"Visitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sisters. Suddenly, as he caught sight of the crape upon the chalice and the crucifix,—for in default of other means of proclaiming the object of this funeral rite the priest had put God himself into mourning,—the mysterious visitant was seized by some all-powerful recollection, and drops of sweat gathered on his brow. The four silent actors in this scene looked at each other with mysterious sympathy; their souls, acting one upon another, communicated ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... of the leaves in the old registry book, and for a moment as he raised his eyes to the silent, white figure before the altar, he took her for a ghostly visitant; but Valmai, with a sudden inrush of recognition, clasped her hands, a faint exclamation escaped her lips, and the "Vicare du" knew it was no spirit who stood trembling before him. For a moment both were speechless—then ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... "Don't, my good neighbour, don't feed me with false hope.—My poor Greaves too certainly perished in a foreign land—yet he is happy;—had he lived to see me in this condition, grief would soon have put a period to his days." "I tell you then," cried the visitant, "he is not dead. I have seen a letter that mentions his being well since the battle. You shall come along with me—you are no longer a prisoner, but shall live at my house comfortably, till your affairs are settled to your wish." The poor widow followed her in silent ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... serious crisis. Again I must repeat how much I am afraid of being hurried forward too fast. An error at this moment might be fatal. Clifton is so much alarmed by the particular respect which the Count de Beaunoir [A pleasant kind of madman, who is a visitant here.] pays me, that he has this instant been with me, confessed a passion for me, in all the strong and perhaps extravagant language which custom has seemed to authorise, and has entreated, with a degree of warmth and earnestness that could scarcely be resisted, my permission ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... remaining days, weeks, or years, to that service which is alone worthy of being engaged in by immortal beings, Arthur Bernard returned once more to the battle of life, with a heart crushed and bleeding, it is true, but not destitute of Peace, that celestial visitant, or of heavenly hope, pointing to a brighter ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... and unassuming manner of Percy rendered him a most acceptable visitant at Isis Lodge, so the cottage was called; he was ever ready with some joyous tale, either of Oxford or of the metropolis, to bring a smile even to the lips of Mrs. Amesfort. It was not likely that he should so frequently visit the cottage without exciting the curiosity and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Assassin-like had levied Warr, Warr unproclam'd. The Princely Hierarch 220 In thir bright stand, there left his Powers to seise Possession of the Garden; hee alone, To finde where Adam shelterd, took his way, Not unperceav'd of Adam, who to Eve, While the great Visitant approachd, thus spake. Eve, now expect great tidings, which perhaps Of us will soon determin, or impose New Laws to be observ'd; for I descrie From yonder blazing Cloud that veils the Hill One of the heav'nly Host, and by his Gate 230 None ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... history, but because the prophets stated that such things should happen to the Messiah. Thus, Jesus is descended from David, because the Messiah was to come of David's lineage. His birth is announced by an angelic visitant, because the birth of the Messiah must not be less honoured than that of Isaac or of Samson; he is born of a virgin, because God says of the Messiah, "this day have I begotten thee," implying the direct paternity of God, and because the prophecy in Is. vii. 14 was applied to the Messiah ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... meeting him was at the house of a colored gentleman in Bridgetown where we were breakfasting. He called in incidentally, while we were sitting at table, and exhibited all the familiarity of a frequent visitant. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... mistress with ceaseless complaints of the idleness, knavery, lies, stealing of the black people; and finally with a story of jealousy against a certain Dinah, or Diana, who, I heartily trust, was as innocent as her namesake the moonlight visitant of Endymion. Now, on the article of morality Madam Esmond was a very Draconess; and a person accused was a person guilty. She made charges against Mr. Gumbo to which he replied with asperity. Forgetting that he was a free gentleman, my mother now ordered Gumbo to be whipped, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... With the last words she raised her arms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one deep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky flame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some region ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... heart, and thus cleansing it every moment of all sin; but on Thursday and Friday I laid aside almost everything else, and spent the chief part of the day in reading and prayer, and trying to believe for it. On Thursday afternoon at tea-time I was well-nigh discouraged, and felt my old visitant, irritability, and the Devil told me I should never get it, and so I might as well give it up at once. However, I know him of old as a liar and the father of lies, and pressed on, cast down, ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... to demand admittance! He was probably attempting to get a fly, which was on the pane of glass against which he rapped; and on my first motion the feathered visitor took wing. This incident had a curious effect on me. It impressed me as if the bird had been a spiritual visitant, so strange was it that this little wild thing should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the last comer, Damaris started up, tense with wonder and excitement, since she knew—somehow—this final visitant belonged not to the past so much as to the present, that her power was unexhausted and would go forward to the shaping of the coming years. Which knowledge drew confirmation from what immediately followed. For, as by almost ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... The ridge, still favouring the direction of west and north-west, on the third day they arrived at a tract of land, hilly, but with tolerable grass on it. Here they found traces of a former white visitant in the shape of a marked-tree line. Two miles from this point, they met with a belt of brushwood so dense that for the first time they were forced to alter their course; but the subordinate spurs on either side ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... back, was a strange young man who shone among the cud-chewing citizens like a visitant from the sun-amber curls, low forehead, fine nose, chin smooth but not raw from Sabbath shaving. His lips startled her. The lips of men in Gopher Prairie are flat in the face, straight and grudging. The stranger's mouth ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the least, I admitted him only as a Visitant, but at present I must be more particular with him; he's of late grown a little irreverent towards our Sex, and I must check an insolent Humour he has got of despising Matrimony; he'll be with me instantly, I'll dispose you, that you may over-hear ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... of several generations downward, the doom of being incapable of admitting genuine Christianity but with an excessively inadequate apprehension of its attributes;—as in the patriarchal ages a man might have received with only the honors appropriate to a saint or prophet, the visitant in whom he was entertaining an angel unawares. Happy for both that ancient entertainer of such a visitant, and the ignorant but honest adopter of the reformed religion, when that which they entertained rewarded them according to its ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... as grains of corn might be carried in the pocket and sown. Hildebrand, to whose remarkable work, 'Du Typhus contagieux,' Dr. de Mussy has directed my attention, gives the following striking case, both of the durability and the transport of the virus of scarlatina: 'Un habit noir que j'avais en visitant une malade attaquee de scarlatina, et que je portai de Vienne en Podolie, sans l'avoir mis depuis plus d'un an et demi, me communiqua, des que je fus arrive, cette maladie contagieuse, que je repandis ensuite dans cette province, ou elle etait jusqu'alors ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... dusty travelling carriage whirled along the road by the ha-ha, and a hand waved in recognition from the open window. His guests had been so rare, and his friends were so few, that Maltravers could not conjecture who was his intended visitant. His brother, he knew, was in London. Cleveland, from whom he had that day heard, was at his villa. Ferrers was enjoying himself in Vienna. Who could it be? We may say of solitude what we please; but, after two years of ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boundary of the field, the spot marked by the broken half-buried pillar of red granite Heliobas had mentioned, he paused—thinking dreamily of the words of Esdras, who in answer to his Angel-visitant's inquiry: "Why art thou disquieted?" had replied: "Because thou hast forsaken me, and yet I did according to thy words, and I went into the field, and lo! I have seen and yet see, that I am not able to express." Whereupon the Angel had said, "Stand ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... brothers and playmates, to have had wider interests and activities. When, a lad, he saw his first warbler in the "Deacon Woods," the black-throated blue-back, he was excited and curious as to what the strange bird could be (so like a visitant from another clime it seemed); the other boys met his queries with indifference, but for him it was the event of the day; it was far more, it was the keynote to all his days; it opened his eyes to the life about him—here, right in the "Deacon Woods," were such exquisite ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... have labels in the cases. These maybe made simple, however, with references to a descriptive catalogue. The labels should bear the English name, with 'Resident,' Summer Visitant,' or 'Winter Visitant' on all ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... strange man, and Charlotte felt attracted as well as repelled. She was proud, and at another time and from other lips such words would have been received with disdain. But this queer, shadowy-looking clergyman looked like an unearthly visitant. She watched his rather weak footsteps, as he walked quietly away in the northern direction through the park. Then she got up and prepared to return home. But this little incident had sobered her. She was not unhappy; but she now felt very grave. The child spirit! She must ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke loose from his control in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the visitant returned. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sensational appearance were apprised of the inexplicable occurrence by the radiovision, which were scattered throughout the vast metropolis. In theaters and restaurants and other gathering places, as well as in millions of homes, a voice from the Worldwide Broadcasting Tower announced the weird visitant. And its image, as it glowed in the night, was everywhere transmitted ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... and the Splendor. Deep distress and hesitation Mingled with his adoration; Should he go or should he stay? Should he leave the poor to wait Hungry at the convent gate, Till the Vision passed away? Should he slight his radiant guest, Slight this visitant celestial, For a crowd of ragged, bestial Beggars at the convent gate? Would the Vision there remain? Would the Vision come again? Then a voice within his breast Whispered, audible and clear As if to the outward ear "Do thy duty; that is best; ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... renewed coughing. But the steel grip relaxed not one iota. I realized two things: the first, that in my terror at the suddenness of the attack I had omitted to act as prearranged: the second, that I had discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst Smith ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... or clothing. This image, seemingly animated, walks with them in the field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving, harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the same time mimicked by this ghostly visitant. My informer added further that having visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she had the curiosity to enquire of him, if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself as above described; he answered in the affirmative, and told her, that to make farther trial, as he was going ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... there is any need to deal here. The other form is used by the Punans, or mixed Punans and Malanaus. If it is supposed that some illness is due to possession by an evil spirit, it is decided to call the medicine women and get the unwelcome visitant to depart, though it is not considered possible in all cases to turn a demon out of his mortal abode. Offerings of eggs and fowls to the good spirits having proved fruitless, a day is fixed for the BAYOH, preferably shortly after a good harvest, and the household begins ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... down in my old bed, and was soon lost in a slumber so profound that I did not awake until after daylight. The experience of the night seemed like a terrible dream; but the broken limbs which in the agony of consternation I had thrown from the tree, and the rifts made in fallen foliage by my visitant in his circumambulations, were too convincing evidences of its reality. I could not dwell upon my exposure and escape without shuddering, and reflecting that probably like perils would often occur under less fortunate circumstances, and with a more fatal issue. ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... the dwellers at Ekero and the golden house, but they had nought to fear. They had opened the guest-chamber of their hearts to the heavenly Visitant, and they would henceforward be ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... was tight in the skin-lined sleeping-bag, and this fettered him so that he fell back, and the next moment his nocturnal visitant sprang forward, coming down heavily upon him, at the same moment making a ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... other indications of the near approach of some one from the forest; and, the next moment, emerging through the thick underbrush, which he parted by the muzzle of his rifle as he made his way, the expected visitant came into view. Seemingly unmindful of the presence of others near by, or of the curious and scrutinizing gaze of Claud, he advanced with a firm, elastic tread, and stately bearing, exhibiting a strong, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Bridget, and by that means had a little soured her natural disposition, it was usual with her to walk forth among these people, in order to refine her temper, by venting, and, as it were, purging off all ill humours; on which account she was by no means a welcome visitant: to say the truth, she was universally dreaded and hated by ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a kingfisher had been seen at my lake, and hoped that the bird might build and become established there; it was, therefore, a keen regret to me that this bright visitant had met with ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... that the ghost would attack her head rather than her feet, she tied up her feet in her bonnet- de-nuit, put them upon the pillow, and her head under the quilt—a novel way of cheating a spiritual visitant. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... but hope and fear (Painful vicissitude!) his bosom tear. Now, imaged in his mind, he sees restored In peace and joy the people's rightful lord; The proud oppressors fly the vengeful sword. While his fond soul these fancied triumphs swell'd, The stranger guest the royal youth beheld; Grieved that a visitant so long should wait Unmark'd, unhonour'd, at a monarch's gate; Instant he flew with hospitable haste, And the new friend with courteous air embraced. "Stranger, whoe'er thou art, securely rest, Affianced in my faith, a ready guest; Approach the dome, the social banquet share, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... stepped out of that groove of trees, and mysteriously beckoned to her as she stood at the window, turning her heart to sickness as she gazed? Was it a human being, one to bring more evil to the house, where so much evil had already fallen? Was it a supernatural visitant, or was it but a delusion of her own eyesight? Not the latter, certainly, for the figure was now emerging again, motioning to her as before; and with a white face and shaking limbs, Barbara clutched her shawl ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was heard to implore the Father with the same words of yearning entreaty. Luke tells us that "there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him"; but not even the presence of this super-earthly visitant could dispel the awful anguish of His soul. "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... clerk at the mont de piete, she had little doubt. Everything that she or her husband had ever possessed worth possessing had so vanished—had been not an absolute property, but a brief fleeting joy, a kind of supernal visitant, vanishing anon into nothingness, or only a pawnbroker's duplicate. The time would come. She showed the trinket to her husband with a melancholy foreboding, and read his thoughts as he weighed it in his palm, by mere force of habit, speculating what ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Through Bowscale-Tarn did wait on him; The pair were servants of his eye In their immortality; And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright, Moved to and fro, for his delight. He knew the rocks which Angels haunt Upon the mountains visitant; He hath kenned them taking wing: And into caves where Faeries sing He hath entered; and been told By Voices how men lived of old. Among the heavens his eye can see The face of thing that is to be; And, if that men report him right, His tongue could whisper words ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... told myself it must have been a kerchief of her own, and that all the rest has been my imagination; that, if not, then my strange visitant was no spirit, but a woman; and that, if human thing knows human thing, it was no creature of flesh and blood that sat beside me last night. Besides, what woman would she be? The nearest saeter is a three-hours' climb to a strong man, and the paths are dangerous even in daylight: ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... hotel! and, what would be still worse, exposed to receive all visits? for the French, you know, are never mor in public than in the act of death. I am like animals, and love to hide myself when I am dying. Thank God, I am now two days beyond the crisis when I expected my dreadful periodic visitant, and begin to grow very sanguine about the virtue of the bootikins. I shall even have courage to go to-morrow to Chalfont for two days, as it is but a journey of two hours. I would not be a day's journey from hence for all Lord Clive's diamonds. This will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... seemed impossible. Just then the robbers were struck into a stupor, for on the wall behind the merchant a light was shining, and soft music floated through the room. The partition opened, and St. Nicholas stepped within the apartment. Turning to the Chinaman the visitant said, "Believe in the true faith, Wong, and your life shall be saved. Believe otherwise, and you shall die." Wong changed his faith in one second, and said so. The saint waved his hand toward the ruffians and they dropped to the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... excited, as may be supposed, at such an unexpected visit, and the near approach of such a visitant. As they gazed at him with eager eyes, he suddenly turned his head straight towards the side of the vessel, and, sinking down sufficiently to clear the keel, dived right under it, and came up on the ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... Jedfoot—for it was his own substantial self, I saw, and no ghost at all, as I was now convinced—cleared in two bounds the intervening space that lay between him and the entrance to the cavern, seeking to get away as far as possible from his terrible visitant. Apparently, he must have thought the other to be the 'genuine Simon Pure,' come to punish him for his false pretences in making believe to be a denizen of the spirit world whilst he was yet in the flesh, and so poaching unlawfully on what was ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... see is directed to you alone. Move to the right or the left, and it moves as fast as you do. You cannot flank it or reach its end. It is about the most subtle and significant phenomenon that everyday Nature presents to us. Unapproachable as a spirit, like a visitant from another world, yet the creation of the familiar ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... was carried to the dungeon—in the Middle Ages a torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world—and was submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour no supernatural visitant ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... might have been his fate, now that he was gone the natives multiplied their acts of kindness and attention towards myself, treating me with a degree of deference which could hardly have been surpassed had I been some celestial visitant. Kory-Kory never for one moment left my side, unless it were to execute my wishes. The faithful fellow, twice every day, in the cool of the morning and in the evening, insisted upon carrying me to the stream, and bathing ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... wildfire, and in a few minutes the streets were filled with crowds of people, who had thrown on a few clothes and rushed out to get a look at the strange visitant. At first it was thought that an attack on the arsenal was intended by the mysterious vessel, and the excitement had risen almost to the pitch of panic, when it was observed that she was flying a plain white flag, and that her intentions were ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... is under our feet, yet how strange and mysterious it seems! It draws our attention away from matter. It arises among the inorganic elements like a visitant from another sphere. It is a new thing in the world. Consciousness is a new thing, yet Huxley makes it one of his trinity of realities—matter, energy, and consciousness. We are so immersed in these realities that we do not see the divinity they embody. ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... sisters. For two hours after our arrival, Mr. C. displayed a good deal of his brilliant conversation, when he was listened to with surprise and delight by the whole circle; but at this time, unluckily, Lady—was announced, when Mrs. Hannah, from politeness, devoted herself to her titled visitant, while the little folks retired to a snug window with one or two of the Misses More, and there had their own ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... back descended down the steps, a vulpine head peered out of the alcove, and Robespierre's cunning, self-satisfied look showed that he recognized Henriette's visitant. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... him close to her—beside her on the bench and pressingly turned to her. It almost seemed to her that no one had ever been so close to her as that. All this, however, took but an instant, at the end of which she had disengaged her wrist, turning her eyes upon her visitant. "You've frightened ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... distance, it becomes too much the necessity of our nature when brought too near. Oh, if it would never bend its wings to earth, and ever speak in the language of music and poetry, this world would be too dark for so heavenly a visitant, and we should long for death to unclose the portals ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... hated sleighing, and was looking forward to writing her English letters in the cozy drawing-room, and sociably imbibing afternoon tea with any visitors hardy enough to face the bitter northwester, happily so rare a visitant ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... beam was the tail of a comet just whisked into our northern skies, as the rapid wanderer skirted their precincts in its journey towards the sun. To the watchful eyes of our latitudes, the unexpected visitant presented an aspect that was coy and modest in the extreme; its head, indeed, was scarcely ever satisfactorily in sight. But it dealt far otherwise with the more favoured climes of the south. At the Cape of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... in which his love had placed him came back in full force. In spite of Eustacia's apparent willingness to wait through the period of an unpromising engagement, till he should be established in his new pursuit, he could not but perceive at moments that she loved him rather as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as a man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so interested her. Often at their meetings a word or a sigh escaped her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to his return to the French capital, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... baffled anger and vindictiveness. However, he had prevented something, although he knew not what. The principal had got away, but he had identified his confederate, and for the first time held a clue to his mysterious visitant. There was no use to alarm the household, which did not seem to have been disturbed. The trespassers were far away by this time, and the attempt would hardly be repeated that night. He made his way quietly back to the corral, let loose his horse, and regained the casa unobserved. He unlocked the ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... up the second hill; and from the slow and unsteady footing of the horses it was evident they must have come out of the plain. The carriage too, Edward now saw clearly, was a strange one, and must probably be bringing some unexpected visitant. With much panting and straining at length the horses dragged the coach up the last slope; and an elderly lady got out at the door of the great house, and sent her maid and servant with the carriage to the ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... again to-night, I see," volunteered the ticket taker, to whom William Grimsby was a familiar visitant. Shirley reeled with steadied and studied equilibrium, into the foyer of the theatre, as he nodded. Their seats were purposely in the rear of a side box, well protected from the audience by the holders of the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... we arrived at a large, desert, dark cavern, which the Lazzeroni assured us was the Sibyl's Cave. We were sufficiently disappointed—Yet we examined it with care, as if its blank, rocky walls could still bear trace of celestial visitant. On one side was a small opening. Whither does this lead? we asked: can we enter here?—"Questo poi, no,"—said the wild looking savage, who held the torch; "you can advance but a short distance, and ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... never before, so great had been the transformation wrought by the angel. When Joseph came, he did not recognize her. He asked her who she was, whereto she replied, "I am thy maid-servant Asenath! I have cast away my idols, and this day a visitant came to me from heaven. He gave me to eat of the bread of life and to drink of the blessed cup, and he spake these words unto me, 'I give thee unto Joseph as his affianced wife, that he may be thy ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn't its signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... night-dress on her head, and only her shift on: but he had no perfect view of her, for his candle was burnt out; and though there was a fire in the room, yet it gave not light enough to see her distinctly. But this unknown visitant going to the chimney, took the poker, and stirred up the fire; by the flaming light whereof, he could discern the appearance of a young gentlewoman more distinctly; but whether it was flesh and blood, or an airy phantom, he knew not. This appearance having stood some time before the fire, as ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... on the roads or rivers somehow become attached to Miss Ada's luggage. It appears that they are going in the same direction. They say so, at any rate. They form themselves into a sort of bodyguard to look after this wonderful visitant. Mysterious dangers, not to be explained, are darkly hinted at, in order that cause may be shown for their attendance. They are necessary as porters to look after her traps, as purveyors to fetch her milk and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... want of sympathy with his pursuits occasioned a barrier of reserve and coolness to arise between them fatal to her influence. During this time no token of Lucy's existence had reached him: and it was with such a thrill as might have welcomed a visitant from the dead, that, one morning as he left his own house to proceed to the office in which he pursued his studies, he saw before him at some distance, yet without any intervening object to interrupt his view of her, a form and face resembling hers, though thinner ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... the trees behind me. I looked cautiously round, and discerned, half-hidden by the verdure, the figure of a young girl, who appeared to be listening to the music with the most entranced attention. Flattered by such a testimony to my skill, and anxious to gain a nearer view of my mysterious visitant, I advanced towards her hiding-place, forgetting in my haste to continue playing on the lute. The instant the music ceased, she discerned me and disappeared. Determined to behold her, I again struck the chords, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... their lands. This great company set out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... increasing velocity, and towards the end of the following month it will partially intersect the course which the earth traverses in its journey round the sun. Happily, the comet will be in advance of the earth, so that unless our globe augments its pace, or the anticipated visitant retards its journey, there will be no risk of any dangerous proximity, much less of a hostile collision. During this return, at least, it will always be more than two hundred times the moon's distance from us; and were it, at any future time, to approach very much nearer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... clouds, and piercing realms of darkness, and speaking to those who could understand. A sick child, somewhere or other, saw it, and the watchful mother carried the little one to a window the better to see this strange visitant. ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Michael's Church who used to practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest had heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ loft. In the course of time the organist became accustomed to him as a familiar visitant, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the title which this "Word of Jesus" gives Him—THE COMFORTER! What a word for a sorrowing world! The Church militant has its tent pitched in a "valley of tears." The name of the divine visitant who comes to her and ministers to her wants, is Comforter. Wide is the family of the afflicted, but He has a healing balm for all—the weak, the tempted, the sick, the sorrowing, the bereaved, the dying! How different from ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... with this world.—An early example of this type is found in the Adventures of Cormac. A divine visitant appeared to Cormac and gave him in exchange for his wife, son, and daughter, his branch of golden apples, which when shaken produced sweetest music, dispelling sorrow. After a year Cormac set out to seek his family, and as he journeyed encountered a mist ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... daughter, and the two maid-servants, all tumbling into the parlour in a world of amazement. My wife, however, having recovered from her first surprise and burst of natural affection, began, very naturally, to speculate about the parentage of the uninvited visitant. She examined its dress; and, amongst other discoveries, found a piece of paper attached to the body of the frock, inscribed with these words, in a plain printed hand—"I am not what I seem. My name is Phebe." On searching a little more particularly, a hundred-pound ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... coast where any passing trader would be likely to land. Besides, if anyone has landed, where is he? We have been able to find no trace of him whatever. To this hour, we have never discovered who our strange visitant was. ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... for you have no friend round that Wrekin. You cannot divert yourself with a stray acquaintance, for you have picked none up. You cannot bear the chiming of Bells, for they invite you to a banquet, where you are no visitant. You cannot cheer yourself with the prospect of a tomorrow's letter, for none come on Mondays. You cannot count those endless vials on the mantlepiece with any hope of making a variation in their numbers. You have counted your spiders: your Bastile is exhausted. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... There are several reasons for keeping the above rule well in mind, among them, that if the violin is old and has undergone much affliction while under the hands of many doctors, some of these possibly belonging to the "heroic school," it may be found that the last visitant of the interior had straightened, bent, or contracted and held some of the parts together while the glue was in process of drying and that sufficient time had not elapsed since the occurrence for the strained parts to settle ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... heavenly pity in her eyes. She spoke to me and told me to pray, and said that she too would pray for me. At her look and voice the jeering crowd fell back in silence. I thought of that picture of Dore's where the celestial visitant dispersed the fiends. I have ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... this industrial warfare between the unions and the employers has been replete with sordid details of selfishness, corruption, hatred, suspicion, and malice. In every community the strike or the boycott has been an ominous visitant, leaving in its trail a social bitterness which even time finds it difficult to efface. In the great cities and the factory towns, the constant repetition of labor struggles has created centers of perennial discontent which are ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... opened by Garnham; and these two, fresh from the noise and bustle of London's streets, stepped into the hushed atmosphere of the flat where already a Visitant, unseen but potent, was arrived, and now was beckoning, shadowlike, to ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... in their baleful, shifty glare I was conscious of the very spirit of murder. Springing from my chair, I had raised my naked sword, when, with a wild shouting, a second figure dashed up to my door. At its approach my shadowy visitant uttered a shrill cry, and fled away across the fells, yelping ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... favorable circumstances existing with many of them, and happily availed, which our situation does not offer. But the paper respecting Monticello, to which you allude, was not written by a Virginian, but a visitant from another State; and written by memory at least a dozen years after the visit. This has occasioned some lapses of recollection, and a confusion of some things in the mind of our friend, and particularly ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... venal, venial vengeance, revenge verse, stanza vindictive, revengeful visit, visitation visitant, visitor ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... moral law than he has ever put in practice; if it be true that the imbruted child of vice and pollution knows more of God and the moral law than he has ever put in practice; how much more fearfully true is it that the dweller in a Christian home, the visitant of the house of God, the possessor of the written Word, the listener to prayer and oftentimes the subject of it, possesses an amount of knowledge respecting his origin, his duty, and his destiny, that infinitely outruns his character and his ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... be an elephant we have seen—and what else can it be?" pursued Karl, no longer yielding to a belief in the supernatural character of their nocturnal visitant—"it must of course have got into the valley before us. The wonder is our having seen no signs of such an animal before. You, Caspar, have been about more than any of us. Did you never, in your rambles, observe anything like an ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... burst thus unexpectedly upon them like a visitant from another world, bereaving them for a few minutes of speech and motion, was evidently not a native of the land. His pale and somewhat melancholy face, as well as parts of his costume, betokened him one who had come from civilised lands; and Rooney's first thought was that he must be ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... consideration. Usually, in cases of a similar nature, there is left in the mind of the spectator some glimmering of doubt as to the reality of the vision before his eyes; a degree of hope, however feeble, that he is the victim of chicanery, and that the apparition is not actually a visitant from the old world of shadows. It is not too much to say that such remnants of doubt have been at the bottom of almost every such visitation, and that the appalling horror which has sometimes been brought about, is to be attributed, even in the cases most in point, and where ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... with horror, but as it was very long it could only move in locks like writhing eels. Little by little the door opened, and I expected to see my black-bearded dead giant, with the awful face enter. I looked instinctively near the top of the door for the face to show itself; but such an awful visitant I was not doomed to see, though in his place, and much nearer the floor, appeared a black head surmounted by a pair of pointed horns. My eyes seemed as if they would fly from their sockets at this sight, but only for a minute, for a body followed ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... to clamber up the stones, full of eager excitement. On reaching the top he found, to his amazement, that he was in a deep niche which ran into the wall several feet, and was high enough for him to stand in. Into this he peered eagerly, thinking that he might discover his mysterious visitant, but he saw nothing. But as he thus stood gazing into the niche with sharpest scrutiny, he saw something white lying on the floor only a few feet from him. He stooped forward and picked it up. It was a parcel, wrapped up in stiff paper, about twelve inches long, six wide, and one in thickness. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... VISITANT, VISITOR.—Visitant was formerly used to denote a supernatural being; visitor, a human one. Visitant seems now to be going out of use, visitor being ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... visitant, with thee I hail the time of flowers, And hear the sound of music sweet ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... stories are reduced to nonsense; for they present no evidence (through running parallel to actuality) which proves that the author does know the truth. Unless the reader has faith that Stevenson deeply understands the nature of remorse, the conversation between Markheim and his ghostly visitant becomes incredible and vain. The author gives himself no opportunity to prove (through analogy with actual experience) that such a colloquy consistently presents the inner ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... very tightly, so as not to see the ghostly visitant that he knew had come to punish him for his sin. But something made him open them, and then he felt he could never close them ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... human kind in his kingdom; even those who died before his coming, if they had obeyed his mandates, should rise to join the happy throng; instead of a mere earthly king, he should be a supernatural visitant, even God himself; and instead of temporal pleasures only, others of a spiritual character were to be conferred. There are reasons to believe that even in this developed form the myth was familiar to the most enlightened worshippers ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... generally detested being taken into favor, excited the curiosity of every visitant; and even ladies so far conquered their natural horror and disgust as to request to see it fed. It seemed particularly fond of flesh maggots, which were kept for it ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... child's kiss? Aye, goddess, even for this. Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far, Once—in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant - Forlorn, and faint, and stark, I had endured through watches of the dark The abashless inquisition of each star, Yea, was the outcast mark Of all those heavenly passers' scrutiny; Stood bound and helplessly For Time to shoot his barbed minutes at me; Suffered the trampling hoof of ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... marvellous legends connected with the famous General ——, of Hampton, New Hampshire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary. I give the story, as I heard it when a child, from a venerable family visitant. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... depression of these years,—for him the twelve years ended when he first saw this small, graceful, intensely alive invalid, dressed in a simple white wrapper, who had come down from her room to meet him in the family parlor. She might seem, indeed, like himself, rather a "visitant" than an inhabitant of this planet, and their courtship not unlike one of his own stories of half immaterial lovers who go hand in hand, with sentiments for sentences and great heedlessness of mortal matters, to an idyllic union of hearts. He rose, on her entrance, to greet her, and looked ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... from the little chamber, with its French bed and bamboo-coloured washhand-stand, to an apartment with a buhl wardrobe and a four-post bed with green silk curtains, usually appropriated to the regular Christmas visitant, the Dowager Countess of Chipperton. A pretty morning room communicated with the sleeping apartment, and thence a private staircase conducted into the gardens. The whole family were duly impressed and re-impressed with her ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... For Mr. Oswald Morfey, enveloped as he unquestionably was in the invisible aura of the West End, seemed conspicuously out of place in a dance-studio in a side-street in Putney, having rather the air of an angelic visitant. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... examining it under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the mighty ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... for the unaccountable noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants. Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard, an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon. "Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found himself possessed of the gift of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... these remote wilds is bred the fearlessness of man which is the result of ignorance, for they are among the tamest of all wild birds, finding, in this respect, their counterpart in the American red cross-bill, another occasional cold-weather visitant. For several winters the grosbeaks were exceedingly abundant in the vicinity of Boston, and were so tame that they could be captured in butterfly nets, and knocked down with poles. The markets became full of them, and many were caged. While tame they were very unhappy ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... process I was going through. I merely cite its coming to prove that, with all the outward visible signs of fear manifesting themselves in no uncertain manner, mentally I was cool enough to cope with the visitant, and sufficiently calm and at ease to light the match upon my wrist, perceiving for the first time, with an Edison-like ingenuity, one of the uses to which goose-flesh might be put, and knowing full well that if I tried to light it on the sole of my shoe ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... kettle. During a royal banquet the argument to crush the Manicheans grew on the great mind of St. Thomas, and the king made his secretary write it down on the spot. Had not these men trained themselves to admit and welcome the angel visitant, no matter when or where he came, the stagnant pool of the world's ignorance might have remained ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... over the sombre water at midnight in unaffected tranquillity. Myself was scarcely better informed of the tidal flood: stray echoes of speech, odd fragments of newspaper floated down to me, and at intervals some visitant from the greater deep held, like a sea-shell, the rumour of ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... to be present," he observed with a touch of displeasure—whether intended for M. Auguste or the spiritual visitant ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn't its signalement been handed down in the family? How has it ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man. He was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... all of the speech he had committed to memory, and then waited for the ghostly visitant. Ben, who had not anticipated that there was so much speaking in Hamlet's part, was rather confused, and did not know whether it was time for him to come out and strike terror to the heart of ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... late, could sometimes spare half-an-hour just before or just after dinner to draw wonderful pictures for the little ones, or on a Sunday he would now and then walk with the elder ones to Hampstead Heath or to the Zoo, where, as a constant visitant to the prosector's laboratory, he was a well-known figure, and admitted by the keepers to their arcana. But, while he often told us stories of the sea and of animals, he did not talk "shop" to us, as many people seemed to expect by their inquiries ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... been accomplished, and I think conclusively, by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has devoted all the leisure which, during the last twenty years, his manifold offices of kindness to almost every English visitant of Venice have left him, in discovering and translating the passages of the Venetian records which bear upon English history and literature. I shall have occasion to take advantage hereafter of a portion of his labors, which I trust will shortly ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... often wondered what those people thought when they found me gone. Perhaps I am the great mystery of their lives, an unexplained visitant from "the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... there may be, but in the opinion of many this visitant to various portions of western North America is in shape, color, and markings one of the most exquisite of the feather-wearers. It has for its habitation the region extending from the plains to the Pacific ocean and from Mexico into British America. Toward the North it ranges further to ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... tempted to accede to his proposal, for nothing would be gained by any one if the slipper remained for ever at the museum, whereas by conniving at its recovery by those who, after all, were its rightful owners I should be ridding England of a weird and undesirable visitant. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... share in one. He had a very few old friends with whom he loved to associate. He was very hospitable, but he had a strong aversion to formal parties, and to every kind of ostentation. His chief delight was to act as cicerone to an appreciative visitant to his magnificent gallery. He was a frequent visitor to the snug smoking-room at the "Hen and Chickens," where poor "Walter" always brought him, without waiting for an order, what Tony Weller called the "inwariable" and a choice cigar. He did not talk much, but, when he spoke, he ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... with expressions of regret, took his leave of his royal entertainers, of the fair princess (who had been his first friend), and of the peers of Phaeacia; who crowding down to the beach to have the last sight of their illustrious visitant, beheld the gallant ship with all her canvas spread, bounding and curveting over the waves, like a horse proud of his rider, or as if she knew that in her capacious womb's rich freightage she ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... but this is just what our artist cannot bring himself to do. He must have that touch of nature, and of humour, which makes the whole world kin. He must introduce the quarrelling cat and dog into the office scene between West and Goodchild, or the feline visitant whose apparition through the chimney disturbs Thomas Idle's unhallowed slumbers; he must accentuate the gormandising guests in the Sheriff's banquet, and the humours of the crowd even in a Tyburn execution. And in other subjects—where the moral lesson ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... knew that he would have to go and open the front door. Both humanity and self-interest urged him to go instantly. For the visitant was assuredly the doctor, come at last to see the sick man lying upstairs. The sick man was Henry Leek, and Henry Leek was Priam Farll's bad habit. While somewhat of a rascal (as his master guessed), Leek ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... world-ruler, as Goethe was, as Voltaire was, a characteristic differentiating him from such men at once betrays itself. The nimble spirit of Voltaire in its airy imaginings seems a native, or at least a charming visitant, of every clime, of every epoch; Goethe, impelled more by his innate disposition than by any plan of culture, draws strength and inspiration from a circuit even wider than Voltaire's—Greece, Rome, Persia, Italy, the Middle Age, Mediaeval Germany; Carlyle's work made ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... that at the Louvre, both as to the number, and value of the collection it contains; yet it is well worthy the attention of the stranger, and the circumstance of its not being too crowded is favourable to the visitant, whose attention is not so much divided here as by the attractions of the greater collection, where he is often at a loss which way he shall turn. Here are statues of Bacchus and Ariadne. The gallery of Rubens contains twenty-one pictures by that great master, representing the history ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... in revery When he at eventide is calling. Nor muse: Who may this singer be Whose song about my heart is falling? Know you by this, the lover's chant, 'Tis I that am your visitant. ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce |
