era of calamity. When those who coexist with propitious fortune come into life, the world is in order; when those who coexist with unpropitious fortune come into life, the world is in danger. Yao, Shun, Y, Ch'eng T'ang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, Chou Kung, Chao Kung, Confucius, Mencius, T'ung Hu, Han Hsin, Chou Tzu, Ch'eng Tzu, Chu Tzu and Chang Tzu were ordained ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... be your mistress on one condition only," said the woman, in reply to the nonsense I poured into her ear, carried away by the fervor of an improvised passion, to which everything was unpropitious. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... The times were unpropitious to the buttered-toast question, and it had quite slipped out of my mind. I have never traced the string of associations which reminded me of it, on one certain morning. Once more I made bold to ask ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... time in gaining the plank runway that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He reflected that both the hour and the circumstances were unpropitious; for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary glimpse of the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... people down for that Sunday. They had all a special connection with Bray. Things had happened there before, and it was a party of healed memories that was to gather there. If, after all, the weather turned out to be hopelessly unpropitious, they could all sit in a ring round the fire, holding each other's hands. She felt sure they would like to do that. Probably there would be a great many tete-a-tetes in various corners, or, if it were warm, in various punts. But she felt sure that they would all hold hands in the intervals ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... man cannot do," he said, "may be easily done by a society, and the value of an opera subscription would be sufficient to patronise a History of England." His valuable "History of the Duke of Ormond" had sufficiently announced the sort of man who solicited this necessary aid; nor was the moment unpropitious to his fondest hopes, for a Society for the Encouragement of Learning had been formed, and this impulse of public spirit, however weak, had, it would seem, roused into action some unexpected quarters. When Carte's project was made known, a large ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... prevented her from making it in eighteen days less, for she was then in sight of the harbour's mouth, when an unpropitious gale of wind blew her off. Otherwise she would have reached us one day sooner than the 'Lady Juliana'. It is a curious circumstance, that these two ships had sailed together from the river Thames, one bound to Port Jackson, and the other bound to Jamaica. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... are placed by one of the family priestesses upon a sacred dish.[16] She then sets it upon the head of the bridegroom and falls into an ecstatic condition, steadying the plate with her hand. Should one of the betel-nut slices become separated from its betel leaf, the omen is considered unpropitious and is followed immediately by the prophylactic rite—the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... been found insoluble, and will probably remain unsolved till the mystery of God contained in them shall have been fulfilled. One thing, however, they clearly reveal to us: that the future triumph of God's kingdom is certain, and that all the great movements in the history of the nations, however unpropitious they may seem at the time, are parts of the mighty plan of divine providence which shall end in making the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... all countries exhibits, in a greater or less degree, a prevalence of barbarism. The planting of colonies, or the formation of establishments in new countries, is ever attended with circumstances unpropitious to refinement. The force with which these circumstances act, will be increased or diminished in proportion to the remoteness or proximity of those new establishments, to older societies, in which the arts and sciences are cultivated; and to the facility of communication between them. Man ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... considered that for some days past we had been entirely dependent for our supply of water upon the little puddles that had been left on the plains by the rain, and which two or three more days would completely dry up. Under circumstances so unpropitious, I had many misgivings, and the contemplation of our future prospect became a subject ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and fascinated the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Beacon Lights of civilization,—we first naturally turn our eyes to the leading external events by which it is marked in history; and we have to observe, in reference to these, that they were generally unpropitious to the greatness and glory of France, Nearly all those which emanated from the government had an unfortunate or disgraceful issue. No success attended the French arms in any quarter of the world, with the exception of the victories of Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy (1745); and the French ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... man of many years. But him the Goddess answer'd azure-eyed, Telemachus! Thou wilt, in part, thyself Fit speech devise, and heav'n will give the rest; For thou wast neither born, nor hast been train'd To manhood, under unpropitious Pow'rs. So saying, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps attending, soon arrived Among the multitude. There Nestor sat, And Nestor's sons, while, busily the feast 40 Tending, his num'rous ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... clear that, within a generation after Shakespeare's death, common opinion both in Stratford and London recognized that in the actor and dramatist a great man had passed away, that he had been in a worldly sense highly successful, though starting from unpropitious beginnings, that he wrote with great swiftness and ease, and that in his personal relations he was gentle, kindly, genial, and witty. That the bailiff's son who returned to his native town as a prosperous gentleman, is to be identified with the ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... last journey had been so unpropitious— he had taken so long a time to recover from it—that she had earnestly hoped he would never attempt another. She expressed this as delicately as ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... seemed unpropitious as they set out together again soon after six. Rain had fallen in the night, yet not all the rain that there was overhead. There were still clouds hanging, mixed with the smoke from the chimneys; the hedges seemed dulled and black in spite ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which ...
— The Republic • Plato
... he had not inspired himself from a cause superior to human interests, where then would he have drawn the constancy and the strength of soul to support what he was obliged to the end to endure and to submit to; that is to say, the unpropitious advice of the learned people, the repulses of princes, the tempests of the furious ocean, the continual watches, during which he more than once risked ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... I hear the very Gordon that of old Was wont to preach, now once more preaching; I know well, that all sublunary things Are still the vassals of vicissitude. The unpropitious gods demand their tribute. This long ago the ancient pagans knew And therefore of their own accord they offered To themselves injuries, so to atone The jealousy of their divinities And human sacrifices bled to Typhon. [After a pause, serious, and in a more subdued ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a farm-laborer were running by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... John of Thoresby became archbishop. The times were unpropitious for building. Yorkshire was suffering much from the black death, there was great poverty among the peasantry, and the diocese was in great need of discipline and reform. Thoresby gave himself up for nine ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... made reference in one of the last lines he was destined to write in this world. He fell ill in that pestilent town, as all the world knows. His constitution was strong enough; he had not lived a life of unpropitious preparation for a serious illness; but his heart was a danger. Typhoid is fatal to any heart-weakness, particularly in convalescence; and he was caught suddenly as he ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... the same dimensions in proportion to its own magnitude as those of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn in proportion to their magnitude, they could be descried by any human observer. The patient, persevering, reverent temper of Herschel took no account, however, of any discouraging or unpropitious circumstances. What he did was to substitute for telescopes of the ordinary construction the new and gigantic forty-foot tube already described; and, thus, with unremitting vigilance and intense zeal, he arrived at the discovery (between ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... crime? The child is gone to Heaven. Aye! there her sinlessness and innocence might give her a welcome, and she may be happy, but the blank left in my heart, the darkness of my mind, the cheerless and unpropitious future that unveils itself before my aching eyes, can never be obliterated until I am laid in the grave beside her, and my spirit has winged its flight to the home where she ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... fast is that one cannot at the same time write concisely. I wrote two pages more in the evening. Stayed at home all day. Indeed, the weather—sleety, rainy, stormy—forms no tempting prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I made a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... '"The fates were unpropitious to my day on the river, as matters required me in South Africa, from which place I propose to send you the famous speech you want. I quite see the importance, if true, of his utterance, but I can hardly think Kruger ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... that, were treason to good fellowship," was the warm disclaimer. "No, no. But the fact is, there is an unpropitious flavor in my mouth just now. Ate of a diabolical ragout at dinner, so I shan't smoke till I have washed away the lingering memento of it with wine. But smoke away, you, and pray, don't forget to drink. By-the-way, while we sit here so companionably, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... on rather an extended scale; conferring and settling with all the booksellers in the respective towns, as to the means of conveyance, allowance, remittances, &c. he thus wrote in a dejected mood, to his friend Mr. Wade,—an unpropitious state of mind for a new enterprise, and very different from those sanguine hopes which he had expressed ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... my first lecture at Raleigh, the scene of many of my most disgraceful debauches and most lamentable misfortunes. The evening announced for my lecture was unpropitious. Late in the afternoon a cold, disagreeable rain set in, and lasted until after dark. The roads were muddy, and in places nearly impassable. I did not expect on reaching the hall, or school house, or church in which I was to speak, to find much ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... and some times more frequently than that. A meteorological screen, containing thermometers and a barograph, had been erected on a post frozen into the ice, and observations were taken every four hours. When we first left the ship the weather was cold and miserable, and altogether as unpropitious as it could possibly have been for our attempted march. Our first few days at Ocean Camp were passed under much the same conditions. At nights the temperature dropped to zero, with blinding snow and drift. One-hour ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... where, as yet, gold has been discovered, and indeed within fifty miles of the summit of the Sierra Nevada itself. So much, at present, for our local, while I proceed to tell you of the propitious—or unpropitious, as the result will prove—winds which ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... Pacific Coast. And so recently as April of this critical year 1823, Adams had taken alarm at the appearance of a British naval force off the coast of Cuba and had warned the Government at Madrid that "the transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interests of the United States." At the same time Adams stated his conviction that within half a century the annexation of Cuba to the United States would be "indispensable to the continuance of the Union itself." Coupled with this prophecy was the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... dwelt in the south, and came hither from the south, should hear of my rapture hereupon, he would deem me very childish. Alas! what I here express I have long known while I suffered under an unpropitious heaven, and now may I joyful feel this joy as an exception, which we should enjoy everforth as an eternal ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... us, is a kind of domestic luxury, akin to the keeping of any other pets, such as lap-dogs and canaries. It is a species of self-indulgence which those who can afford it give themselves when fortune has proved unpropitious, an artificial method of counteracting the inequalities of fate. That such is the plain unglamoured view of the procedure is shown by the age at which the object is adopted. Usually the future son or daughter enters the adoptive household as an infant, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... consequences which may be produced in the revolution of ages, by corruption of morals, profligacy of manners, and listlessness in the preservation of the natural and unalienable rights of mankind, nor of the successful usurpations that may be established at such an unpropitious juncture upon the ruins of liberty, however providentially guarded and secured, as these are contingencies against which no human prudence can effectually provide. It will at least be a recommendation to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... was almost sorry, after Gwen drove away, that he had not pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything, by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and perceived that what was done couldn't be ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of Kunti's sons and also of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra the daughter of the king of the Madras privately addressed Pandu, saying, 'O slayer of foes, I have no complaint even if thou beest unpropitious to me. I have, O sinless one, also no complaint that though by birth I am superior to Kunti yet I am inferior to her in station. I do not grieve, O thou of Kuru's race, that Gandhari hath obtained a hundred sons. This, however, is my ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... for the motive that could have induced any mariner to land upon so unpropitious a spot, hemmed in as it was on every side, and apparently affording no outlet but that by which they had entered—the trackless and illimitable ocean. Without a moment's deliberation, however, the steersman, who had guided his boat into the creek, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... friendly, and having no apparent connection with the movements of Black Hawk, although they are subject to an unpropitious influence from the Hudson's Bay Company, the agents of which allure them to carry their trade into that province. The American traders complain of this with great reason. Many of the Chippewas visit the British posts in Canada, and their old prejudices are kept alive ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... whole day he waited a favourable opportunity to carry out his purpose, and in vain. The two sisters seemed to be inseparable in this time of trouble, and try as he might he could not get the interview for which he so ardently longed. The fates were unpropitious, and one after another his artifices were defeated until at last he was obliged to fall back upon the assistance of his friend, and ask him, as a last resource, to help him out ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... her morning endearments graciously, but Phyllis was glad the toast wasn't cold. She recognized unpropitious portents. ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... the client has lost his fortune, the stage lawyer is even still happier. He comes down himself to tell the misfortune (he would not miss the job for worlds), and he takes care to choose the most unpropitious moment possible for breaking the news. On the eldest daughter's birthday, when there is a big party on, is his favorite time. He comes in about midnight and tells them just as they are going down ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... Reducing the matter to statistics, I have since ascertained that about one in ten of these letters is dictated either by honest sympathy, the warm, uncritical recognition of youth (which I don't suppose any author would diminish, if he could), or the craving for encouragement, under unpropitious circumstances of growth. But how was I, in the beginning, to guess at the motives of the writers? They offered sugar-plums, which I swallowed without a suspicion of the drastic ingredients so many of them contained. Good Mrs. Sigourney kept a journal of her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... day with the street-boys, whatever their business may be. The boot-blacks lose least, but if the day be unpropitious their earnings are small. On such a day the Newsboys Lodge is a great resource. It supplies all that a boy actually needs—lodging and two meals—for the small sum of eighteen cents, and in cases of need will trust boys ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept by the golden torrent of Tasso's impassioned verses, that were intended to urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade. Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis, that hot-bed of infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in the hands of the Christians; and the fleets of the Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John of Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:—to convince a doubting and hesitating world that the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... him, for at that time he had the makings of a voluminous letter-writer. Yet it was only what one might expect. The whole world was unpropitious—obdurate indeed.... A splendid ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited. The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing in the advantages of their ...
— The Federalist Papers
... there's passion and power for you, if you like such things. Balzac convinced me that the French language was malleable into poetry. We are behindhand here in books, and elderly ones seem young to us. For instance, we have not caught sight yet of 'Moore's Life,' the extracts from which are unpropitious, I think. I had a fancy, I cannot tell you how it grew, that Moore, though an artificial, therefore inferior, poet, was a most brilliant letter-writer. His letters are disappointing, and his mean clinging to the aristocracy still ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Giyon. Antonio rode the horse, whilst I proceeded thither in a kind of diligence which runs daily between the two towns. The road is good, but mountainous. I arrived safely at the capital of the Asturias, although at a rather unpropitious season, for the din of war was at the gate, and there was the cry of the captains and the shouting. Castile, at the time of which I am writing, was in the hands of the Carlists, who had captured and plundered Valladolid in much the same manner as they had Segovia some time before. They were every ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... mention was first made by Cranstoun of the fatal powder of which we shall hear so much. Miss Blandy states that, apropos to her father's unpropitious attitude, her lover "acquainted her of the great skill of the famous Mrs. Morgan," a cunning woman known to him in Scotland, from whom he had received a certain powder, "which she called love-powders"—being, as appears, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... hiding the true reason within himself. In this way he earned the powerful malignity of the person in question, who would not depart until he had effected a number of very disagreeable prophecies connected with unpropitious omens and internal torments, all of which undoubtedly had a great influence on ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... you,' said Bertie, dropping his companion's arm, and standing before her on the path. In their walk they had come exactly to the spot where Eleanor had been provoked into slapping Mr Slope's face. Could it be possible that the place was peculiarly unpropitious to her comfort? Could it be possible that she should her have to encounter another ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... instinctive action was to pull Pepper down to a walk, scarcely analyzing his motives; then he had time, before reaching the spot where their paths would cross, to consider and characteristically to enjoy the unpropitious elements arrayed against a friendship ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and son, how many are the cases in which the father, in spite of real affection on both sides, obviously to all the world does not know, nor suspect, parts of the son's character familiar to his companions and equals. The truth is, that the position of looking up to another is extremely unpropitious to complete sincerity and openness with him. The fear of losing ground in his opinion or in his feelings is so strong, that even in an upright character, there is an unconscious tendency to show only the best side, or the side which, though ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... banish all thought of the matter from my mind. But it was only half a success. I remembered that Gershom himself had been going about as abstracted as an ant-eater and as gloomy as a crow, during the last week; and I kept sniffing something unpropitious up-wind. I even hoped that Dinkie would return to the subject, as children with a secret have the habit of doing. But he has been as tight-lipped on the matter as his reticent old ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... father and her cousins, urgently recommending them to be careful with his bringing up, that if they were not strict, he could not possibly become good for anything, and that if they were immoderately severe, there was the danger of something unpropitious befalling him, with the result, moreover, that his grandmother would be stricken with sorrow; and this solicitude on his account was never for an instant ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Windover, but he thought it was probably very good for her, part of the experience which should mould the citizen. Gerda shrank from no experience. At the corner of Bouverie Street they met a painted girl out for hire, strayed for some reason into this unpropitious locality. For the moment Gerda had fallen behind and Barry seemed alone. The girl stopped in his path, looked up in his face enquiringly, and he pushed his way, not urgently, past her. The next moment Gerda's hand caught ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... his footing in this quarter was only to be obtained by unusually slow and cautious means. Still, Mr. Bragg was a man of great decision, and, in his way, of very far-sighted views; and, singular as it may seem, at that unpropitious moment, he mentally determined that, at no very distant day, he would make Miss ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... On thorns and scratches, till that moment Unnoticed, you begin to comment; You never felt such bitter brambles, Such heavy soil, in all your rambles! You never felt your fleas so vicious! Till, sick of life so unpropitious, You wish at last, to end the passage, That you were dead, and in ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... by the scarcity of ferocious game, I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any given part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the standpoint of the beloved at least, there is danger in this identification of all beauties as manifestations of the ideal. It is unpropitious to lifelong affection for one person. As a matter of fact, though the English taste for decorous fidelity has affected some poets, on the whole they have not hesitated to picture their race as fickle. Plato's account ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... unpropitious circumstances the impetuous Gauls were met on the banks of the river Allia, ten miles from Rome, on the very day on which the Fabii had been destroyed by the Etruscans the century before (July 16, 390). The result was that terror took possession of the soldiers, and the Gauls achieved an easy victory, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... fears for the future struggling with mortification for the past, the Landgrave was sitting, late at night, in the long gallery where he usually held his councils. He was reflecting with anxiety on the peculiarly unpropitious moment at which his new enemy had come upon the stage; the very crisis of the struggle between the Swedish and imperial interest in Klosterheim, which would ultimately determine his own place and value in the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... It was at this unpropitious moment that we heard—startlingly near—the sharp crash of a tusk against a tree somewhere just ahead. It was a most unwelcome sound. There was no way of determining where the elephant was, for we were hemmed in by solid walls ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... thirty thousand strong, quite outnumbered the army of Gustavus, and the officers of Wallenstein unanimously advised to give battle. Wallenstein was a superstitious man and deeply devoted to astrological science. He consulted his astrologers, and they declared the stars to be unpropitious to Gustavus. This at once decided him. He resolved, however, to act on the defensive, and through the night employed the energies of his army in throwing up intrenchments. In the earliest dawn of the morning mass was celebrated throughout the whole camp, and Wallenstein on horseback ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... known, perhaps, that balloons have actually been used in war. They were first introduced to this new field of action at Valenciennes in 1793, and the result of the experiment was a failure; not, however, owing to the fault of man, but to the unpropitious nature of the winds. The garrison, being hard pressed by the English and their allies, attached a letter, addressed to the National Assembly, to a small balloon, or parachute, and committed it to a breeze which blew in the direction of Paris. Towards evening the wind changed, ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... tell when his customer is in a tearing hurry. It is an unpropitious time to make suggestions. The clerk must see things from the customer's point of view. It is permissible to suggest something else in place of the thing he has asked for but it is not good manners to make fun of it or to insist upon a substitute. Recently a woman ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... guest was often discussed during the summer that followed; and, although he never came, Wilma was always alarming the family, when affairs were especially unpropitious, by the query, "What if he should suddenly drop in ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... straitened household, in bare and fireless garrets, with the noise of squalid children, in the turbulence of domestic contentions, and in the deep gloom of uncheered despair. This is its most frequent birthplace, and amid scenes like these unpropitious, repulsive, wretched surroundings, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they have at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shining lights of their times; have become the companions of kings, the guides and teachers of their ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... planned for the Fourth of July; but when the club met, things were found to be unpropitious. Thorny had gone out of town with his sister to pass the day, two of the best players did not appear, and the others were somewhat exhausted by the festivities, which began at sunrise for them. So they lay about on the grass in the shade of the big elm, languidly discussing ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... It was an unpropitious beginning for the new term. Glory was obliged to refuse three times to recite, on the plea of her lost books, and double lessons loomed ahead of her dismally. But not for long—Glory never allowed "making up" to dispirit her unduly. Studying, anyway, was ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... course, a much darker green. The first picking, usually in April, is when the leaves are very young and tender, commanding a much higher price than those subsequently plucked. The second is a month later, when they have attained maturity; and as unpropitious weather would be likely to ruin them, great expedition is used in getting in the crop, the entire population turning out to assist. A third, and even a fourth, follows; but the quality rapidly deteriorates, and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... the tribune replied, "but we'll be whipped in this wordy battle. And even a small defeat were an unpropitious sign on ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... engineer could do so (for he had to cool his bearings, and this was truly an anxious moment for me), I gave her all steam, and stood for the north end of the island. As we approached it, the Fates, which had before seemed unpropitious to us, began to smile, and the rain-squall, which had come up quite unexpectedly, began to envelope us in its friendly folds, shutting in our dense clouds of black smoke, which were really the worst tell-tales we had to dread. The ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... with its splintered sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman. And all communication between the parts of the long- extended territory might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable quebradas,—those hideous rents in the mountain ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... irritation in such troubles which adds a whole armoury of small knife-cuts to intensify the agony of the evil from which we suffer. It is more dreadful to be moaning over our own mistakes than over the inscrutable perversity of an unpropitious fate. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave labor; whilst the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interest, by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting ...
— 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
... our provinces were much exposed, and the armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount AEtna. The imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already illustrious for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of Thrace, the other a leader notoriously wicked—and both ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... support of a large family, he was almost penniless; if he should follow his convictions, he and they might be altogether so. In the period of choice and requiring room for experiment, he saw himself doomed to a fixed, inglorious career, and caged in a framework of unpropitious circumstance. Whatever the moral obliquity in his feeble expedients, there is the pathos of human limitations in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... others sometimes extremely acute and penetrating. For some years previous to the time laid in our tale, the family of Condy Dalton began to decline very perceptibly in their circumstances. There had been unpropitious seasons; there had been failure of crops and disease among the cattle—and, perhaps what was the worst scourge of all, there existed a bad landlord in the person of Dick-o'-the-Grange. So long, however, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... a sudden incursion was made into the Roman territory, for which the imperial officers were wholly unprepared. A considerable impression would probably have been produced, had not the weather proved exceedingly unpropitious. Storms of rain and hail hindered the advance of the Persian troops, and allowed the Roman generals a breathing space, during which they collected an army. But the Emperor Theodosius was anxious that the flames of war should not be relighted in this quarter; and his instructions to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Terminus, and to him there was also dedicated a shrine and a festival, the Terminalia. This god Terminus, as the Roman historian has it, was alone in refusing to yield to Jupiter because 'while the birds allowed the deconsecration of all the other sanctuaries, in the shrine of Terminus alone they were unpropitious.'[109] Livy tells this story in the first book of his History, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when after the taking of auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas [Youth] and Terminus ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... chevaliere d'Eon, I know not which. But these secret agents were, unknown to the king, all devoted to the parliaments, and consequently inimical to courtiers, favorites, and especially mistresses. God knows how they disposed of us! By these unpropitious channels the king had learnt all the hatred which was borne to madame de Pompadour. He was afraid of exciting the discontent of the people by announcing another mistress, and was no less intimidated at the severity of madame Louise, and the ill-humor of his other children. He ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... situation to guide me. Hadn't she recognized him before? Had her thick veil, and his position, and the general slight flurry of the misadventure, intercepted recognition until she heard his voice when he addressed Charley. Or had she known her lover at once, and rapidly decided that the moment was an unpropitious one for a first meeting after absence, and that she would pass on to Kings Port unrevealed, but then had found this plan become impossible through the collision between Charley and John? It was not until certain incidents of the days following ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... not be denied to my fevered lips? Perhaps, amid the noble and disinterested toils of the expedition, his heart would outgrow all love for me, and when we met again I should see my power was gone. I pondered much on this; I believed at last that the solitude, the isolation, would be not unpropitious to me. From the little world of the ice-locked vessel his thoughts would turn to the greater world he had left, and I should be remembered. When he returned we should be much together. His mother ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... sincerity), whether any statesman—the oldest and the most accomplished in diplomacy—could have acquitted himself better under the same circumstances. Most people, indeed, cannot be addressed on such a business without surveying you with looks as austere and unpropitious as ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... accompaniment was always the low indignant mutter of a triumphant people at those who had dared to set themselves above the popular clamour and ask for sanity. The intolerable longing that had become her constant companion would be fed by every device of unpropitious Circumstance. Again and again she would experience this impulse to go to him, and some night the blood would not recede from ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... of mine has started as manager of his first theatre these holidays. It may seem to you an unpropitious moment for such a beginning, but in many ways this special theatre is exceptionally well guaranteed against failure. The proprietor was kind enough to invite my presence at his opening performance. As a matter of fact I had myself put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... Prince's permission," said King, also in English. The Prince looked glum, but interposed no imperial objection. Instead he suddenly shoved the cigarette box under the nose of his dainty relative, who at that unpropitious instant stooped over to watch King's awkward attempt to release ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... not worshipped the deities that cause calamities, or perhaps, we have not paid them the first homage. Or, perhaps, this evil is the certain consequence of the birds (we saw). Our stars are not unpropitious. From what other cause, then hath this disaster come?" Others, distressed and bereft of wealth and relatives, said, "That maniac-like woman who came amongst this mighty caravan in guise that was strange and scarcely human, alas, it is by her that this dreadful illusion had been pre-arranged. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... reconcile the touch of conscience in such a person, nor could he realise the impulse through which some sudden event was working a moral regeneration in his mind. There was something he struggled to keep from notice. The season had been unpropitious, bad crops had resulted; the cholera made its appearance, swept off many of the best negroes, spread consternation, nearly suspended discipline and labour. One by one his negroes fell victims to its ravages, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... not sure that I do. Is it because the moneygods have been unpropitious—because these robber barons ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde |
