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More "Portend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this serious subject, we began to wonder what Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... mighty Porpose, with a harping yron, hauing first striken diuers of them, and brought away part of their flesh, sticking vpon the yron, but could recouer onely that one. These also passing through the Ocean, in heardes, did portend storme. I omit to recite friuolous reportes by them in the Frigat, of strange voyces, the same night, which scarred ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... evinced to appear perfectly at his ease, Dorothy at once detected an under-current of shame-facedness and apprehension in Bastien's manner. His presence urged that he was no longer a prisoner with Poundmaker's band. What did it portend? ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,' he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring with them and leave behind them the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... Sicilian states in order to crush Syracuse. But at this moment dispatches arrived requiring the return of Alcibiades to stand trial. Athens was in a panic over the Hermae affair, which was supposed to portend an attempt to reestablish the despotism which had been ended a hundred years before by the expulsion of the Pisistratidae. Alcibiades, however, made his escape, and for years pursued a life of political intrigue against the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... after leaving Queenstown, the west winds met us, steady and strong; but it was not till the afternoon of Christmas day that the sea began to "get up" in earnest, and the weather to portend a gale. Then, the Atlantic seemed determined to prove that report had not exaggerated the hardships of a winter passage. It blew harder and harder all Friday, and after a brief lull on Saturday—as though gathering breath for the final onset—the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... was right. This was far too picturesque and vivid a morning to portend well for a shooting-day. Down at the farther end of the strath, the skies were banked up with dark and heavy clouds; the lake-like sweep of the river was of a sombre and livid blue; and between the indigo stream ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... alone be perceived. I cast my eyes aloft? What was that I saw? High up in the air, at the main-topmast-head, there was perched a ball of fire. I was so astonished, and, I may say, alarmed, that I could not speak. What could the phenomenon portend? It stayed there for some time, then all of a sudden it glided down, and went out to the main-top-sail yard-arm— a bright, glowing, flaming ball. It will be setting the ship on fire! I thought that I would go and rouse up some one ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... shall vainly seek for joy in the vulgar excitements and coarse titillations of appetites and desires which the world offers. 'Calm pleasures there abide' in Christ. The northern lights are weird and bright, but they belong to midwinter, and they come from electric disturbances, and portend rough weather afterwards. Sunshine is silent, steadfast, pure. Better to walk in that light than to be led astray by fantastic and perishable splendours. 'Rejoice in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in the kitchen and Peggy shared her wonder, though she was not permitted to see her annoyance. A plan was devised to find out what this extravagance of candle might portend. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... The shadow, whatever it was, had fallen since, and she felt it had some connection with the happenings of the evening. This unprecedented forbearance of his was a part of it. Of that she was sure. What did it portend? Was he angry? Or had Lucy Webster dropped some remark that had shown him the folly and uselessness of his resentment? Jane would have given a great deal to know just what had occurred on that walk in the rain. Perhaps Lucy had openly attacked Martin's codes and forced a quarrel. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... done in the way of inquiry and search. First, nothing was to be expected from investigation at the Rectory; and to be brief, nothing has transpired. I asked Mrs. Hunt—as others had done before—whether there was either any unfavourable symptom in her master such as might portend a sudden stroke, or attack of illness, or whether he had ever had reason to apprehend any such thing: but both she, and also his medical man, were clear that this was not the case. He was quite in his usual health. In ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... sudden change—too sudden to portend good. She has always been reserved, and showed no disposition to be friendly. All of a sudden, she ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... mother was ill; she thought that her husband had received some bad news. The day was Monday, which is considered an unlucky day among the Russians, and, going out that day, Elizabeth had met a man in mourning; these omens were too numerous and too strong not to portend misfortune. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... about the village itself Kapchack was viewed by the superstitious with something like awe. His great age, his singular fortune, his peculiar appearance—having but one eye—gave him a wonderful prestige, and his chattering was firmly believed to portend a change of the weather or the wind, or even the dissolution of village personages. The knowledge that he was looked upon in this light rendered the other birds and animals still more obedient than they would have been. Kapchack was a marvel, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... he were succeeding; then, suddenly, when he was least expecting it, he would find her name, inaudibly, on his lips, and seem to see her eyes meeting his eyes. All this made him uncomfortable, and seemed to portend a possible discord. Discord was not to his taste; he shrank from imperious passions, and the idea of finding himself jealous of an unsuspecting friend was absolutely repulsive. More than ever, then, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... supported by the surgeons and Wyant, she had resisted his admission to the sick-room. Bessy's religious practices had been purely mechanical: her faith had never been associated with the graver moments of her life, and the apparition of a clerical figure at her bedside would portend not consolation but calamity. Since it was all-important that her nervous strength should be sustained, and the gravity of the situation kept from her, Mrs. Gaines yielded to the medical commands, consoled by the ready acquiescence of the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... earthquakes and waterquakes, and rocks rent, and other strange phenomena, that one would think the world exceedingly out of repair. I am not prophet enough to believe that such convulsions relate solely to the struggles between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, or even portend any between the Georges and Jameses. You have already heard, I suppose, that Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville, are dismissed, and that Sir George Lyttelton is chancellor of the exchequer. My Lord Temple says that Sir George Lyttelton said he would quit his place when they did, and that he has ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... a superstitious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... this portend? Such muteness he had never shown; Was he so very near the end? Ah, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... the other side of the little street in a purposeless way that was highly fraught with nothing. Already the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horse-back, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... green oboes, garnet clarinets, golden yellow horns, dark-brown bassoons, scarlet trombones, carmilion ophecleides while the drums punctured space with ebon holes. That the triangle had always been silver he never questioned; but this new chromatic blaze, this new tinting of tones—what did it portend? Was it a symbol of the further degradation and effeminization of music? Was art a woman's sigh? A new, selfish goddess was about to be placed upon high and worshipped—soon the rustling of silk would betray her sex. Released ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... in his own tongue, "Louis himself, and with a train looking bent on mischief. I wish it may portend good to my Lord here. You see I am accompanied. I believe from my heart that Louis meant to prevent you from receiving a warning, and taking the ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Luc the tense muscles relaxed and he lowered the weapon. Robert was compelled to notice anew the great influence the French had acquired over the Indians, and he recognized it with dread, knowing what it might portend. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... had seemed to him almost a warning. He looked at Father Roland's broad back; for the first time he noticed how heavy and powerful his shoulders were for his height. Then the forest swallowed them—a vast, white, engulfing world of silence and mystery. What did it hold for him? What did it portend? His blood was stirred by an unfamiliar and subdued excitement. An almost unconscious movement carried one of his mittened hands to his breast pocket. Through the thickness of his coat he could feel it—the picture. It did not seem like a dead thing. It beat with life. It made him strangely unafraid ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... Allendyce had worn nothing but black ties. On the morning of his contemplated invasion of Patchin Place in search of a Forsyth heir he knotted a lavender scarf about his neck and felt oddly excited. Such a sudden and unexplainable impulse, he thought, must portend adventure. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... thereof," he chuckled, "there must have been scores of men who felt it just as they were starting somewhere; and I warrant every one of them took it to himself, and put off his business! Well, well, I can tell what it did portend, however, for Ethelbert, and that is a mighty change in his household so soon as he gets his new wife home. Earthquake, forsooth! Mayhap he will wish he had hearkened to its message when she turns ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... charioteer: "Why does this happen? How deserves this man The wretchedness of his great agonies?" "How do I know?" said Channa, "for we all Are subject to distemper and disease. Sometimes the best are stricken—and must die!" "Must die?" cried I, "What does that word portend?" For, you must know, I never heard of death. My father had forbidden, at his court To speak to me of anything unpleasant. "Yea, die!" said Channa, "Look around and see!" Along the road a funeral procession Moved slowly, solemnly and mournfully And on the bier a ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... but some quality inherent in her upon which he felt disposed to confer the title of genius. That was going far.—Mentally he pulled himself up short.—For wasn't it going altogether too far—absurdly so? What the dickens did this excessive admiration portend? Could he have received the coup de foudre?—He had to-day a fancy for French tags, in reaction from the family's over-powering Englishness.—That wouldn't suit his book in the very least. For in the matters of the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... "ill. This night have strange and hideous dreams come creeping through my brain, and I know not what they may portend. Almost do I feel as though some evil overshadowed me; and yet how can evil touch me? I wonder," she went on with a sudden outbreak of womanly tenderness, "I wonder if, should aught happen to me, so that I slept awhile and left thee waking, thou wouldst think gently of me? I wonder, my ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... men, old women, young ones with infants in their arms, flocked to doors and windows to see this awe-inspiring spectacle. Most of them shuddered with superstitious dread of what it might portend. "She totin' Cheri!" some of ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... [21] [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [22] ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... rain! The sky grows dark, —Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! The shop affords a safe retreat, A chair extends its welcome seat, The tradesman has a civil look (I've paid, impromptu, for my book), The clouds portend a sudden shower, I'll read my purchase ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... imagination favours done me, real or imagined, until, to hear them, they might have been my guardian angels; while I went between them silent and mighty sullen, casting about in my mind as to what all this should portend. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... this uncommon document read from end to end, and then gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... his telescope to continue his observation of the buccaneers. He saw that the piraguas towed by each vessel were being warped alongside, and he wondered a little what this manoeuver might portend. Awhile those piraguas were hidden from view behind the hulls. Then one by one they reappeared, rowing round and away from the ships, and each boat, he observed, was crowded with armed men. Thus laden, they were headed for the shore, at a point where it was densely wooded to the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... But the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror, were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot, was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... declined, some iridescent films overspread the west; and just above Maloja the apparition of a mock sun—a well-defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular intervals by four globes—seemed to portend a change of weather. This forecast fortunately proved delusive. We drove back to Samaden across the silent snow, enjoying those delicate tints of rose and violet and saffron which shed enchantment for one hour over the white ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... mind disarms me from extremities. Until to-day, I always thought stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and when I look upon your idiot face, laughter rises within me like a deadly sickness, and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as blood. What should this portend? I begin to doubt; I am losing faith in scepticism. Is it possible," he cried, in a kind of horror of himself—"is it conceivable that I believe in right and wrong? Already I have found myself, with incredulous surprise, to be the victim of a prejudice ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pronounced these words, when the palace sparkled with lights and fireworks, instruments of music—everything seemed to portend some great event; but nothing could fix her attention. She turned to her dear Beast, for whom she trembled with fear; but how great was her surprise! Beast had disappeared, and she saw at her feet one of the loveliest Princes that ever ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... calm we are now! Those mournful dreams, which seemed to portend such sad events, no ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... after midnight there was a great stir in the house and the sound of opening doors and hurrying footsteps. The unwonted noises terrified me. I leaned against the door, with a heart beating thickly, and I listened. What evil tidings did those sounds portend? There was a loud outcry in a woman's ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... the three courts, at the commencement of the war between Russia and Turkey (1768), did not portend anything like a coalition; Frederick, indeed, was in alliance with Russia, but also secretly favored the Sultan; Austria was all but an open enemy of both Russia and Prussia. Circumstances, however, obliged Austria to forget her hatred to Prussia, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... late and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... something had happened, and her first question frustrated his generous intention. He had to tell her about the letter. She would not allow that it had any significance, but she wished him to make an end of his anxieties and forestall whatever it might portend by resigning his place at once. She said she was quite ready to go to New York; she had been thinking it all over, and now she really wanted to go. He answered, soberly, that he had thought it over, too; and he did not wish to leave Boston, where he had lived so long, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... prepared to go. There was little talk, yet we all kept up a play of cheerfulness. When I came to take the Seigneur's hand, Doltaire was a distance off, talking to Madame. "Moray," said the Seigneur quickly and quietly, "trials portend for both of us." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... side, and looked craftily askance at him. Tu-Kila-Kila hated it, that insolent creature. Was he not a god, and should he be thus bearded in his own island by a mere Soul of dead birds, a poor, wretched parrot? But the curse! What might not that portend? Ah, well, he would risk it. Glancing around him once more to the right and left, to make sure that nobody was looking, the cunning savage put forth his hand stealthily, and tried with a friendly ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... all—on the contrary, he accepted the whole thing with the serenest cheerfulness and sang-froid, finding it apparently quite natural that these unseen agencies, coming from nobody knew where, should take him under their protection and make friends with him. What could it all portend? ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... November, the torrents of water that fall, for weeks together, are prodigious, which give the river a tremendous aspect; and, from their suddenness and impetuosity, cannot be imagined, by a European, to portend any thing but a deluge. This bursting of the waters above, and the raging of the river below, with the blackness of the nights, accompanied with horrid tempests of lightning and thunder, constitute a magnificent scene of terror unknown but in ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... a moment later knew that he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high words reached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I could detect muffled retorts from the other. Wondering what this could portend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurried arrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumpled newspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to the trained eye of having performed hasty ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... but I dinna think she's fell gled to be hame hersel',' said Teen, and her dark eye was shadowed, for she felt that a subtle change had overcast the bright spirit of Gladys, and she did not know what it might portend. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... vaticinate, divine, foretell, soothsay, augurate[obs3], tell fortunes; cast a horoscope, cast a nativity; advise; forewarn &c. 668. presage, augur, bode; abode, forebode; foretoken, betoken; prefigure, preshow[obs3]; portend; foreshow[obs3], foreshadow; shadow forth, typify, pretypify[obs3], ominate[obs3], signify, point to. usher in, herald, premise, announce; lower. hold out expectation, raise expectation, excite expectation, excite hope; bid fair, promise, lead one to expect; be the precursor &c 64. [predict ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... throw doubt upon the durability of this institution—circumstances which seemed to portend that this monstrous innovation was destined on the whole to be a much shorter-lived one than the usurpation it had displaced—had not been wanting, indeed, from the first, in spite of those discouraging aspects of the question which were more immediately ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... swan had circled over his house that day week, and in his net each day for twice seven days had he drawn from the sea a fish having one golden eye and one silver eye: which things, as all men know, portend full goodly things, or else they portend nothing at all whatsoever. So, being pleasantly minded, Harold returned in kind unto Membril, the fairy queen, that bespoke him so courteously, and to her and to them that bore her company he said and ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... floor below. Now, as Caesar had been always accustomed to wear a crown of laurel on great occasions, and had always evinced a particular fondness for that decoration, that plant had come to be considered his own proper badge, and the fall of the laurel, therefore, was naturally thought to portend some great calamity ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... never before witnessed in those islands. To him also, this was a cause for wonder, and he was not a little troubled at what it might mean. Seeing that these vessels were directed toward the city of Manila, and thinking that so great a fleet, coming from such a direction, could portend no good to the inhabitants of the city (who were living in security and were but few in number, as we have said above), he resolved to set out immediately with the greatest despatch possible, and with the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... aid us!" The Chief Herald clasped his massy brow and gazed with eye distraught. "Sir Knight—messire—my very good and noble Lord of Tong—I grope! Here is that which hath a seeming ... thy so many parts portend somewhat ... and yet ... I excogitate ... yet grope I still ... impart, part ... thy part and its part ... so many parts ... and roses ... and songs o' love ... a lute! O, thundering Mars, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... a rag to kiver his pistereroes; so he need not hold his head so high — He is for sartin very umble and compleasant, and purtests as how he has the same regard as before; but that he is no longer his own master, and cannot portend to marry without the 'squire's consent — He says he must wait with patience, and trust to Providence, and such nonsense — But if so be as how his regard be the same, why stand shilly shally? Why not strike while the iron is hot, and speak to the 'squire without ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... phenomenon than an eclipse of the sun. Eclipses were considered in those days as extraordinary and supernatural omens, and Xerxes was naturally anxious to know what this sudden darkness was meant to portend. He directed the magi to consider the subject, and to give him their opinion. Their answer was, that, as the sun was the guardian divinity of the Greeks, and the moon that of the Persians, the meaning of the sudden withdrawal of the light of day doubtless was, that ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the mind of Columbus, the fact that the news of his discovery of land was not yet known in Europe. As for the Pinta and her insubordinate commander, none could say whether they would ever be seen again or whether their speedy arrival in Spain might not portend more harm than good to Columbus. His armament was now reduced to the little undecked Nina alone, such a craft as we should deem about fit for a summer excursion on Long Island Sound. What if his party should all perish, or be stranded helpless ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... place this afternoon at Villejuif, but no details are yet known. There is no doubt that the Prussians have enlarged their circle round Paris, and that they have massed troops near Choisy-le-Roi. What these two manoeuvres portend, we are ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... louder, nearer roar The bolt of Zeus descends once more. My spirit quails and cowers: my hair Bristles for fear. Again that flare! What doth the lightning-flash portend? Ever it points to issues grave. Dread powers of air! ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... through the quantity and weight of water was broken down, and in a violent stream it ran through the ploughed fields and plantations to discharge itself in the sea, it not only struck terror into the Romans, but was thought by all the inhabitants of Italy to portend some extraordinary event. But the greatest talk of it was in the camp that besieged Veii, so that in the town itself, also, the occurrence ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... and never, as far as I know, by any of the blood of that wicked man, without betokening some ill to one of the family, and most probably to the one who hears it—but I am not quite sure about that. Only some evil it does portend, although a long time may elapse before it shows itself; and I have a hope it may mean some ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... dispirited, and our fires, though fed with fuel, do not blare up. All this is ominous. All our animals are setting up a frightful howl, gazing towards the sun. The crows are perching on our banners. All this is ominous. Yon vultures and kites on our right portend a great danger. That jackal also, running through our ranks, waileth dismally. Lo, it hath escaped unstruck. All this portends a heavy calamity. The bristles also of ye all are on their ends. Surely, this forebodes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... menace. It means loss of faith in the collective ego, in the traditions, shibboleths, symbols, and destiny of the group. Fighting groups cannot be tolerant; nor can they harbor cynics. Tolerance and cynicism are at once causes and results of group decay. They portend dissolution or they foreshadow new groupings for struggle over other issues on another plane. Evangelical churches are drawing together with mutual tolerance to present a united front against modern skepticism ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... a very clear idea of the line along which his regiment had advanced and retreated, and he followed it. But the lantern did not enable them to see far. As happened so often after the great battles of the Civil War, the signs began to portend rain. The long drouth would be broken, but whether by natural change or so much firing Colonel Winchester did not know. Despite the lateness of the season dim lightning was seen on the horizon. The great heat was broken by a cool wind ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... visit of three days, to Lynchburg, attending the Episcopal Convention, and I have not yet brought up my correspondence, etc. I fear, too, I shall have to go to Richmond next week, as everything seems to portend the certainty of Mr. Davis's trial. God grant that, like the impeachment of Mr. Johnson, it may be dismissed. If I do go, I fear I shall have no time to visit you. The examinations of the senior classes of the college are now in progress, and after their completion ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... brothers there appeared an expression, not of absolute melancholy, but of quiet thoughtfulness very unusual at a festive table. As Nicholas, struck by this sudden alteration, was wondering what it could portend, the brothers rose together, and the one at the top of the table leaning forward towards the other, and speaking in a low voice as if he were ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... place near the Phrygian Dorylaion, and seemed at first to portend dire defeat to the crusaders. More than once the issue of the day seemed to be turned by the indomitable personal bravery of the Norman Robert, of Tancred, and of Bohemond; and when even those seemed likely to be borne down, they received timely succors ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... from your post, to the alarm and surprise of all who know you, here I find you mooning in the darkness, and when I illuminate you, you smile up at me in a somewhat imbecile manner, and say nothing. What may it portend?" ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... was not, though; for the conversation gradually sank down the scale to a monotonous murmur. A second hour passed, and yet a third. What could this interminable visit portend? ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Though showers of hail Morocco never see, Dull priest, what does all this portend ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... concluded. He would never have argued on similar lines a short time ago. This downright sympathy with sinners, what did it portend? Did it betray a lapse from his old-established principles, a waning of his respect for traditional morality? Was he becoming a ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... interior of Asia, and is approaching. The report is current that neighboring cities have begun to feel its ravages. Those we love—in a month, in a week, where will they be? War is declared. We hear of preparations for death; the sovereigns of Europe apply themselves to calculations which seem to portend torrents of blood. If war breaks out, that brother, that son, who will have to take up arms, that daughter who will one day perhaps find herself at the mercy of an unbridled soldiery——. But let us not look for examples so far away. Have you no dear one in a distant land of whom you are ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... explain all the struggles, great and small, that have agitated society, varying in character and circumstances, and ranging from fervent emulation to violent collision—from the ferment of ideas which is the surest sign of vitality to the selfish and aimless convulsions that portend dissolution. Applied to that condition of things by which it was suggested, the theory may be allowed to stand. The history of parliamentary government in England, in recent times at least, presents a tolerably fair example of a contest between two parties ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... up at his post, troubled, alert. What did this portend? He leaned over to seek that minstrel who sang to prisoners, and send an arrow through him; but the minstrel had disappeared; nor was he heard from for weary weeks; but then came from England a demand for release so peremptory ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... he had heard. He knew perfectly well what Stahl was driving at, and that revelations of another kind were yet to follow. What bereft him of very definite speech was this new fact slowly awakening in his consciousness which hypnotized him, as it were, with its grandeur. It seemed to portend that his own primitive yearnings, so-called, grew out of far deeper foundations than he had yet dreamed of even. Stahl, should he choose to listen, meant to give him explanation, quasi-scientific explanation. This talk about a survival of "unexpended mythological values" carried him off ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... minute and then skipped in after him, and the cormorants ceased their diving and the seagulls their wheelings and mewings, and all gathered agitatedly on a rock at the farther side of the bay, and wondered what such shouts and laughter might portend. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... much unlike those peaceful notes, That equal harmony, which floats On the dull wing of City air, Grave prelude to a feast or fair: Much did he inly ruminate Concerning the decrees of Fate, Revolving, though to little end, What this same trumpet might portend. Could the French—no—that could not be, Under Bute's active ministry, 640 Too watchful to be so deceived— Have stolen hither unperceived? To Newfoundland,[233] indeed, we know Fleets of war unobserved may go; Or, if observed, may be supposed, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Stuart in his suspicions that the conspiracy, whatever it might portend, was directed against the authority of the United States, since the Panama Canal Zone is under ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... dependance upon them; but fear I do not make that improvement of them which I ought. Thankful I am for the decision I feel; but stand in doubt of myself, should a storm of persecution arise, whether I should be able to endure the fiery test. Clouds gather round about; the signs of the times portend a season of trial; my heart, while I write, says, 'I will be Thine:' but Thou knowest how unstable I am,—Three strangers came to the class; two of them were much affected. I want to feel more deeply for souls, and to do every thing ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... smell. Seated round it were a dozen or so folk, of all ages and conditions, who set up such a shout as Alleyne entered that he stood peering at them through the smoke, uncertain what this riotous greeting might portend. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... already fast growing dark, and the natural obscurity of the hour was increased by the thickness of the lowering clouds, which overspread the whole firmament of heaven, and seemed to portend a tempest. But from the jaws of the semicircular arch of Roman brick, within which the group was collected, a broad and wavering sheet of light was projected far into the street, and over the fronts of the buildings opposite, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... thinking on can be done or not?" When he had tried the matter by divination, he affirmed it certainly could. "But I was thinking," says he, "whether you could cut asunder this whetstone with a razor. Take it, and perform what thy birds portend may be done." Upon this, as they say, he immediately cut the whetstone in two. A statue of Attus, with his head veiled, was erected in the comitium, upon the very steps on the left of the senate-house, on the spot where the transaction ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... will leave you,' said I: 'what I can spare, shall freely be thine. But time is precious, for we are yet but midway the desert, and the signs of the heavens portend wind and whirlwind: hasten then and mount the dromedary of my slave, while I upon mine-bear as stronger than ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... a river ran Through the whole house, that it roared violently, rushed over the benches, brake the feet of yon brothers twain; Nothing the water spared; Something that will portend." ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... slipped down upon his knees, released his hold of the timber, and crouched down until his shoulders were on a level with the bench. He had shouted to Sir Oliver to follow his example, and Sir Oliver without even knowing what the manoeuvre should portend, but gathering its importance from the other's urgency of tone, promptly obeyed. The oar was struck an instant later and ere it snapped off it was flung back, braining one of the slaves at the bench and mortally ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said - "Is it not strange, that, as ye sung, Seemed in mine ear a death-peal rung, Such as in nunneries they toll For some departing sister's soul; Say, what may this portend?" Then first the Palmer silence broke, (The livelong day he had not spoke) "The death of a ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... throughout their whole force. It was a sort of wavering and unsteadiness which, to us, was quite unaccountable, for Fanning and Wharton had not yet fired twenty shots, and, indeed, had only just come within range of the enemy. Not knowing what it could portend, I called in my men, and stationed them round the gun, which I had double-shotted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... relative to India portend? Hitherto she had quite forgotten the letter from Mr. Lindsay, and now breaking the seal, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... for it seemed to me to portend trouble for little Vicky. Was she giving herself up, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Nol, I beseech thee! Thou never art more pery than when it rains with thee. Wet days, among those of thy kidney, portend the letting of blood. What ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... shooting of stars (as they call it) is an usual sign of wind from that quarter the star came from, Redness of the Skie in the morning is a token of Winds, or Rain, or both: if the circles that appear about the Sun, be red and broken, they portend wind: if thick and dark, Winds, Snow, or Rain: The like may be said of the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... waitest late, and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged Year is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a card from his knee, laughing uncertainly, aware of symptoms in his pretty vis-a-vis which always made him uncomfortable. For months, now, at certain intervals, these recurrent symptoms had made him wary; but what they might portend he did not know, only that, alone with her, moments occurred when he was heavily aware of a tension which, after a while, affected even his few thick nerves. One of those intervals was threatening now: her flushed cheeks, her feverish activity with her hands, the unconscious reflex movement ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... that there were no dark nights); 'the heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,' he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring with them and leave behind them the seeds of blood ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... when a tank or river could be seen; but if the crow was perched on the back of a buffalo or pig or on the skeleton of any animal, it was a bad omen. Tanks or rivers were likely places for booty in the shape of resting travellers, whose death the appearance of the crow might portend; whereas in the other positions it might prognosticate a Thug's own death. The chirping of the small owlet was considered to be a bad omen, whether made while the bird was sitting or flying; It was known as chiraiya and is a low and melancholy sound seldom repeated. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... diviner, tell me, whether what I have in my mind can be done or not?" When Attus, having tried the matter by divination, affirmed that it certainly could, "Well, then," said he, "I was thinking that you should cut asunder this whetstone with a razor. Take it, then, and perform what thy birds portend can be done." Thereupon they say that he immediately cut the whetstone in two. A statue of Attus, with his head veiled, was erected in the comitium, close to the steps on the left of the senate-house, on ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... seene: As glow wormes adde a tincture to the night, Glimmering in pallid fire, vppon some greene, mixt with the dew, so did her eyes appeare, Each goulden glance ioyn'd with a dewy teare, oft shut her eyes, like starres that portend ill, with bloody deluge, they their orbes ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... faction generally sees the society which he has quitted through a false medium. Every object is distorted and discoloured by his regrets, his longings, and his resentments. Every little discontent appears to him to portend a revolution. Every riot is a rebellion. He cannot be convinced that his country does not pine for him as much as he pines for his country. He imagines that all his old associates, who still dwell at their ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her a quarter-of-an-hour's lesson in the art of drawing cheques. Then I took up the paying-in book which was lying on the table. I knew it ought to be in a virgin state as I had added nothing to the entrance money. "And what might all these figures portend?" I asked. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... to think thereof," he chuckled, "there must have been scores of men who felt it just as they were starting somewhere; and I warrant every one of them took it to himself, and put off his business! Well, well, I can tell what it did portend, however, for Ethelbert, and that is a mighty change in his household so soon as he gets his new wife home. Earthquake, forsooth! Mayhap he will wish he had hearkened to its message when she turns his ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... depending from her head draped picturesquely the handsome visage of Madonna Serafina. She stopped as she recognised me, and I saw that she wished to speak. Her eye was bright, and her ample bosom heaved in a way that seemed to portend a certain sharpness of reproach. But the expression of my own face, apparently, drew the sting from her resentment, and she addressed me in a tone in which bitterness was tempered by a sort of dogged resignation. "I know it was you, now, that separated us," ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... breast this grief could move? Neglected love. What doth my fond desires withstand? Fate's cruel hand. And what confirms my misery? Heaven's fixed decree. Ah me! my boding fears portend, This strange disease my life will end: For die I must, when three such foes, Heaven, fate, and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... chill of fear Miss Lou, in her chamber, recognized her cousin's voice, and knew that he, with his band, had come to claim hospitality at his uncle's hands. What complications did his presence portend? Truly, the long months of monotony on the old plantation were broken now. What the end would be she dared not think, but for the moment her spirit exulted in the excitement which would at least ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... not budge. The sight of Sissy had made her a Madigan again, prepared for any emergency the appearance of her arch-enemy might portend. "What are you up to?" ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... aloft, and from thence let it fall into the sea. The water of the sea that washed the castle walls was for a whole day sweet and potable, as many that tasted it experienced. Pigs were farrowed perfect in all their other parts, but without ears. This the diviners declared to portend revolt and rebellion, for that the subjects would no longer give ear to the commands of their superiors. They expounded the sweetness of the water to signify to the Syracusans a change from hard and grievous times into easier and more happy circumstances. The eagle being the bird of Jupiter, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... now. Plainly the Germans meant to take no chances. They couldn't guess what the gathering their airplanes had observed might portend, but, if they could, they meant to defeat its object, whatever that might be. Well, they did not succeed, but they probably had the satisfaction of thinking that they had, and I, for one, do not begrudge them that. They forced the Reverend Harry ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... distinguished from the phantom coaches, of which numerous circumstantial tales are also told. The first are harbingers of death, and in this connection are very often attached to certain families; the latter appear to be spectral phenomena pure and simple, whose appearance does not necessarily portend ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... threat might portend, I could not see, but it chimed in with the delirious cruelty of the dead sergeant. Threats for the future mattered not, the present being so unendurable. A man in Brocton's position must be hard put to it to turn traitor in this strange fashion. He had "rescued" me with his ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Stern's brain still lurked a haunting fear of the wood, of what the assegai-point might portend, but he dispelled it. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... of party, the interests of the public, even the maxims of justice and candour, are sometimes forgotten; and yet those fatal consequences which such a measure of corruption seems to portend, do not unavoidably follow. The public interest is often secure, not because individuals are disposed to regard it as the end of their conduct, but because each, in his place, is determined to preserve his own. Liberty is maintained by the continued differences and oppositions of numbers, not ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... elements, or they are so scattered and disunited that they never can come together, and the only man who might have collected, and formed, and directed them begs leave to be excused. It is a wretched state of things and can portend no good. If there had not been prognostications of ruin and destruction to the State in all times, proceeding from all parties, which the event has universally falsified, I should believe that the consummation of evil was really at hand; as it is I cannot feel that certainty of destruction ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... deferred till the morning. But the sound of battle to the south-west introduced a complication. "We distinctly heard," says Jackson, "the rapid and continued discharges of cannon."* (* Jackson's Report, O.R. volume 11 part 1 page 553.) What did this fire portend? It might proceed, as was to be inferred from Lee's orders, from the heavy batteries on the Chickahominy covering Hill's passage. It might mean a Federal counterstroke on Hill's advanced guard; or, possibly, a premature attack on ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I serve her, she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacity; there is no obstruction in this;—And the end,—What should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that resemble something ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... its motions; and perceiving it frequently to divide, and presently to close again, and not to continue long in any determined shape, our captain, who had never before been so far to the southward as he then found himself, had many conjectures what this phenomenon might portend; and every one offering his own opinion, it seemed at last to be generally agreed that there might possibly be a storm gathering in the air, of which this was the prognostic; and by its following, and nearly keeping pace with us, we were in great fear lest it should break upon ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... on this serious subject, we began to wonder what Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Seated round it were a dozen or so folk, of all ages and conditions, who set up such a shout as Alleyne entered that he stood peering at them through the smoke, uncertain what this riotous greeting might portend. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the little street in a purposeless way that was highly fraught with nothing. Already the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horse-back, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... that these dreams might as easily have been interpreted to portend death and destruction to their English foes as to the dreamers themselves. The soldiers were, however, inclined—in the state of mind which the season of the year, the threatening aspect of the skies, and the certain dangers of their distant expedition, produced—to ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... conversation I heard footsteps upon the cobbles outside. Hawkins and the landlord exchanged a swift glance, and then to my surprise they both stared at me questioningly. Before a word could be exchanged, however, and before I had time even to surmise what this covert uneasiness might portend, a young fellow entered whose carriage and ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... part of our stay in the September of that year we saw on one of these occasions the marvellous apparition of the great comet, which at that time was at its highest brilliancy, and was generally said to portend an imminent catastrophe. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and general chilliness, seemed to portend they were getting into a more open sea, and, as the motion increased, the saloon began to thin a little. The bride's prattle deepened into moanings and complaints; she was laid on the sofa, covered with shawls, and supplied with sal-volatile and smelling-bottles by her devoted ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin where the remains of Frankenstein still lie. I must arise and ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... position which he had discovered during the night. In a measure he was nonplussed. That the presence of the girl was primarily associated with the coercion of Paul Harley, he understood; but might it not portend something even ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... thing—reconciliation. And now had come Lady Ingleton's revelation. Instinctively as Rosamund left Father Robertson's little room she had tried to hide her face. She had received a blow, and the pain of it frightened her. She was startled by her own suffering. What did it mean? What did it portend? She had no right to feel as she did. Long ago she had abandoned the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... . Strange Things are Dreames. Dear Mother thinks much of them, and sayth they oft portend coming Events. My Father holdeth the Opinion that they are rather made up of what hath alreadie come to passe; but surelie naught like this Dreame of mine hath in anie Part ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... To see Capella, the hitherto unchallenged ruler of that quarter of the sky, abased by comparison with this stranger of alien aspect, for there was always an unfamiliar look about the "nova,'' was decidedly disconcerting. It seemed to portend the beginning of a revolution in the heavens. One could understand what the effect of such an apparition must have been in the superstitious times of Tycho. The star of Tycho had burst forth on the northern border of the Milky Way; this one was on its southern ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... the house I was met by the young man who had set me the morning's task; but he was taciturn now, and wore a cold, estranged look, which seemed to portend trouble. He at once led me to a part of the house at a distance from the hall, and into a large apartment I now saw for the first time. In a few moments the master of the house, followed by most of the other inmates, also entered, and on ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... prophet Rui, a ram's heart, instead of a man's, had been found, and desired them all to follow his instructions. Each one, he said, was to fall on his knees and pray, while he would carry the heart into the holiest of holies, and enquire of the Gods what this wonder might portend ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... still, Thou with fresh hope the Lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, They liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some Grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief; yet hadst no reason why, Whether the Muse, or ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... progressed, found himself watching Delavan Eyre, opposite, who was drinking with sustained intensity, but without apparent effect upon his debonair bearing. Banneker thought to read a haunting fear in his eyes, and was cogitating upon what it might portend, when his attention was distracted by Ely Ives, who had been requested (as he announced) to exhibit his small skill at some minor sleight-of-hand tricks. The skill, far from justifying its possessor's modest estimate, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... What does this portend—this entrance of another theme, written for the treble clef, played with the right hand, but mysteriously interwoven with the bass? What but that Bluebeard is not to be the sole personage in this music-drama; and we ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... away, because before Suzanne left me to visit her relatives in Middleshire I had vowed that nothing would induce me to do so. But Chesterminster wanted me. What should that portend? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... were not to touch at all, nor to speak, except in their husband's company, even on the most ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the confidence to plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said, sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend; and, indeed, their general good behavior and submissiveness is justly proved by the record of those that were otherwise; for as the Greek historians record in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of civil war, or murdered their brothers, or were parricides, or ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... beneficent sunlight flooded the immeasurable air. Only, as the day declined, some iridescent films overspread the west; and just above Maloja the apparition of a mock sun—a well-defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular intervals by four globes—seemed to portend a change of weather. This forecast fortunately proved delusive. We drove back to Samaden across the silent snow, enjoying those delicate tints of rose and violet and saffron which shed enchantment for one hour over the white ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the cormorants ceased their diving and the seagulls their wheelings and mewings, and all gathered agitatedly on a rock at the farther side of the bay, and wondered what such shouts and laughter might portend. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... locks; and, looking into the cavity, she beheld, far down, glimpses of a long streak of light, intensely but darkly red. 'Strange!' she said, shrinking back; 'it is only within the last two days that dull, deep light hath been visible—what can it portend?' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the sky portend, my child? There must be some dreadful fire; and, alas! it looks as if in the neighbourhood ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... solely to you, and I desire you will not communicate it to Lady Fanny: she is the best woman in the world, and I would by no means make her uneasy; but there will be such strange things in it that the Talmud or the Revelations are not half so mysterious: what these prodigies portend, God knows; but I never should have suspected half the wonders I see before my eyes, and am convinced of the necessity of the repeal of the witch act (as it is commonly called), I mean, to speak correctly, the tacit permission given to ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... in the king's imagination being haunted, during his sleep, by the image of such a calamity, were it not that, in this case, the deluge of water which produced such disastrous results seemed to be, in some mysterious way, connected with his daughter, so that the dream appeared to portend some great calamity which was to originate in her. He thought it perhaps indicated that after her marriage she should have a son who would rebel against him and seize the supreme power, thus overwhelming his kingdom as the inundation had ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... substance—"Remember to forget Mary Garland." Sometimes it seemed as if he were succeeding; then, suddenly, when he was least expecting it, he would find her name, inaudibly, on his lips, and seem to see her eyes meeting his eyes. All this made him uncomfortable, and seemed to portend a possible discord. Discord was not to his taste; he shrank from imperious passions, and the idea of finding himself jealous of an unsuspecting friend was absolutely repulsive. More than ever, then, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... luncheon-time, and an afternoon loaded with callers was oppressive, but Sophy kept up well. At last, in the twilight, the door was heard to open, and Genevieve came in alone. They listened, and knew she must have run up to her own room. What did it portend? Albinia must be the one to go and see, so after a due interval, she went up and knocked. Genevieve opened the door, and threw herself into her arms. 'Dear Mrs. Kendal! Oh! have I done wrong? I am so very happy, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appearance. I had made up my mind to separate my evil destiny from that of Jane, and could only portend new trials and difficulties from the appearance of one ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... The Chief Herald clasped his massy brow and gazed with eye distraught. "Sir Knight—messire—my very good and noble Lord of Tong—I grope! Here is that which hath a seeming ... thy so many parts portend somewhat ... and yet ... I excogitate ... yet grope I still ... impart, part ... thy part and its part ... so many parts ... and roses ... and songs o' love ... a lute! O, thundering ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... knew what the clack-clacking was then; it was this party's joints working together, and his elbows knocking against his sides as he walked. I may say I was surprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon any speculations as to what this apparition might portend, I heard another one coming for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of a coffin on his shoulder, and some foot and head boards under his arm. I mightily wanted, to peer under his hood and speak to him, but when he turned and smiled ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of wit; when lo! there issued from the thicket another image of my beloved and blamed me and threatened me. God wot good cause there was of the blame. But tell me, mother, since thou callest thyself wise, what may this portend? ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... Nan. The Master of the Trevithick was not in the habit of bringing ladies to see the kennels, and the whip and his wife had discussed the matter very fully over their supper the previous evening, trying to guess what it might portend. "A new mistress up at the 'All, I shouldn't wonder," ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... she not understand me? Every word! Else why that listening ear turned back to catch my softest whisper; why the responsive quiver through the frame, and the low, happy neigh? 'Well,' I exclaimed, as I leaped from her back at the close of the review—alas! that words spoken in lightest mood should portend so much!—'well, Gulnare, if you should die, your life has had its triumph. The nation itself, through its admiring capital, has paid tribute to your beauty, and death can never rob you of your fame.' And I patted her moist neck and foam-flecked shoulders, while the grooms were ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... dinna think she's fell gled to be hame hersel',' said Teen, and her dark eye was shadowed, for she felt that a subtle change had overcast the bright spirit of Gladys, and she did not know what it might portend. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... times during this trying trundle of a mile along the chief business thoroughfare of Kan-tchou-foo, the swelling whoops and yells of "Fankwae" seem to portend the immediate bursting of the anticipated storm, and a dozen times I breathe easier at the subsidence of its volume. The while I am still hoping faintly for a repetition in part of my delightful surprise at Chao-choo-foo, we arrive at a gate leading out on to a broad paved quay of the Kan-kiang, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... came a woman, dressed in sombre garb. Approaching the sleeping priest she wrote upon his sleeve the character ki [ki], bowed reverently, and disappeared. He awoke seeming to hear her footsteps. How clear was this dream! The character ki, what did it portend? The Buddha would not fail his priest. Taking himself to the altar he prostrated himself before the seated figure. Then he prayed. And as he prayed—perhaps resumed his nap—wonderful to say again the character [ki] appeared, this time on the Buddha's sleeve. The Sho[u]nin ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... What could it be but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the children of women! Did not this portend disaster in ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... happen? How deserves this man The wretchedness of his great agonies?" "How do I know?" said Channa, "for we all Are subject to distemper and disease. Sometimes the best are stricken—and must die!" "Must die?" cried I, "What does that word portend?" For, you must know, I never heard of death. My father had forbidden, at his court To speak to me of anything unpleasant. "Yea, die!" said Channa, "Look around and see!" Along the road a funeral procession Moved slowly, solemnly and mournfully And on the bier ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... whatever it was, had fallen since, and she felt it had some connection with the happenings of the evening. This unprecedented forbearance of his was a part of it. Of that she was sure. What did it portend? Was he angry? Or had Lucy Webster dropped some remark that had shown him the folly and uselessness of his resentment? Jane would have given a great deal to know just what had occurred on that walk in the rain. Perhaps Lucy had openly attacked Martin's ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... and shook her head. A vague and formless trouble had laid its cold touch upon her heart; it was as though she saw a cloud coming up, but it was no larger than a man's hand, and she knew not what it should portend, nor that it would grow into a storm. He was strange to-day,—that she felt; but then all her day since the coming of Evelyn had been ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... not suffer a Ban-box to be carried into her Room before it has been searched. Notwithstanding these Precautions, I am at my Wits End for fear of any sudden Surprize. There were, two or three Nights ago, some Fiddles heard in the Street, which I am afraid portend me no Good; not to mention a tall Irish-Man, that has been seen walking before my House more than once this Winter. My Kinswoman likewise informs me, that the Girl has talked to her twice or thrice of a Gentleman in a Fair Wig, and that she loves to go ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... cloud that at sunset had been hovering on the verge of the western horizon, had been stealthily creeping zenith-ward, and at the same time spreading out north and south, with a look in it that seemed to portend more wind; so, as a measure of precaution, I went to work, upon the conclusion of our meal, and shortened sail by taking down a couple of reefs in the mainsail, and a single reef in the little stay foresail which the boat carried. And, this done, I rearranged the royal in the stern-sheets ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Royal House, in Murillo they are all beggars. They are too often stupid in Michelozzo: in Andrea della Robbia they are always sweet and winsome; Pigalle's children know too much. Donatello alone grasped the whole psychology. He watched the coming generation, and foresaw all that it might portend: tragedy and comedy, labour and sorrow, work and play—plenty of play; and every problem of life is reflected and made younger by his chisel. How far the sculptors of the fifteenth century employed classical ideas is not easily determined. There was, however, one classical form which was ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... hold out till spring!" Then hug themselves, and reason thus: "It is not yet so bad with us!" In such a case, they talk in tropes, And by their fears express their hopes: Some great misfortune to portend, No enemy can match a friend. With all the kindness they profess, The merit of a lucky guess (When daily how d'ye's come of course, And servants answer, "Worse and worse!") Wou'd please 'em better, than to tell, That, "God be prais'd, the Dean is well." Then he, who prophecy'd the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... do you mean by these fateful prophecies? You fill me with terror. Why should a dream so gentle and sweet portend sorrow? ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... ITSELF a brightness throws O'er all our labours and our woes; While dark foreboding Care A thousand ills will oft portend, That Providence may ne'er intend ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... out of a cloudless sky; but now, while the camp was being pitched, a thin haze began insidiously to overspread the blue, while away toward the south-west a great bank of slatey blue cloud appeared above the ridge of the distant hills, working up against the wind and seeming to portend a thunderstorm. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... impressions of that night. The picturesqueness of the scene was not lessened by the element of personal interest that attached to it. What did this portend—this ragged remnant of a defeated army hurrying through the capital in the dead of night? Were the French approaching, driving it before them? Was it intended to garrison the city, and here to make the last stand in defense of the republic and of Mexican liberty? Or, on the contrary, was it beating ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... the remains, samples of the military provisions were brought to him as an offering, as is usual in the case of princes; and the public animals were paraded before him; and a concourse of people came out to meet him as was usual; which, with other similar demonstrations, seemed to portend to Jovianus, as the superintendent of his funeral, the attainment of the empire, but an ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... had taken me into astonishing situations, but never into one so astounding as this. I racked my brain in wondering what it could portend; in conjecturing if it were real, or if it were only the "hearty meal before the execution." I longed to ask a few questions, but remembering the advice that had been given me just before ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... Rosario, we noticed right down in the S.W., on the horizon, great banks of grey-looking clouds, which, to our surprise, seemed to be rolling rapidly up the sky towards us. They had a most alarming appearance, for these masses of grey cloud approaching so rapidly seemed to portend a storm of terrible force. In less than twenty minutes from the time we first saw the clouds the afternoon had changed from brilliant sunshine to pitchy darkness. So rapidly had the darkness come on us that no one was prepared, and no matches or lights were forthcoming; so there we stood ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... portend? Such muteness he had never shown; Was he so very near the end? Ah, Leo, had ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... we shall vainly seek for joy in the vulgar excitements and coarse titillations of appetites and desires which the world offers. 'Calm pleasures there abide' in Christ. The northern lights are weird and bright, but they belong to midwinter, and they come from electric disturbances, and portend rough weather afterwards. Sunshine is silent, steadfast, pure. Better to walk in that light than to be led astray by fantastic and perishable splendours. 'Rejoice in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... very soon slept the sleep of the ignorant, which is often sounder than the sleep of the just. Overwhelmed by the questions that crowded upon his brain, Captain Servadac could only wander up and down the shore. Again and again he asked himself what the catastrophe could portend. Had the towns of Algiers, Oran, and Mostaganem escaped the inundation? Could he bring himself to believe that all the inhabitants, his friends, and comrades had perished; or was it not more probable that the Mediterranean had merely invaded the region ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... before that her mother was ill; she thought that her husband had received some bad news. The day was Monday, which is considered an unlucky day among the Russians, and, going out that day, Elizabeth had met a man in mourning; these omens were too numerous and too strong not to portend misfortune. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... knocks upon the great outer door resounded through the house. Who could possibly have strayed here at this hour, so far from the travelled roads, and in this tempest that was making night horrible without? No such thing had occurred within the baron's recollection. What could it portend? ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... seven fears made the vision of his sleep, But none of all his wisest dream-readers Could tell their meaning. Then the King was wroth, Saying, "There cometh evil to my house, And none of ye have wit to help me know What the great gods portend sending me this." So in the city men went sorrowful Because the King had dreamed seven signs of fear Which none could read; but to the gate there came An aged man, in robe of deer-skin clad, By guise a hermit, known to none; he cried, "Bring me before the King, for I can ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... heard this uncommon document read from end to end, and then gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... baffle the attempts of ordinary men to describe, having taxed even the powers of Southey and Wordsworth. These recommendations and others were all qualified with the words "if fine." But, oh that little word "if"—so small that we scarcely notice it, yet how much does it portend! At any rate we could not arrive at a satisfactory decision that night, owing to the unfavourable state of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... comet blazed on our sight, exciting the wonder of every tribe we visited. That of 1816 had been followed by an irruption of the Matabele, the most cruel enemies the Bechuanas ever knew, and this they thought might portend something as bad, or it might only foreshadow the death of some great chief. On this subject of comets I knew little more than they did themselves, but I had that confidence in a kind overruling Providence which makes such a difference ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... southward from the frozen North, is gradually undermined by warmer seas, and, become at last unstable, churns the sea to yeast for miles around by the mighty rockings that portend its overturn, so the barbaric industrial and social system, which has come down to us from savage antiquity, undermined by the modern humane spirit, riddled by the criticism of economic science, is shaking the world with convulsions that presage ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... old women, young ones with infants in their arms, flocked to doors and windows to see this awe-inspiring spectacle. Most of them shuddered with superstitious dread of what it might portend. "She totin' Cheri!" some of ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... small, that have agitated society, varying in character and circumstances, and ranging from fervent emulation to violent collision—from the ferment of ideas which is the surest sign of vitality to the selfish and aimless convulsions that portend dissolution. Applied to that condition of things by which it was suggested, the theory may be allowed to stand. The history of parliamentary government in England, in recent times at least, presents a tolerably ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... sight, then turned his horse downhill again, and rode on his quest. A number of horsemen like that was a very unusual sight around Grass Valley at any time. What then did it portend now? Jean experienced a little shock of uneasy dread that was a new sensation for him. Brooding over this he proceeded on his way, at length to turn into the draw where the camp of the sheep-herders was located. Upon coming in sight of it he heard ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... by some unhappy chance, I was fully engaged in work at the hospital. Late at night a letter arrived for me. I glanced at it in dismay. It bore the Basingstoke postmark. But, to my alarm and surprise, it was in Hilda's hand. What could this change portend? ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... then in the other, picturing to my imagination favours done me, real or imagined, until, to hear them, they might have been my guardian angels; while I went between them silent and mighty sullen, casting about in my mind as to what all this should portend. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... indeed be sent to the Home for Defectives. That way lies perhaps the solution of our Social Problem. The pessimist may cry out at the size of the Homes that his fears portend. Yet, even at the worst, who will deny that it is better, beyond comparison better, that even only a minority of Mankind should be free—free to develop in the sun and free to climb to the sky and free to be damned—than that ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... son of Priam, king of Troy. His father ordered him to be put to death at his birth, in consequence of his mother having dreamt that she was delivered of a firebrand which reduced the city to ashes, and the augurs interpreting the dream to portend that the child would occasion the destruction of Troy. The persons appointed to despatch the child, contented themselves with exposing him on Mount Ida, where he was brought up by the shepherds. On account ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... lying in one bed, burned them even to ashes; then the south wind, blowing strongly, dispersed their ashes over many parts of Ireland. And Milcho, awaking, meditated with himself on his couch what prodigy might this remote vision portend. On the morrow, Patrick being called before him, he declared unto him his dream, entreating and abjuring him that if he knew he would unfold its interpretation. And Patrick, being filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, answered ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... perturbed. In earliest practice he had a way of dropping his eye-glass as if startled by the uproar, and searched for it with puzzled, preoccupied expression, apparently debating with himself what this outburst might portend. He did not love the British House of Commons, and delighted in thwarting its purposes. But he knew what was due to it in the way of respect, and, however angry passions might rise, however turbulent the scene, he would never address ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... much more, to be attained by no other means, was learned from the strong waters given to the Abnakis by the strange spirit. And Wangewaha, the dreamer, woke from his sleep, rubbed his eyes, and indulged in deep thought of what the dream might portend. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... had brought to a temporary standstill the operations of the British troops engaged in the first Afghan campaign, and I took the opportunity of this inaction to make a journey into Native Burmah, the condition of which seemed thus early to portend the interest which almost immediately after converged upon it, because of King Thebau's wholesale slaughter of his relatives. Reaching Mandalay, the capital of Native Burmah, in the beginning of February 1879, I immediately set about compassing an interview with the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... giving himself up to the numb, delicious feeling of the last sleep—no more to be feared and fought against—when his ear caught the sound of steps, muffled by the leaves of the undergrowth carpeting the ground. He started; life for an instant returned to him. Did that portend the approach of the soldiers, or was it some friendly Indian roaming the forest for game, and now on his return home? He gazed into the obscurity of the approaching night, lying back too weak to ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... before, and this without great rains or any other cause which might make the thing less to be wondered at. Messengers therefore were sent to the oracle of Delphi to enquire of the god what this might portend. But the Romans found, for so fate would have it, an interpreter of the marvel that was nearer at hand than the oracle of Apollo. As the Roman soldiers and the soldiers of Veii talked together at the outposts, a certain ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... may not dislike: perhaps under that name I have shadowed Discipline. It may be I mean that kind courtesy which I found at the patroness of these poems. It may be some college; it may be my conceit, and portend nothing." It is evident then that the patroness herself is not the real person behind the poetic title. He therefore dedicates Licia to Lady Molineux, not because the sonnets themselves are addressed ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Hippolytus, separated and torn from that so well chosen and compacted a body. The Earl of Anglesey's, and several others since, by I know not what invidious fate, passed the same fortune, to whatever influence and constellation now reigning malevolent to books and libraries, which can portend no good ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... Portend the deeds to come: —but he whose nod Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway, A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod; A little moment deigneth to delay: Soon will his legions sweep through these the ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... jutted out from the main land, far to the eastward. Numberless summer insects mingled their discordant strains amidst the weedy herbage. A heavy black cloud was rising in the north west, which seemed to portend a shower, as the sonorous, distant thunder was at long ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... imaginable! the King talks of receiving the Danish minister on Thursday, which, you know, is his day of domestic business! What can this portend? Besides," and here the speaker's voice lowered into a whisper, "I am told by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld that the king intends, out of all ordinary rule and practice, to take physic to-morrow: I can't believe it; no, I positively can't; but don't let ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to wear a crown of laurel on great occasions, and had always evinced a particular fondness for that decoration, that plant had come to be considered his own proper badge, and the fall of the laurel, therefore, was naturally thought to portend some great ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
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