"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and there was only one way to do that—talk to her. He must persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so, anyhow, for ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... royal alliance for Louis. He often expressed regret at the precipitate marriages of his sisters. It should be recollected that we were now in the year which saw the Consulship for life established, and which, consequently, gave presage of the Empire. Napoleon said truly to the companions of his exile that "Louis' marriage was the result of Josephine's intrigues," but I cannot understand how he never mentioned the intention he once had of uniting Hortense to Duroc. It has been erroneously stated that the First Consul believed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... all that they carried. At that place many of their Christian captives were recovered. At this time, in the middle of the night, a strange thing happened, almost prophetic of the misfortune to those Moros, and apparently a presage of their fall and destruction. There was an earthquake, so sudden and so terrible that it was plainly felt upon the sea; and a rumbling which sounded as if some aperture of hell were opening. All our soldiers were thoroughly terrified at ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougierre to be my governess, highly recommended and perfectly qualified. My heart sank with a sure presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted, and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... When Zein ul Asnam saw these portents, his joints trembled and he was sore affrighted, for that he beheld a thing he had never in all his life seen nor heard. But Mubarek laughed at him and said to him, "Fear not, O my lord; this whereat thou art affrighted is that which we seek; nay, it is a presage of good to-us. So take heart and be of good cheer." After this there came a great clearness and serenity and there breathed pure and fragrant breezes; then, presently, behold, there appeared the King of the Jinn in the semblance of a ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of joy and gratulation and happy presage ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he guessed, before she had time ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... the eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe!' and 'Here's to British colours on every French fort, port, and garrison in America!' Of course they were standing toasts. The men who drank them already felt the presage of Pitt's great Empire Year ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... sad presage of an approaching famine (as one well observes), not of bread nor water, but of hearing the word of God, when the thin ears of corn devour the plump full ones; when the lean kine devour the fat ones; when our controversies about ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... adequately fulfilled. I have derived monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, 'proceeded from the presage of fore-feeling of immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... disappear. And then, while Gawayne dressed, there came a knock Upon his chamber door. He threw the lock, And a boy page brought robes of ermine fur And Tarsic silk,—black, white, and lavender,— For his array, and with them a kind message, Which the good knight received with no ill presage: "Will brave Sir Gawayne spare an idle hour For quiet converse in my lady's bower?" The boy led on, and Gawayne followed him Through crooked corridors and archways dim, Along low galleries echoing ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... grew clammy with the slimy ooze That fester'd on the walls in sick'ning streams, As on the pallid brow Death's icy dews Gather, the presage of corruption's seams; Pale horror every sound and motion glues, So corpse-like all around the dungeon seems; But on—and a low portal met her hand, By iron staunchions in quaint ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... hope so, dearest. Yet this strange presage of coming evil, this shadow which I so often seem to see, appears so real, so ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... passed, and another Sunday came,—a Sunday so still and hot and moist that steam seemed to rise from the heavy trees,—an idle day for master and servant alike. A hush was in the air, and a presage of we knew not what. It weighed upon my spirits, and even Nick's, and we wandered restlessly under ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Already a presage of evil seemed to be forming itself in his mind. He would have given anything to have thought of some ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it you say?" cried she, in a piercing voice. "Did you say it hath caused the death of three men? Quick! Tell me what has happened, for I feel somehow a presage that you bring me news of safety and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the beginning of June by what they regarded as a fearful sign from Heaven—a shower of what is commonly known as "red rain." In their eyes it was blood, and a presage of dreadful slaughter. The slaughter followed, whatever the shower might mean. The last year ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and immediately did she feel her mind filled with a train of shocking and fearful reminiscences. Her physical sufferings were also great. She felt benumbed and chilled; her heart was cold, and a shivering sickness ran through her whole frame, with a deadly presage of approaching dissolution. She looked up to the sky, then round her at the graves, and in a moment recognized the burying-place of her husband and children. All the circumstances then connected with the Extermination scene at Drum Dim, and that of the treble death in the mountains, rushed ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war—alike elemental and human—and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a youthful life. As with all superstition, the sign is not merely the prediction of an event; it is felt that as the avoidance of the omen would be to escape its consequence, so the careless action, in becoming the presage of calamity, is likewise its cause. Here appear natural antinomies of human thought: on the one hand, the sense of the inevitableness of the designated fate; on the other hand, the consciousness of ability ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could be seen rising like waterspouts. But it was the ear rather than the eye which made certain presage of disaster. No boat could face the challenge of ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... she chose a piece of pure organ music—the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement—the presage ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... providential appointment commonly preceded and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts and feelings in that direction toward which a change is to be made. And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass across the field of events. This was specially the case with Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... 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 its collapse. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... a light carried by a man on horseback. But if this were true where was the clatter of the horse's hoofs? On that rocky blur no horse could run noiselessly. It could not be a horse. Fascinated and troubled by this new mystery which seemed to presage evil to them the watchers waited with that patience known only to those accustomed to danger. They knew that whatever it was, it was some satanic stratagem of the savages, and that it would come all ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Buller and Clery and the increasing concentration of troops now began to presage an important and, it was hoped, decisive movement. Visual communication was being held nightly with General White, and a combined action seemed quite possible. It was recognised, however, that the Boer position at Colenso could not be taken by direct frontal attack, and that ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... which, with myself and (I can answer for it) with every one of my colleagues, will have their just weight. But at present these considerations all operate one way; at present there is nothing from which we can presage a favourable disposition to change in the French councils. There is the greatest reason to rely on powerful co-operation from our allies; there are the strongest marks of a disposition in the interior of France to active resistance against this new tyranny; and there is every ground to believe, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... physical and moral daring to the field of theological and political speculation, it is easy today to select, among the writings of the earliest colonists, certain radical utterances which seem to presage the very temper of the late eighteenth century. Pastor John Robinson's farewell address to the Pilgrims at Leyden in 1620 contained the famous words: "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... and unattainable pinnacles that are known as the Bleaks of Eerie, an eagle was looking East with a hopeful presage of blood. ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... it, yielded an income of six or eight thousand livres a year, and constituted the general's entire fortune. Roland's departure on this adventurous expedition deeply afflicted the poor widow. The death of the father seemed to presage that of the son, and Madame de Montrevel, a sweet, gentle Creole, was far from possessing the stern virtues of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village{8} all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides{9} presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:{10} In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill; For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... babe, her eye dissolved in dew; The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... pleasd with it, because I am sure you could not be comfortable in your house at Dedham in the cold Season. When we shall return to our Habitation in Boston, if ever, is uncertain. The Barbarity of our Enemies in the Desolations they have wantonly made at Falmouth and elsewhere, is a Presage of what will probably befall that Town which has so long endur'd the Rage of a merciless Tyrant. It has disgracd the Name of Britain, and added to the Character of the Ministry, another indelible Mark of Infamy. We must be content to suffer the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... the Whitechapel Countess . . . the whole story of the Old Buccaneer and Countess Fanny was retold, and it formed a terrific halo, presage of rains and hurricane tempest, over the girl the young earl had incomprehensibly espoused to discard. Those two had a son and a daughter born aboard:—in wedlock, we trust. The girl may be as wild a one as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... never forgotten the cause of its birth or the teachings of its youth, as is clearly evidenced from year to year by the various undertakings and publications which a careful observer can clearly see are not put forward with any presage of success when viewed entirely from a business standpoint. This lesson is constantly taught to the employes of the Library Bureau, and they are positively instructed that, regardless of the promise of success ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... Japanese H[o]-w[o], the second of the incarnations of the spirits, is of wondrous form and mystic nature. The rare advent of this bird upon the earth is, like that of the kirin or unicorn, a presage of the advent of virtuous rulers and good government. It has the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the features of the dragon and fish. Its colors and streaming feathers are gorgeous with iridian sheen, combining the splendors of the pheasant ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... with the aid of memory so definitely discerned that they could hardly have been more distinct by noonday,—a face of inexplicably sinister omen. "Oh, why did I see it to-day!" she exclaimed, the presage of ill fortune strong upon her, with that grisly mask leering at her from across the valley. But the day was well-nigh gone; only a scant space remained in which to work the evil intent of fate. She seated herself anew, for in the shadowy labyrinth of the woods her path ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... dull, close, overcast summer evening. The clouds, which had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half, or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... have been entrusted with its execution; since it will from hence appear, that the accidents the expedition was afterwards exposed to, and which prevented it from producing all the national advantages the strength of the squadron and the expectation of the public seemed to presage, were principally owing to a series of interruptions, which delayed the commander in the course of his preparations, and which it exceeded his utmost industry either to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the young man turned back, without another word, springing away, over the graveled walks. Nadine's face grew ashen white, as the presage of coming disaster ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew, The big drops mingled with the milk he drew Gave the sad presage of his future years— The child of ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... under ground, or waters forcing way, Sidelong had pushed a mountain from his seat, Half sunk with all his pines. Amazement seised The rebel Thrones, but greater rage, to see Thus foiled their mightiest; ours joy filled, and shout, Presage of victory, and fierce desire Of battle: Whereat Michael bid sound The Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of Heaven It sounded, and the faithful armies rung Hosanna to the Highest: Nor stood at gaze The adverse legions, nor ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... De'crease decrease' | Per'fume perfume' At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| Dis'cord discord' | Pres'ent present' Col'lect collect' | Dis'count discount' | Prod'uce produce' Com'ment comment' | Ef'flux efflux' | Proj'ect project' Com'pact compact' | ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... custom was, one hot and thunderous day, in the country lanes; it was very still, and through the soft haze that filled the air, the distant trees and fields lost their remoteness, and stood stiffly and quaintly as though painted. There seemed a presage of storm in the church-tower, which showed a ghostly white among the elms. A fitful breeze stirred at intervals. Hugh drew near the hamlet, and all of a sudden stepped into a stream of inconceivable sweetness and fragrance; ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and his prevision consequently very vague; in others he himself may see clearly, but may find his lower vehicles so unimpressible that all he can succeed in getting through into his physical brain may be an indefinite presage of coming disaster. Again, there are cases in which a premonition is not the work of the Ego at all, but of some outside entity, who for some reason takes a friendly interest in the person to whom the feeling comes. In ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... our unhappy companions; we did not presage, at this moment, the still more terrible scene which was to take place the following night; far from that, we enjoyed a degree of satisfaction, so fully were we persuaded that the boats would come to our relief. The day was fine, and the most perfect tranquillity prevailed ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... kind, or, if severe in aught, 205 The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew: 'Twas certain he could write, and cypher[17] too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,[18] And even the story ran that he could gauge:[19] 210 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, even though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 215 ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at the time of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Queen's Accession to the Throne, and the first Year in which that Day was solemnly observed, (for, by some Accident or other, it had been overlook'd the Year before;) and every one will see, without the date of it, that it was preached very early in this Reign, since I was able only to promise and presage its future Glories and Successes, from the good Appearances of things, and the happy Turn our Affairs began to take; and could not then count up the Victories and Triumphs that, for seven Years after, made it, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... women, Jean made his final adieus and strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a sturdy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious—I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, it came ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... awoke at one o'clock the next day. The doctor was very pleased at her long and sound sleep, the like of which the old lady had not enjoyed since her first collapse, and which, in his view, was certain to presage a turn for ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... frieze and vault, the loving modeling of sculpture, the artistic planning of vistas, the inspired brushing of murals—are marvelous beyond my telling. It is an outpouring of the arts before the altar of humanity. It is a presage of what men can do when they ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... been walking down a street of modest homes; the bare trees groped into a sky clear and blue with the first chill presage of winter. A quick step fell unheeded by his side; the girl passed, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... James, in 1685, he was chosen for parliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of the Downfal of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king, on his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator, Fenton, that, in reading Tasso, he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the holy war, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left him. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the south-east. The west side has one clerestory window beneath a great unmoulded arch, and a circular-headed door below, the jambs of which are made of earlier fragments; the late belfry is of three arches, two and one; beneath is an unusual curved ornamentation, a curious presage of the "New Art" of a few years ago. The church appears to have been restored in the fourteenth century, since a consecration by Bishop Doimo II. is recorded in 1368; but it has been a Greek church since 1689, was ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... out his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew the ravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing the whish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visit did not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for he knew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms; yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which had never disturbed him before. They were birds of death, rapacious and evil-bringing, and they ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... gravel became of a heavier nature. Their pace slackened; Pepin threw all his weight on to the stick, and they pulled up. Dorothy saw that they were now about half-way down—they must have dropped about three hundred feet in a matter of seconds. Then something that to Dorothy seemed to presage the end of all things happened. There was a roar as of thunder over their heads. Looking up as they still lay prone they beheld a terrifying spectacle. A huge rock was bounding down upon them from the heights above. It gathered force as it came, rising high in the air in a series of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... for food, and in that hour Each drew a presage from his dream. When I 'Heard locked beneath me of that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... as it were, a Presage in his own Breast, of the Misfortune impending from his accepting Laertes's Challenge, is beautiful; and we are to note, that our Author in several of his Plays, has brought in the chief Personages as having a sort of prophetick Idea of their Death; as ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... delicate tints or colours, with soft undefined forms of clouds, foretell fine weather: but gaudy or unusual hues, with hard, definite outlines, presage rain ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... of a king; and when in conformity to the usage of the country he was, a few days after his birth, presented before the altar of a deity, the image is said to have inclined its head as a presage of the future greatness of the new-born prophet. The child soon developed faculties of the first order, and became equally distinguished by the uncommon beauty of his person. No sooner had he grown to years of maturity than ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... suddenly dissolved at the death of an unfortunate but undistinguished servant. The motive of the threnody was somewhat too obvious, and many minds passed from the memory of Tiberius's death to the thought of the doom which this little drama was meant to presage for his brother. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... so much as a backward glance to presage future favour. So may a lady, if she plays her game well, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... child. I say of my master, as did the holy Apostles: 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.' I feel a heavy presage. But I must not trouble you, child. Early in the morning I will be up and away. I go with this youth, whose pathway lies a certain distance along mine, and whose company I seek for his good as well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the streets of Galway-town, When night had let her dusky curtains down, And in a doorway, tall and fair and slight, Framed by an inner beam of golden light, Beheld a maiden of madonna face, Pensive and sad, yet with a nameless grace, Presage, I thought, of the unfolding years, That hide some things that are ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... was approaching to the camp of the enemy. Biron and his soldiers, elated with successes obtained in Ireland, had entertained the most profound contempt for the parliamentary forces; a disposition which, if confined to the army, may be regarded as a good presage of victory; but if it extend to the general, is the most probable forerunner of a defeat. Fairfax suddenly attacked the camp of the royalists. The swelling of the river by a thaw divided one part ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Sound. With Vigour and Alacrity they started from their Prayers, or their Despair, and with all imaginable Speed, unlash'd the Rudder, and hoisted all their Sails. Never sure in Nature did one Minute produce a greater Scene of Contraries. The more skilful Sailors took Courage at this happy Presage of Deliverance. And according to their Expectation did it happen; that heavenly Point of Wind deliver'd us from the Jaws of those Breakers, ready open to devour us; and carrying us out to the much more wellcome wide ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... gospel among the blacks and among the savage tribes on our borders has been rapidly increasing during the last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with the more satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing presage of the spread of the gospel, but also furnishes agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the benign tendency of that spirit which God has been pleased to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... whose loins recorded Psyche sprung. His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head. Just at the point of time, if Fame not lie, On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly. So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook, Presage of sway from twice six vultures took. Th' admiring throng loud acclamations make, And omens of his future empire take. The sire then shook the honours of his head, And from his brows damps of oblivion shed Full on the filial dulness: Long he stood, Repelling from his breast the ...
— English Satires • Various
... drawing her down into their torment.—Unfortunate one.—That presage of her maternity echoed in her now. His stern young face seemed to have been framed, destined from the ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... he threw into the river at the same place, and bade the divers seek it. So they did [his bidding] and brought up the first ring, and this was reckoned [an omen] of Er Reshid's good fortune and [a presage of] the ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... such should keep their horses to aid them in their future work at home—That the two armies so fiercely opposed for four years could have parted with no words but those of sympathy and respect was an assured presage of a day when all the wounds of the restored Union should be ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... still, to reproduce the beautiful in some way for myself, I should find they far outnumbered those of delightful sensation, of full and soothing thought, of gratified tastes and affections, and of proud hope. Yet these last, if few, how lovely, how rich in presage! None, who have known them, can in their worst estate fail to hope that they may be again ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... unmistakable signs to presage what was coming that I knew a cannibal feast was about to take place. But for obvious reasons I did not protest against it, nor did I take any notice whatever. The women (who do all the real work) fell on their knees, and with their fingers scraped three long trenches in the sand, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... of Iras's maids interrupted him to tell the story of the swallows on the "Antonius," Cleopatra's admiral galley. He could scarcely report from Pelusium an omen of darker presage. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... chords, which sounded infinitely sweet and tender. Then the northern knight, much moved, clasped him in his arms, and said: "Dear Edchen, sing and say and do whatever pleases you; it shall ever rejoice me. But you may well believe me, for I speak not this without a spirit of presage—your sorrow shall change, whether to death or life I know not, but great and overpowering joy awaits you." Edwald rose firmly and cheerfully from his seat, seized his companion's arm with a strong grasp, and walked forth with him through the blooming alleys of the garden into ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... tide marks along the roots of the mangroves, and the salt flavour was in the air, and white-winged gulls swept screaming over our heads, scaring away the gaudy, noisy parrots that had been our feathered companions for so long. The next morning the sun shot up for us, a golden ball of cheering presage, from out the glittering bosom of the Pacific. What a shout we raised! Weeks of toil and fever were forgotten, scars and bruises healed—or were felt no longer—when the glorious heave of ocean waters ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... but he felt that he saw it out of the corner of his eye, only to lose it when he looked at it. And yet for weeks his mother had never seemed so well: the cloud had lifted off her this morning, and, but for some vague presage of trouble that somehow haunted his mind, refusing to be disentangled, he could have believed that, after all, medical opinion might be at fault, and that, instead of her passing more deeply into the shadows as he had been warned was inevitable, she might at least maintain the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... upon you, watch over you, bear with you, with more than the love and tenderness of a brother. You shall see me only when you wish it. Your loneliness shall never be invaded. When you get better, as I presage you will, I will leave you to come back to England, and provide for the worst, by ensuring your sister a protector. I will then return to you alone, that your seclusion may not be endangered by the knowledge, even ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the mournful twittering of the warbling birds bespoke anxiety and alarm; the hoarse rushing of the wind threatened destruction to the woods; the flowers of the fields began to droop; the sun withdrew his light from the world beneath, and all seemed to presage a day of grief and bitterness—save in the home where the fair Sol arose, like another Circe, from her couch, and sallied forth, seeming to temper by her enchanting presence the angry frowns of the elements without. In ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Sleep Your Shadow The Full Tide Hands The Night Watch The Haunted Shadow Alone and Cold Inevitable Change Loneliness I heard a Voice upon the Window beat First Love The Call The Shade Happy is England Now The Stars in their Courses Sweet England Presage of Victory The Return English Hills Homecoming England's Enemy From Piccadilly in August Evening Beauty: Blackfriars Sailing of the Glory At the Dock "The Men who loved the Cause that ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... deities. So as to portents: loud thunder, taken to be the voice of the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning (which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw omens from the movements of birds.[1604] In Ashantiland the cry of the owl means death.[1605] When in Australia the track of an insect is believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... yellow. There is a ruff about his neck, and a pair of fine buckles to his shoes, and he always dances. He has his back to the thunderclouds, but there is that in his eyes which tells us that he has seen them, and that he knows their presage. He is afraid. Yet he dances. Never, howsoever slightly, swerves he, see! from his right posture, nor fail his feet in their pirouette. All a' merveille! Nor fades the smile from his face, though he smiles through the tarnished air of ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... prisoners was kind. His purposes, however, were bloody and revengeful. With his own hands he painted every prisoner black! As they were conducted towards the town, the captives observed the bodies of four of their friends, tomahawked and scalped. This was regarded as a sad presage. In a short time, they overtook the five prisoners who remained alive. They were seated on the ground, and surrounded by a crowd of Indian squaws and boys, who taunted and menaced them. Crawford and Knight were compelled to sit down apart from ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... of genius in early life presage its future character, was long the feeling of antiquity. CICERO, in his "Dialogue on Old Age," employs a beautiful analogy drawn from Nature, marking her secret conformity in all things which have life and come from her hands; and the human mind is one of her plants. "Youth is the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Whether a boy with limbs effeminate Assault him, or a woman darting love From all her body—that one strains to get Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs To join with it and cast into its frame The fluid drawn even from within its own. For the mute craving doth presage delight. ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... this day that a considerable change had taken place in our position relative to the Rampart Berg. It appeared that a big lead had opened and that there had been some differential movement of the pack. The opening movement might presage renewed pressure. A few hours later the dog teams, returning from exercise, crossed a narrow crack that had appeared ahead of the ship. This crack opened quickly to 60 ft. and would have given us trouble if the dogs had been left on the wrong side. It closed on the 25th and ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... of night the divisions of Augereau and Massena retired through Verona. Officers and soldiers were alike deeply discouraged by this movement, which seemed to presage a retreat towards the Mincio and the abandonment of Lombardy. To their surprise, when outside the gate they received the order to turn to the left down the western bank of the Adige. At Ronco the mystery was solved. A bridge of boats had there been thrown across ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... spirits among us, as his was who when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped his own regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... this interview, meeting imaginary objections, arguing points which might have to be argued, a servant came out to him with an ochre envelope on a little silver tray—that unpleasant-looking envelope which seems always a presage of trouble, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... now a-gathering, but our horizon is covered over with blackness, and great drops are a-falling, that presage a terrible overflowing deluge of error, and apostacy from the truth and profession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be at hand, if the Lord wonderfully prevent it not. And behold (O wonderful!) the generality of professors are sleeping in security, apprehending no danger. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... over the wild landscape, the distant buttes softened in the haze that seemed to presage the advance of autumn, considering much. When he looked into her face again it was with the harshness gone ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... burn the turrets of this cursed town, Flame to the highest region of the air, And kindle heaps of exhalations, That, being fiery meteors, may presage Death and destruction to the inhabitants! Over my zenith hang a blazing star, That may endure till heaven be dissolv'd, Fed with the fresh supply of earthly dregs, Threatening a dearth [107] and famine to this land! Flying dragons, lightning, fearful thunder-claps, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... hostilities that animated the younger members of the tribe in particular and had wondered what spark would eventually set ablaze the smouldering fires of hatred and rivalry that had so long lain dormant. And it had been really a subconscious presage of such an outbreak that had brought him back to the camp of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah. His presentiment, the outcome of earnest desire, had been fulfilled, and in its fulfilment attended with horrible details which, had it not been already his intention, would have driven ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... of Dante, told with some detail, implies, indeed, that it was begun, and some progress made in it, while Dante was yet in Florence—begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it—continued afterward in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the Queen of Angels. She already ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Tonnant, in which, after some delay, occasioned by the general difficulty of procuring men, he joined the Channel fleet. Anxious to take part in the important naval operations to be expected, he wished to sail with Nelson, whose reputation gave a just presage that the most decisive blow would be struck where he commanded; but after he had been appointed to a station, his sense of naval obedience forbade any attempt to change it. With that care for the improvement of his young officers which was always a prominent feature of his conduct, he advertised ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... became the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of their death. It has been conjectured that it is from this connection of the ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it. His friend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had it from Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was "a sort of emblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to the sight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God and Nature,"[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of the extraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with his tendency ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... King's brother, afterwards James II. It would perhaps be straining the suggestion already made of the persistent influences of origins to see in the varied racial and national beginnings of New York a presage of that cosmopolitan quality which still marks the greatest of American cities, making much of it a patchwork of races and languages, and giving to the electric stir of Broadway an air which suggests a Continental rather than an English city, but it ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... transfixed with such a gruesome stare, Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright; The morning gave no presage of the night; A smile may be ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... his mental eyes the vision of a petrified wooden cross beside a glassy pool, and mingled incongruously with it, the face of Starr Wiley, distorted as he had last seen it, with the bruised lips twisted into a mocking leer. Would the lightly expressed wish of Gentleman Geoff's Billie prove a presage of victory in the great game ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... of a larger army, it was believed, by which the land was to be reduced to a state of servile subjection to Spain. A low, constant, but generally unheeded murmur of dissatisfaction and distrust upon this subject was already perceptible throughout the Netherlands; a warning presage of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... imagination of Bassompierre was deeply moved. "Would," he exclaimed to his companion, "that any sacrifice on my part could have averted so dire a presage as ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... accounted Theomancy, or Prophecy; Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity; which was called Horoscopy, and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology: Sometimes in their own hopes and feares, called Thumomancy, or Presage: Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches, that pretended conference with the dead; which is called Necromancy, Conjuring, and Witchcraft; and is but juggling and confederate knavery: Sometimes in the Casuall flight, or feeding of birds; called Augury: Sometimes in the Entrayles of a ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... lures them back On the proud flutter of a Gallic wing Soon they return; soon make their full descent; Soon glut their rage, and riot in our ruin; Their idols grac'd and gorgeous with our spoils, Of universal empire sure presage! Till now repell'd by seas of British blood." And whence the manners of the multitude? The colours of their manners, black or fair, Falls from above; from the complexion falls Of state Othellos, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... This was a presage of what we have seen happen since, when the whole Court was infected with heresy, about the time of the Conference of Poissy. It was with great difficulty that I resisted and preserved myself from a change of religion ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... increased by what had taken place at the Democratic Convention, a fortnight before. General Cass had been nominated for the Presidency, but his militia title had no glamour of carnage about it, and the secession of the New York Anti-slavery "Barnburners" from the convention was a presage of disaster which was fulfilled in the following August by the assembling of the recusant delegates at Buffalo, where they were joined by a large number of discontented Democrats and "Liberty" men, and the Free-soil party was organized for its short but effective mission. Martin Van Buren ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... prisonnier, je n'avois pas vu un seul homme se montrer a cette fenetre, qui donnoit sur une cour ou regnoient le silence et l'horreur. Je compris par la que je faisois du bruit dans la ville, mais je ne savois si j'en devois concevoir un bon ou mauvais presage." ... "La dessus le juge se retira, en disant qu'il alloit ordonner au concierge de m'ouvrir les portes. En effet, un moment apres, le geolier vint dans mon cachot avec un de ses guichetiers qui portoit un paquet de toile. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... his coming, but bade him direct his steps once again towards his home on the Mohawk. Thereupon Brant turned about and strode away among the trees. Just then thick clouds blotted out the sky; a terrible storm swept in violence across the land, a fitting presage, as men thought, of the scourge of war that must now bring ruin and havoc ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... and he admitted afterwards that he, too, had remembered about that rainbow in the morning, and had also thought of the comet that had appeared a few years before and that many people believed to presage ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... departure, presents were made to us as a token of gratitude, and of course the Indians, having at the first moment of their confederation, made such a successful and profitable expedition, accepted it as a good presage for the future. Their services being no longer required, they turned towards the north, and started for the settlement under the command of Roche, to follow up their original intentions of visiting the Shoshones. As for us, I remained ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... diverse causes: one, because we were told that four companies of Spaniards were entered into Perpignan: the other, that the plague was spreading through the camp. Moreover, the country folk warned us there would soon be a great overflowing of the sea, which might drown us all. And the presage which they had, was a very great wind from sea, which rose so high that there remained not a single tent but was broken and thrown down, for all the care and diligence we could give; and the kitchens being all uncovered, the wind raised the dust ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... warning us away troubled us much; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue; that for our ship, it was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case; ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... unrest which has lately swept over India is happily beyond doubt. Does this lull indicate a gradual and steady return to more normal and peaceful conditions? Or, as in other cyclonic disturbances in tropical climes, does it merely presage fiercer outbursts yet to come? Has the blended policy of repression and concession adopted by Lord Morley and Lord Minto really cowed the forces of criminal disorder and rallied the representatives of moderate opinion to the cause of sober ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... searched already an Alliance for him, and was resolv'd on his Favourite's marrying Agnes, conjur'd her so tenderly to prevent these Persecutions, by consenting to a secret Marriage, that, after having a long time consider'd, she at last consented. I will do what you will have me (said she) tho' I presage nothing but fatal Events from it; all my Blood turns to Ice, when I think of this Marriage, and the Image of Constantia seems to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... thus given often dazzles us, and deepens the darkness which is in front. We can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap- door opens beneath ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... it we are led to share vicariously in past human experience, thus widening and enriching the experience of the present. We are enabled, symbolically and imaginatively, to anticipate situations. In countless ways, language condenses meanings that record social outcomes and presage social outlooks. So significant is it of a liberal share in what is worth while in life that unlettered and uneducated have become ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... led to this auspicious crisis, the confidence reposed in me by my fellow-citizens, and the assistance I may expect from counsels which will be dictated by an enlarged and liberal policy, seem to presage a more prosperous issue to my administration than a diffidence of my abilities had taught me to anticipate, I now feel myself inexpressibly happy in a belief that Heaven, which has done so much for our infant nation, will not withdraw its providential influence before our political felicity ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the fetes given in Paris at the nuptials of the Duke of Orleans, in 1837, the sad presage of misfortune that had accompanied the marriage festivities of Marie Antoinette was repeated. One of the spectacles given to the Parisians was a sham attack on a sham citadel of Antwerp in the Champ de Mars. The crowd was immense, but all went well so long as the spectacle lasted. When the crowd ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... home; Then 'neath the western hills he sought repose, And sank to rest as calmly as he rose: Bright at the dawn of day, but brighter now, When day had almost passed, and round her brow Hung the expiring beams of dazzling light, The certain presage of approaching night. Slowly his gorgeous train, like him, withdrew, Changing as they advanced in form and hue, Until one lovely tint of fairest dye Stole softly o'er the calm and cloudless sky; Day, gently smiling, ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... situation of Rall and Donop seemed to invite attack. Their fancied security seemed also to presage success. An inexorable necessity called loudly for action before conditions so favorable should be changed by the freezing up of the Delaware when, if the enemy had any enterprise whatever, the river ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... the letter again, and ran down its impulsive staccato sentences, affecting to ignore what a gust of fresh air, high spirits, and good fellowship this flimsy bit of paper wafted into the jaded club-room. On reperusal, it was full of evil presage— 'Al scenery'—but what of equinoctial storms and October fogs? Every sane yachtsman was paying off his crew now. 'There ought to be duck'—vague, very vague. 'If it gets cold enough' . . . cold and yachting seemed ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the sixty-fourth anniversary of the birth of General U. S. Grant, at the Metropolitan church in Washington on the 27th of April, 1886. The text given me was "Grant and the New South." As this brief speech expressed my appreciation of the character of General Grant soon after his death, and my presage of the new south, I ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... making me believe in the possibility of his committing such an atrocity. "As you doubt what I tell you," replied Prince Louis, "I will send you the Moniteur, in which you will read the sentence." He left me at these words, and the expression of his countenance was the presage of revenge or death. A quarter of an hour afterwards, I had in my hands this Moniteur of the 21st March, (30th Pluviose), which contained the sentence of death pronounced by the military commission sitting at ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... trust the flattering eye of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day, an unaccustomed spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... away from Agrinion until the next daybreak had wrought a stupendous change in his outlook. He unhesitatingly considered it an omen of a good future. He was up before the darkness even contained presage of coming light, but near the railway station was a little hut where coffee was being served to several prospective travellers who had come even earlier to the rendezvous. There was no ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... as an unfavourable omen, and threw the sailors into the greatest consternation. Pericles observing that the pilot was much astonished and perplexed, took his cloak, and having covered his eyes with it, asked him if he found anything terrible in that, or considered it as a bad presage? Upon his answering in the negative, he said, 'Where is the difference, then between this and the other, except that something bigger than my cloak causes ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... crossed again with the red lamps of the steamers. The aurora of dark vapour, streamers extending from the thicker masses, slowly moves and yet does not go away; it is just such a sky as a painter might give to some tremendous historical event, a sky big with presage, gloom, tragedy. How bright and clear, again, are the mornings in summer! I once watched the sun rise on London Bridge, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... am weary, I am weary! Cometh not across my breast Transient thought of that which shall be, presage of better rest? And the sounds of early spring-time with an inner meaning fraught, Seem the last notes of a requiem from some old minster brought; Solemn mass for gentle spirits, the unsullied and the true, Gone with all their bright aspirings, like the fragrant morning dew. Yet the visions ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... when we fain would run From our imagined fears, our idle feet Grow to the ground, our struggling voice dies inward; So now, when I would force myself to chear you, My faltering tongue can give no glad presage: Alas, I ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... sweet with fluttering presage, Felt she that ethereal sense, Drinking charms of love delirious, Reaping bliss of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... has been immortalized by the grave of Scott, the Clyde can boast the birthplace of Campbell, and the mountains of the Dee first inspired the muse of Byron. I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling—I hail it as a presage, that as Ayrshire has raised a graceful monument to Burns, and Edinburgh has erected a noble structure to the Author of Waverley, so Glasgow will ere long raise a worthy tribute to the bard whose name will never die while Hope pours its balm ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, moulding ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... felt what a generation ago they called a hunch, a premonition, the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred feet away. It was a ten-foot, black yawning hole in the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... these impressions, it is strange and worth thinking on that the dominant suggestion of Nature through all her changes, whether her mood be stormy or sunny, melancholy or jubilant, is one of presage and promise. She seems to be ever holding out to us an immortal invitation to follow and endure, to endure and to enjoy. She seems to say that what she brings us is but an earnest of what she holds for us out there along the vanishing road. There is nothing, indeed, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... in its plain, heroic completeness is touched with a stately life that is a presage of immortality. It is evident, indeed, that Arnold wrote Balder Dead in his most fortunate hour, and that Merope is his one serious mistake in literature. For a genius thus peculiar and introspective drama—the ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my deare mistresse fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud Of her incensed lord: me thought the Spirit 35 (When he had utter'd his perplext presage) Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds; His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knockt his chin against his darkned breast, And struck a churlish silence through his pow'rs. 40 ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... obscuring her blessed light. The maiden, deeming it an inauspicious omen, sat down upon the green bank, and, leaning her head upon her hand, suffered the tears to stream through her slender fingers. But vain was the presage—idle were her fears. The cloud has passed away from the face of the pale orb, and lo! there is her lover. He comes with a joyous step and a laughing eye, as though he had been successful in his search for the further means ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Saturday morning seemed to presage failure for the girls' plans at the very start. It was always dismal, Marjorie thought, to go anywhere in the rain, but especially to a new town. Frieda would receive a bad impression of the place from the beginning, and, if she had any tendency toward homesickness, the inclemency ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell |
