"Presentiment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vestments and altar cloths, the great treasures of the church, had been purposely left in an open box, that they might be inspected by the visitors, and the Padre had departed with a growing uneasiness in his mind, lest the instructions should be neglected. So strong was his presentiment, "though the gentleman was not one to forget," that he felt compelled to leave the sick man before nightfall, and hurry off to the church to see if his fears were justified. He promised, however, to return ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... interested in the following additional instance of composing with a visual object in mind: "I wrote to you concerning a presentiment; it occurred to me on the days from March 24th to 27th, when I was at work on my new composition. There is a place in it to which I constantly recurred; it is as if some one sighed, 'Ach, Gott!' from the bottom of his ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... and made Peter repeat the story twice, while his brain worked rapidly with a presentiment that this new complication might prove ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... overcame every other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... not say so," cried Richard. "Why should this sad presentiment still haunt you? I strove to chase it away just now, and hoped I had succeeded. You are dearer to me than life. Why, therefore, should I not risk it in your defence? And why should your love prove fatal ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... family. There was not a happier man in Paris that afternoon than Philip Wentworth. Life had become so delicious to him that he shrunk from looking beyond to-day. What could the future add to his full heart, what might it not take away? The deepest joy has always something of melancholy in it—a presentiment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling without a name. Wentworth was conscious of this subtile shadow that night, when he rose from the lounge and thoughtfully held Julie's hand to his lip for a moment before parting. A careless observer would not have thought him, as he was, ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... poor creature here was painful to behold. I spoke soothingly and encouragingly, but with a presentiment that she must be disappointed. While I was speaking the supper-bell rang, and I proposed to get her a seat ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... he repeated, "tell me whether in the night you have ever had the presentiment of any ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... a moment, but averted her face still further from him. At last she said, in a low tone: "Mr. Van Berg, did you ever have a presentiment of evil?" ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... continuance has outlived envy, than to raise a new one, which innumerable unforeseen causes may overthrow. When Tommaso had concluded, Lorenzo spoke, and, though young, with such modesty and discretion that all present felt a presentiment of his becoming what he afterward proved to be; and before the citizens departed they swore to regard the youths as their sons, and the brothers promised to look upon them as their parents. After this, Lorenzo and Guiliano were honored as princes, and resolved to be guided by the advice ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... been nothing very remarkable in the observation made by the man to whom he had addressed himself, but he was in a peculiar state of mind, that gave undue importance to every word, sounding, as it did, a vague presentiment of some coming evil, which the very singular manner of the dog had created, although he would scarcely acknowledge ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... it use its first lispings and stammerings in speaking words of prayer. We quote again from Luthardt: "Let it not be objected that the child cannot understand the prayer. The way of education is by practice to understanding, not by understanding to practice. And the child will have a feeling and a presentiment of what it cannot understand. The world of heavenly things is not an incomprehensible region to the child, but the home of its spirit. The child will speak to his Father in Heaven without needing much instruction ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... been stolen from him, and that he had been defrauded in many ways by his inamorata. I also know that M. de Chalusse's whole life was haunted by the thought of the husband he had wronged. He felt a presentiment that he would die by this man's hand. He saw danger on every side. If he went out alone in the evening, which was an exceedingly rare occurrence, he turned the street corners with infinite caution; it seemed to him that he could always see the gleam of a poniard or a pistol in the shade. I should ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... graceful, modest, high-bred air they declared to be irresistible, and her acting everything that could be desired—adding that she was as virtuous as she was beautiful, and that the boldest libertines respected her immaculate purity. Deeply agitated by a secret presentiment, I hastened back to Paris, and went to the theatre that very night. There I saw you, my darling, and though it would seem to be impossible for even a father's eye to recognise, in the beautiful young woman of twenty, the babe that he had kissed in its cradle, and had never beheld ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... His system, weakened by overwork, succumbed, nervous prostration followed, and on November 4 he died. Sudden death had carried off his grandfather, father, mother and favorite sister; and he had a presentiment that his end would come about in the same way. During the dull half-sleep preceding death he spoke but once, and then to Cecile in answer to her inquiry ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... spirits; he will then ask you to attempt the recovery of his scalp; he will show you the direction, and if you feel inclined, as I dare say you do, go forward, my son, with a strong heart, persevere, and I have a presentiment you will succeed." The young man answered, "I will try." Early next morning, after having eaten from the magic kettle, he started off on his journey. Toward evening he came to the lodge as he was ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... whirl of society, and none for the jostle of politics. Lady Burlesdon utterly despairs of me; my neighbours think me an indolent, dreamy, unsociable fellow. Yet I am a young man; and sometimes I have a fancy—the superstitious would call it a presentiment—that my part in life is not yet altogether played; that, somehow and some day, I shall mix again in great affairs, I shall again spin policies in a busy brain, match my wits against my enemies', brace my muscles to fight a good fight ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... at her. It was evident he did not dare just yet. "Nothing much, I reckon. I've been a bit down all day. I really don't know why, myself. I've had a queer presentiment, as if something were going to happen. As if something terrible ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and lastly, Holland, not without an object, like a man who lets his imagination wander at the caprice of his footsteps, but carrying everywhere with him a fixed idea, an unchanging will led by a presentiment. This guiding star was the thought of spreading the word of God and the Bible among a vaster ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... possessed by a saint is that afforded by St. Sauveur of Horta (1520-1567). Outside of this one work I have been unable to find any reference to this saint, so I will give a sketch of his apparently remarkable life. He was born in Catalonia, and received the first part of his name from a presentiment of his sponsors that he was to be a savior of men, and the second part because he entered the monastery at Horta. A short time after he finished his novitiate, people in some way got the idea that he had a wonderful gift of healing, and soon patients came to him in crowds from all parts ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... pleading that he should withdraw from the fight and live quietly with her at home, and then, more like herself, she rages in the moment of his mad jealousy and her unquenchable anger. To-morrow he would submit to the final arbitrament of arms the cause for which he had lived, and for which the presentiment was upon him that he would die, and the quarrel begun between him and MacKay fifteen years ago, between the sides they represent centuries ago, would be settled. If the years had been given back to him to live again, he would not have had them otherwise. Destiny ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... The presentiment of the author of the bill was realized. The bill never saw the light as a law of the land. Nor was it needful that it should. It contributed to swell the volume of other ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... a vision of present and future, in which the woe and conflict of our mortal existence are absorbed in the widening glory of an eternal day. The vision comes to one cradled in the happiness of love; and he is startled from it by a presentiment that it has been an illusion created by his happiness. But we know that from Mr. Browning's point of view, Love, even in its illusions, may be accepted as a ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... our gallant leader, who was alone on board the slaver. The reader will have seen that our business was boarding and fighting our enemy hand to hand. As I was making a jump on board I saw the white of the eye of a great black man turned on me; he brandished a huge axe, which I had a sort of presentiment was intended for me. I sprang as it were straight at my destiny, for as I grasped the gunnel down came the axe, and I received the full edge of the beastly thing across the back of my hand. I fell into the water, but was picked up by my sailors, and managed to get on board ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... had never seen or heard of so peaceful an end as hers— such fervent faith, such earnest reliance on her Saviour. She seemed to have a presentiment from the first, of her death; and, when she was told there was no hope of her recovery, she only grieved for those she left behind; and for me and my disappointment, my old ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... turned in the direction of the Capitol Square, which stretched, like the painted curtain of a theatre, across the end of the street. A singular intuition, a presentiment, had come to him that if he could sustain this impulse, this tide of energy until he saw Patty, he should be cured—he should find freedom of spirit. Only through love, he had discovered, could there be resurrection from this spiritual death of the last ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... took his leave, feeling a presentiment of evil within him which it was impossible for him to shake off as he pressed Barneveld's ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... clasped her hands hard together and sighed. She spake not, but her lips moved in prayer as if deprecating some danger, or combating some presentiment of evil. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... have wired, or written me a note, even if there were nothing definite to say. He might, unless—something had happened to him. There was that to think of; and I did think of it, with dread, and a growing presentiment that I had not suffered yet all I was to suffer. I determined to send a servant to the Elysee Palace Hotel to enquire for him, and despatched Henri immediately. Meanwhile, as there was nothing to do, after pretending to eat ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... really to concert measures with the Russian Ministry for carrying this measure into effect; and it is remarkable that the Duke, upon taking leave of his friends and family to set out on this journey, was deeply affected, as if he had some presentiment that he should never return. Alava told me that he had frequently taken leave of him, when both expected that they should never meet again, yet neither upon that occasion nor upon any other in the course of the seventeen ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... widow. She was sitting before the fire when Jane entered, working, and rocking the cradle beside with her foot. At the sight of her visitor's pale face, and tear-stained cheeks, and quivering lips, she had dropped her work and stood up, with a terrible presentiment of evil—with that dread which is never altogether absent from the mind of a collier's wife. She did not speak, but stood with wide-open eyes ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... spoke to me in a language till then unknown. If you have forgotten those terrible kisses, I have never been able to efface them from my memory,—I am dying of them! Yes, each time that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I asked myself involuntarily, "What must be such joys?" Our mutual looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... word "confess"? Far from having committed an evil action, I consider I have exhibited exemplary altruism. Did I want a "young savage from Syria" to come and interfere with my perfectly ordered life? Judith does not realise this. I had a presentiment of the prejudice she would conceive against the poor girl, and now it has been verified. I wish I had held my tongue. As Judith, for some feminine reason known only to herself, has steadily declined to put her foot inside my house, she ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... and Ernst and Elise sate in one of the parlour windows. Mutual communications received with mutual sympathy, had made them have joy in each other—had let them feel at peace with life. They were now silent; but a presentiment that for the future they should be ever happier with each other, like a harmonious tone, responded in their hearts, and brightened their countenances. In the mean time, the shadows of evening began to grow broader, and a soft rain pattered on the window. The sonorous voice of the Candidate, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... with his present situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made earth a paradise for me, but that even then a presentiment that I should lose all this happiness tormented me. At this moment a servant announced Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it almost deprived him of strength. A ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... and unhappy. We cannot vouch for the truth of this story; but if Byron did not hold intercourse with unearthly beings, he has, by his writings and speech, left room for simple-minded people who have read his works and history, to suppose that he did. His belief in presentiment was very strong, as also visionary warnings of imminent danger or ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... had my room mined out and was preparing to take down the coal. I set my wedges in a certain place above the vein of coal and began to strike with my sledge hammer, when I received a presentiment to remove my wedges from that place to another. Now I would not have the reader believe that I was in any manner superstitious, but I was so influenced by that presentiment that I withdrew my wedges and set them in another place; then I proceeded to strike them a second time with the sledge ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... It was the gate leading into this street which was attacked by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. It was the fact that the Cardinal de Bourbon and the Due de Guise had been seen walking together at the Porte St. Honor that was said to have turned half the moustache of Henri of Navarre suddenly white, from a presentiment of the crime which has become known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Here, in 1648, the barricade was raised which gave the signal for all the troubles of the Fronde. It was at No 3—then called L'Auberge des Trois Pigeons—that Ravaillac was lodging when ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... denouncing the project of placing the scion of a great Protestant dynasty on the 'throne of Charles V.' M. Ollivier tells us that when the news first reached him it brought upon him suddenly and painfully the presentiment of impending war, to the discomfiture of all his efforts for the preservation of peace until the Liberal Empire should ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... young man, earnestly, "your coming promises so much to us all! You were just the one element lacking in our home. I now see that it was so. I already have the presentiment that you will do more for us than we can ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... monkey dancing together. The Raja could not rest until he had found out the meaning of the dream, so he sent for his younger wife and her two sons and consulted them. They could give no explanation, but the younger son said that he had a presentiment that his brother, the son of the elder Rani, could interpret the dream. So that son was sent for, and when he appeared before his father and heard the story of the dream, he said "This is the interpretation: the three golden animals ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... resignation, however, for they seemed still more keenly determined that they would not die before they had satisfied their ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes, notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel a presentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of poverty weighed them down the more. When they recapitulated their vain attempts—when they recalled their thirty years' struggle, and the defection of their children—when they saw their airy castles ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... much," I said flippantly—I had a creepy, crawly presentiment that a scene of some kind was threatening—"and I'm awfully tired of Thrush Hill and country life, Jack. I suppose it is horribly ungrateful of me to say so, but it ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... down petite mre's avenue, alongside the Couillards' farm. Something weighed on her spirit like a presentiment of the long boredom of the monotonous ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... even if I should not bring a small competence home with me, I have an idea, or rather, I have a presentiment that it is awaiting me on my return. Yes; comparative wealth, to say nothing of happiness! In what way? That is my secret, my dearest Hulda, and you will forgive me for having a secret from you! It is the only one! Besides, I will tell you all about it. When? Well, ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... yet unutterable awe crept over him—a fearful but undefined sensation—a presentiment that something terrible was about to happen. He strove to shake it off, but could not—like an icy thrill it ran, slow and curdling, through his veins. A low rustling, as of silken drapery, struck upon ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... much dispirited, and said to me, "Valerie, I have a presentiment that we never shall meet again, and yet I am anything but superstitious. I can truly say that you are the only person to whom I have felt real attachment since my youth, and I feel more than I can describe. Something whispers to me, 'Do not go to France,' and yet something impels me ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... so much so that I bethought me of tales of the ghosts whereby it was supposed to be haunted. Also, oddly enough, of Anscombe's presentiment which he had fulfilled by killing a Basuto. Look! There lay his grinning skull with some patches of hair still on it, dragged away from the rest of the bones by a hyena. I cantered on down the slope ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... so near that by stretching his neck he could see over the intervening shrubs and observe the sleepers. Just then Drake chanced to waken. Perhaps it was a presentiment of danger that roused him, for the Indian had, up to that moment, made not the slightest sound. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes, the trapper looked cautiously round; then he lay down and turned over on his other side ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Aosta. 'Ma chere amie,' he said to his wife, by the side of a great rock which he never afterwards forgot, 'the step that we are taking to-day is irrevocable; it decides our lot for life;' and the presentiment was true. Soon the Loi des Allobroges was promulgated, which enjoined upon all who had left their homes in Savoy to return instantly, under pain of confiscation of all their property. It was the very depth of winter. Madame de Maistre was in the ninth month of her pregnancy. She knew that her ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... unpleasant gauntlet. Luckily I had profited by the discussion in the servants' quarters and was not wearing a three days' growth of beard. Moreover, I had taken considerable pains in dressing that morning. Evidently a presentiment. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... satisfy her sentiment of atonement towards the same being. One evening they were walking in that part of the park which overlooks the sea, when a sail appeared in the horizon, then another, and another. The sight of ships never failed to remind the mother of her son; for the presentiment regarding his disappearance never forsook her. 'Dearest Catherine,' she exclaimed, 'would that one of those sails were wafting him back to us.' The girl trembled, and Mrs Hardman begged forgiveness for an involuntary allusion which deeply affected her companion. ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... the coachman either. But Gamelin was not in the habit of hiring carriages and his friends were hardly more used to such an indulgence. To see the great wheels whirling her away gave him a strange pang and a painful presentiment assailed him; by a sort of hallucination of the mind, the hack horse seemed to be carrying Elodie away from him beyond the bounds of the actual world and present time towards a city of wealth and pleasure, towards abodes of luxury and enjoyment, which ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... with the responsibility of several heavy trunks, and the still heavier responsibility of four fine lumps of boys, of whose troubles, trials, tribulations, and manifold adventures, he seemed, on the present occasion, to have a mournful presentiment. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... him for a moment in silence. She had always had a dark presentiment that her daughters would come between her ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... in the child the sexual appetite manifests itself in a kind of obscure presentiment and vague sensations in the genital organs. If a young man cannot satisfy his sexual appetite naturally, the latter when it increases in strength provokes erotic dreams and nocturnal emissions; or artificial excitation of the penis may be practiced to produce orgasms: ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the blooming Elspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in the first approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment also seized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding a child of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholy ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... more complete and lovely than this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a wild-wood music of the rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any conscious analysis of feeling attempted:—the pathetic meaning is left to be suggested by the mere presentiment of the situation. Inexperienced critics have often named this, which may be called the Homeric manner, superficial, from its apparent simple facility: but first-rate excellence in it (as shown here, in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Hoarsely each passing moment sings. But to new horror I awake each morn, And I could weep hot tears, to see the sun Dawn on another day, whose round forlorn Accomplishes no wish of mine—not one. Which still, with froward captiousness, impains E'en the presentiment of every joy, While low realities and paltry cares The spirit's fond imaginings destroy. Then must I too, when falls the veil of night, Stretch'd on my pallet languish in despair. Appalling dreams my soul affright; No rest vouchsafed me even there. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... deceived by the honest accents which long practice had taught Mascarin to use, and he had neither a suspicion nor a presentiment. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... My mother had been one, and my sisters had the same occupation. Consequently, when, at the age of thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of Mr. Rawjester, clipped from that day's "Times," I accepted it as my destiny. Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite future haunted me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little snow-white bed. The next morning, with two band-boxes tied up in silk handkerchiefs, and a hair trunk, I turned my back upon ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... only son's petulance, constitutional timidity, and weak health. Cathy, though she was really attached to her husband, gave him cruel pain by her undisguised and childish delight at Heathcliff's return; he had a presentiment that evil would come of the old friendship thus revived, and would willingly have forbidden Heathcliff the house; but Edgar, so anxious lest any cross be given to his wife, with a double reason then for tenderly guarding ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... no, it is not so. The joy is, I suppose, something like our joy at the long pleasant summer days—it has the presentiment of the dark days coming. And it is this presentiment that casts its shadows over the joy of men, just as the driving clouds cast their shadow over the fjords. It lies there so bright and blue—and of ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... January at the Church of St. Dennis. In spite of every care and attention, on the 2d of February, 1826, he died. For many years gifted with robust health and athletic constitution, made the more remarkable by his tall stature, Brillat Savarin had a presentiment of the approach of death; this feeling, however, did not influence the tenor of his life, for his habitual gaity was maintained unimpaired. When the fatal point was reached, he died tanquam convivia satur, not without regret, certainly, for he left many kind friends to whom his ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... they all laughed heartily at his saying so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify himself, and went his way also. Having expended his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... I was waiting the smallest opening to interrupt the indiscreet old lady, and revert to commonplace, when a distant splash in the water reached my ears. The women also heard it, and at the same instant a presentiment of evil came over us all. Madame Sendel suddenly held her tongue and her breath; Emilie turned deadly pale, and without saying a word, flew along the quay in the direction of the sound. She had gone but a few yards when her strength failed her, and she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... ears of all men rings,— That unrelieved, our whole life long, Each hour, in passing, hoarsely sings. In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:— That even each joy's presentiment With wilful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... my dear sirs," said he, "that I part with you, because I feel a presentiment that we part to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... kind of presentiment,—not that I shall die, but that I shall never see Scroope again. It seems as though I were certainly leaving for ever a place that has ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... woman trembled and shook and crossed herself, she knew not why. She felt a presentiment ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... on living, whereas when people think of posterity and keep alive their memory by their works, their death, come as it may, is always sudden, inasmuch as it cuts short something that is still unfinished. However, Caius Fannius had had for a long time a presentiment of what was to befall him. He dreamt in the quiet of the night that he was lying on his bed dressed for study and that he had a writing desk before him, as was his wont. Then he thought that Nero came to him, sat down on the couch, and after producing the first ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... presentiment is in the mother's mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... homeliness. The dates in the old family Bible show that I am in the decline of life, but I cannot recall a period in my existence when I felt really young. My very infancy, those brief months when babes prattle joyously and know nothing of care, was darkened by a shadowy presentiment of what I was to endure through life, and my youth was rendered dismal by continued repetitions of a fact painfully evident "on the face of it," that the boy was growing homelier and homelier every day. Memory, that with other people recalls so much that is sweet and pleasant to think of in connection ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... There was a dark presentiment in her mind,—a heavy foreboding to which she would not give utterance before Cicely, lest it should grieve her. But the next day, when Dr. Forsyth paid her his usual visit, and said in his usual cheery ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... no information whatever, and with an indescribable presentiment of evil designed towards her, Jeanie adopted the resolution of taking post-horses for the next stage. In this, however, she could not be gratified; some accidental circumstances had occasioned what is ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... From his early youth, it may be even said from his days of boyhood, Napoleon felt an inward presentiment that he was not destined to live in mediocrity. This persuasion soon taught him to treat others with disdain, and to entertain the highest opinion of himself. Scarcely had he obtained a subaltern command in the artillery, when he considered ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... if there is anything grand and daring in human thought or virtue; any reliance on the vast, the unknown; any presentiment, any extravagance of faith, the Spiritualist adopts it as most in nature. The Oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says, 'Do not flatter your benefactors,' but who in his conviction that every good deed can by ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... anxious before he started for Paris. His fears were so great that just as he was leaving Rome, with a presentiment of the captivity that awaited him, he had left his abdication in the hands of Cardinal Consalvi, in case he should suffer any violence during his journey. It was only with trembling and prayer that he had set foot on the volcanic soil of France, which, from a distance, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... strong presentiment—and although I disbelieve in presentiments, mine generally come true—that in about half an hour my obituary will be in order. Certain easily foreseen contingencies have determined me to give it up. I shall never have a better chance to make my exit dramatically, and you've often assured ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... and we still witnessed only preparations for war, we saw that our hopes were cruelly deceived. Then it was I heard the unfortunate Marshal Duroc exclaim, "This is lasting too long! We will none of us outlive it!" He had a presentiment of his own death. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... were volubly discussing the affair as they cleared away the remains of the superb feast at which, though none knew it save myself, death had been seated. Thirteen at table! One was a traitor and one must die. I knew which one. No presentiment lurked in my mind as to the doubtful result of the coming combat. It was not my lot to fall—my time had not come yet—I felt certain of that! No! All the fateful forces of the universe would help me to keep alive till my vengeance was fulfilled. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... discouraged the Persians from hazarding another naval engagement. The ships were hauled ashore and surrounded with a rampart, whilst an army of 60,000 Persians lined the coast for their defence. The Greeks landed on the very day on which the battle of Plataea was fought. A supernatural presentiment of that decisive victory, conveyed by a herald's staff which floated over the AEgean from the shores of Greece, is said to have pervaded the Grecian ranks at Mycale as they marched to the attack. The Persians did ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... left Kabul, was to ride as far as the Khyber Pass, but suddenly a presentiment, which I have never been able to explain to myself, made me retrace my steps and hurry back towards Kabul—a presentiment of coming trouble which I can only characterize ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... as few men have ever attained, and finally * * * went cheerfully to a martyr's death. When he surrendered his person to Governor Ford, in order to prevent the shedding of blood, the Prophet had a presentiment of what was before him. "I am going like a lamb to the slaughter," he is reported to have said, "but I am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of offense, and shall ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... peer in under the canvas, and whom, with a reminiscence of the young Gradgrinds, I was about to pay for, when he suddenly produced a florin and many coppers and went in like a man. Sitting in the front row, I had a curious presentiment that the daring bare-backed rider would be thrown at my feet; and sure enough he was, and, as I picked him up, I saw by the perspiration what toil his graceful feats concealed. Poor cavalier! I am sure his pride was more hurt than his person, and he excelled himself ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... asthma foretold a fatal termination. He came to Hartford, Connecticut, in October, 1796, and raised a congregation, to which he preached until he could preach no more. In April, 1797, he delivered a sermon, under a strong presentiment that it was his last, from St. Paul's farewell address to the elders of the Ephesian church. He never entered the desk again. He contemplated his death with serenity and joy. On the morning of his decease, he commenced singing the hymn with several of his friends,—"Farewell, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... too, made me feel excited, as it does in Paris. Sparks of electricity snapped in my veins, and I had a presentiment of interesting things that ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pleasant word for every one. He knew he was making an impression, and felt proud in a way as Crompton of Crompton, when he stepped out upon the balcony and saw the eager, upturned faces, and heard the shout which greeted him. And still there was with him a feeling of unrest—a presentiment that on his horizon, seemingly so bright, a dark cloud was lowering, which might at any moment burst upon the head he held so high. He was always dreading it, but for the last few days the feeling had been stronger until now it was like a nightmare, and his knees shook as he bowed to ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... that the wind might fall before we struck, and if that did not take place before nightfall it probably would not till the next morning. Rationally I understood this perfectly, but I could not feel that there was imminent danger. I had no presentiment of death, and nothing that I could do would enable me to realize the real ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... eager to prove my theories, and too strongly under the presentiment that my hour of destiny had come, to rest, and so gladly welcomed ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... His presentiment of evil had not deceived him. The captain was beside himself; he could not understand what had happened to his wife. It was worse ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... The presentiment of the unhappy burghers proved too true. The English batteries fell to their work, and the families of the town fled to the country for safety. In a single day eighteen houses and the cathedral were burned by exploding shells; and fiercer ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... bald spot about the size of your hand. It may be very funny to see it dodging up and down among the breakers—but I can't stand it much longer. Already the spray has wellnigh strangled me; I shiver all over; a horrible presentiment is uppermost in my mind that polypi, and sea-leeches, and shiny jelly-fish are fastening their suckers upon my legs; I jump, and kick, and plunge in an agony of apprehension, while those fair creatures ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... A strange presentiment made him hasten his steps. What was his surprise, and his joy, when he saw that what he had taken for a rock was a box, ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... compliance with this custom, lately retired for a few days to one of these religious establishments, wrote, on entering there, to his head clerk, a young man to whom he was much attached, informing him that he had a presentiment that he would not leave the convent alive, but would die by the time his devotional exercises were completed; giving him some good advice as to his future conduct, together with his last instructions as to his own affairs. He ended with these words: "hasta la eternidad!" until eternity! The letter ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... really the truth they were following, or some false and ruinous shadow? These were fugitive doubts, perhaps, but to more than one of those midnight toilers they presented themselves in the guise of a chill and drear presentiment. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... paradise; but he gave me clear and ready answers to all my questions. I discovered that there was no schoolmaster in the ship, and that the midshipmen were allowed a pint of wine a day. A man-of-war, and the gallows, they say, refuse nothing; and as I had some strong presentiment from recent occurrences, that if I did not volunteer for the one, I should, in all probability, be pressed for the other, I chose the lesser evil of the two; and having made up my mind to enter the glorious profession, I shortly after communicated ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... say I sha'n't. I have a strong presentiment that on that particular day I shall have ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... the time no presentiment of disaster. I remember remarking to the ship's purser, as my things were being carried to my state-room, that I had never in all my travels entered upon any voyage with so little premonition of accident. "Very good, ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... occupy Point Levi, i. 294; unsuccessful attempt of, to storm Montcalm's intrenchments, i. 295; on a sick-bed concerts with Saunders, a plan for scaling the Heights of Abraham—news of the repulse and subsequent success of, received by Pitt on the same day (note)—presentiment of death upon the mind of, i. 297; impromptu stanzas composed by, on the eve of the attack—Gray's Elegy quoted by, on his way to the Heights of Abraham, i. 298; last words and death of, i. 299; and Montcalm, joint monument erected to the memory of—biographical notice ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... sworn to me that she is innocent. She says that she has a proof of it which I shall see some day—and her husband also. A presentiment has fixed itself in her mind that she can't live, and before the end she will ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... something strange and sad were going to happen; she had tried to reason away the fancy, and the effort had only given her a headache. Newman, of course, was perforce tongue-tied about Valentin's projected duel, and his dramatic talent was not equal to satirizing Madame de Cintre's presentiment as pointedly as perfect security demanded. Before he went away he asked Madame de Cintre whether ...
— The American • Henry James
... procured for her among all who knew her the name of the Mysterious Lady. But we will not talk of her in the past tense. We are so sure of her being alive, that we are even now anxious to conclude our visit to the pleasant house where this is indited, feeling a presentiment we cannot overcome, that the first interesting object we shall see on returning home is that mystical card which has so often startled and baffled ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... be imagination, but suddenly the sounds increased, and once or twice footsteps hurried past the dungeon. The noise now woke Melton, and together they listened, convinced that it was a presentiment of coming evil. The strange sounds rose and fell, at times nearly dying away and then ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... Earth The Knight's Epitaph The Hunter of the Prairies Seventy-Six The Living Lost Catterskill Falls The Strange Lady Life deg. "Earth's children cleave to earth" The Hunter's Vision The Green Mountain Boys deg. A Presentiment The Child's Funeral deg. The Battlefield The Future Life The Death of Schiller deg. The Fountain deg. The Winds The Old Man's Counsel deg. Lines in Memory of William Leggett An Evening Revery deg. The Painted Cup deg. A Dream The Antiquity of Freedom ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... fierce passions and temper the violent acts of her lord. Her devotion to him was perfect: she partook his labours as far as he would permit her to do so, submitted to all his caprices, and, with a dark presentiment that his ambition would one day cast her aside, continued to centre the whole of her existence in the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed the American people to the notion of a party in ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... assuring me that this had been drawn up during his last visit to the State capital, while all his affairs were in the most perfect order, "the poor gentleman," as the alcalde expressed it, "being under the opinion that he would not have long to live," a presentiment of death I have often found many people to ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... several days before he left. I don't know whether it occurred to him that, for all her angelic profile, she was a very stupidly obstinate girl. She didn't like the tropics. He had brought her out there, where she had no friends, and now, she said, he was becoming inconsiderate. She had a presentiment of some misfortune, and notwithstanding Davidson's painstaking explanations, she could not see why her presentiments were to be disregarded. On the very last evening before Davidson went away she asked him ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... attention; looking down the street, he could see the lights of a hackney carriage advancing towards him. They had already flashed upon the open crossing a block beyond before his vague curiosity changed into an active instinctive presentiment that they were coming to the shop. He withdrew to a more becoming and dignified position behind the counter as the carriage drew up with a jerk before ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... other accidents that neither you nor I can think of; therefore, I say again, moderate your expectations, and do not depend too much on Hassan's success; for to tell you what I think, and what I always thought (whether you like to hear it or not), I have a secret presentiment that you will not have accomplished your purpose, and that I shall succeed better in proving that a poor man may sooner become rich by other ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... however, he strove, as he went along, to persuade himself that the presentiment was but the work of fancy; that there was nothing real in it; that he had excited himself to fears and apprehensions that were groundless; that the expedition of the Earl to Italy was but a temporary undertaking, and that ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... assent, resent, sentimental, dissension, sensation, sensibility, sentence, scent, nonsense; (2) sentient, consensus, presentiment. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... for the confession. Agatha sat down. But hardly had she done so before the strangest presentiment came over her. She heard the door below open and shut, and it was borne in upon her mind that two men had entered. How she guessed it, she could not tell, but, as she sat there, she had no doubt at ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... the week that Brilliant was bought and sent home, looking like an angel in a horse's skin? That reminds me I never go to see him now; I hope I am not inconstant to my old friends. And what was it but a presentiment that made my heart beat and my knees knock together when I entered my own room to-day before luncheon and saw a brown paper parcel on the table, addressed, evidently by the shop people, to "Miss Coventry, Dangerfield ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... its splendour. The two children whom she had given to the throne, far from impairing her good looks, added to the attractions of her person that character of maternal majesty which so well becomes the mother of a nation. The presentiment of her misfortunes, the recollection of the tragic scenes of Versailles, the uneasiness of each day somewhat diminished her youthful freshness. She was tall, slim, and graceful,—a real daughter of Tyrol. Her naturally ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the "truth and validity of the Christian idea of Pureness." There can be no more vital question for human society. On the side of natural truth, experience must decide. "But," he says, "finely-touched souls have a presentiment of a thing's natural truth, even though it be questioned, and long before the palpable proof by experience convinces all the world. They have it quite independently of their attitude towards traditional religion.... All well-inspired souls will perceive the profound natural truth of the idea of ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... mean you?" he began; but Simon was no longer beside him. He called, but echo alone answered; and all he could do was to throw himself on his horse, and hurry down the mountain side, with a vague presentiment of evil, and a burning desire to warn his lord or share ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thee for the hint. It turns My sad presentiment to certainty. And it is so!—Not one friend have we here, Not one true heart! we've nothing but ourselves! O she said rightly—no auspicious signs 110 Beam on this covenant of our affections. This is no theatre, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... heard much of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine's mind that calm evening hour. Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow. Her soul was happy and untroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field. Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came to ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... that skilful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with an artfulness with which God endows all women, and also partly because I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! how true was this foreboding in some senses—but I will keep all ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... bore no postmark, and the address prevented Monsieur de Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... distinguished this science from all others and from domestic economy, which is so akin to it. Doubtless, he did not found the modern study of Political Economy, but his powerful intellect gave him a presentiment of it. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... kept buying up steers and breaking them in, till I had two twelves; and one day I left sixteen of them standing in yoke while I went looking round for a good log; and suddenly I heard a crash that rattled back and forward across the river for a quarter of an hour. I had a presentiment that Providence was on the job again, and I wasn't disappointed. One of the fallers had left a tree nearly through when he went to dinner; and a gust of wind sent it over, and it carried a couple of other trees before it, right on the spot where ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... when the engineer Mequinez had been obliged unexpectedly to set out far from Buenos Ayres, and she had not benefited at all by the fine air of Cordova. But then, the fact that she had received no response to her letters from her husband, nor from her cousin, the presentiment, always lively, of some great misfortune, the continual anxiety in which she had lived, between the parting and staying, expecting every day some bad news, had caused her to grow worse out of all proportion. Finally, a very serious malady had declared itself,—a strangled internal ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... she cried. "I had a presentiment that you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never have cause ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... show how this vision or presentiment was verified. The journeys which he now took exposed him to frequent dangers, both from robbers and from lawless men who hated the monks. One adventure with a murderer is told with delightful simplicity ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... presentiment of the vast historical importance which his rule, originally designed simply for the cloister of Monte Cassino, was destined to attain. He probably never aspired beyond the regeneration and salvation of his own soul ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... 'you had better accuse me of this fortune-hunting which offends you. I have only obeyed Fate, and so will you. From the moment I met him, he seemed as one I had known of old. It was Charlecotism, of course; and his signature filled me with presentiment. Nay, though the fire and the swamp have become mere hearsay to me now, I still retain the recollection of the impression throughout my illness that he was to be all that I might have been. His straightforward good sense and manly innocence brought Phoebe before me, and Currie tells me ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entertained a presentiment that I should one day be poor, and have to rely for subsistence on my own labour. With this persuasion, I frequently busied my thoughts in imagining the most lucrative and decent means of employing my ingenuity, and directed my inquiries ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... me, Mr. Cleveland! No, no! You are willing, I see, to rob good fortune of some of her dues. You crow too soon. I have a shrewd presentiment that I shall be quite too much ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... soldiers saw The base-ball bounding sent; They could have joined them in their sport But for the vale's deep rent. And others turned the reddish soil, Like diggers of graves they bent: The reddish soil and tranching toil Begat presentiment. ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... a change might take place—many a danger might arise in that time. In fact, he began to blame himself for having left them alone. It would have been better to have let his cattle perish. So thought he now. A presentiment that all was not right was gradually forming in his mind; and he grew more anxious to ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... meanwhile something was preparing that would draw them closer. He scarce knew what: probably nothing but his finding, at some hour when it would be a service to do so, that she had all the while understood him. He even had a presentiment of a juncture at which the understanding of every one else would fail and this ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... head of Christ for the original picture, which has been preserved on a torn and soiled piece of paper at Brera, expresses the most elevated seriousness, together with Divine gentleness pain on account of the faithless disciple, a full presentiment of his own death, and resignation to the will of the Father. It gives a faint idea of what the master may have accomplished ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... on being told that the figures she had beheld in the vision were thought to be those of her ancestors, she was not so much surprised as I expected, but said that she had had a presentiment all along that the tragedies she had witnessed were in some way connected with her ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... it was more than probable that he was exaggerating the proportions of the whole situation—Fanny had been angry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosive character. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, which didn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. Of this he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion of what, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she did, he decided, it was only in the form of an unanalyzed, unidentified, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. We saw but one presentiment of the man-a quiet, patient, industrious and most ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... think of these things without so much terror, Jane," he said, in a voice full of tenderness, but still sad, as if some unconquerable presentiment were overshadowing him. ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... hopeful endeavour to do the work that has been given me to do, whether I succeed or whether I fail. The prospect of death in pursuing what I knew to be right did not make me veer to one side or the other. I had a strong presentiment during the first three years that I should never live through the enterprise, but it weakened as I came near to the end of the journey, and an eager desire to discover any evidence of the great Moses having visited these parts bound me, spell-bound me, I may say, for if I could bring ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... expectations of a budding and inexperienced imagery; nevertheless, a thoughtful, meditative person, who realizes the necessity of drawing the line somewhere, would naturally draw it at impalation. Not being conscious of any presentiment savoring of impalation, however, the only request I make of the Chinese, at present, is to place no insurmountable obstacle against my pursuing the even-or uneven, as the case may be-tenor of my way through their country. China, though, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... interest, with respect to certain presentiments which from time to time have struck his mind. One he dates in October, 1883, at which time he was sub-editor of an evening journal which Mr. JOHN MORLEY then edited. He had, he records, a presentiment that at an early approaching date, Mr. MORLEY would have quitted the establishment—dead Mr. STEAD genially anticipated—and that he would reign in Stead. In view of the public interest involved in these confessions, we have interviewed a certain Right Hon. Gentleman ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... speak so vaguely? Had he some dim presentiment that his "other-whither" might be ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... said, "an impulse. I can call it by no other name. I should have taken a train that leaves New York at noon; but I had a feeling this morning, which seemed almost like a presentiment, that I might be of some ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you." But I replied: "Pardon me, reverend father, if I do not go with you; but my convictions will not allow me to do so. I even refused to come and fetch you, so I beg you not to say that you have seen me, but to declare that you had a presentiment—a sort of revelation ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... and his opinions. Hobbes indeed was now in his fifty- eighth year, or not much younger than the dying Henderson himself. But he was of slower constitution, and had begun his real work late in life, as if with a presentiment that he had plenty of time before him, and did not need to be in a hurry. He was to outlive ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... and as he lay thus silent and still, the clock of the distant church struck with a distinct and solemn sound upon his ear. It was the half-hour after midnight. At that moment an icy thrill ran, slow and curdling, through his veins. His heart, as if with a presentiment of what was to follow, beat violently, and then stopped; life itself seemed ebbing away; cold drops stood upon his forehead; his eyelids trembled, and the balls reeled and glazed, like those of a dying man; a deadly fear gathered over him, so that his flesh ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sending an embassy to Spain asking the hand of Galeswintha, the elder sister of his brother's wife. After much negotiation, the girl left the palace of Toledo on her long march to the north. Her own presentiment of coming evil was strengthened by the tears of her reluctant mother, who could with difficulty be persuaded to leave the procession that escorted the princess across the Pyrenees. By way of Narbonne, Carcassonne, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... such an agony of supplication in her voice and her attitude, that Pascal was touched. A vague presentiment of some terrible, irreparable misfortune disturbed his own heart. Nevertheless, he sadly shook his head, and bitterly exclaimed: "You are, perhaps, not aware that I have just won ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... rose to the lips. A discreet, socially wise boy would have left the room, but how could Gibbie abandon his friends to the fiery darts of the wicked one! He ran to the side-table before mentioned. With a vague presentiment of what was coming, Mrs. Sclater, feeling rather than seeing him move across the room like a shadow, sat in dread expectation; and presently her fear arrived, in the shape of a large New Testament, and a face of loving sadness, and keen ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... was drunk and unable to attend the funeral services. Steavens called twice at his office, but was compelled to start East without seeing him. He had a presentiment that he would hear from him again, and left his address on the lawyer's table; but if Laird found it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had loved must have gone under ground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for it never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he died ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... There, in the midst of the tumult, with blood running over the decks, amidst the confusion of cries and the crash of falling masts, he wished to engrave on the child's memory the circumstance of a separation, of which he had a strong presentiment. In this moment, which should leave even upon the memory of an infant, a souvenir that would never be effaced, he called out to the child, while shielding it with his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the same condition. He would sometimes sit for an hour or more, in our room at the Cecil, gazing into space, never uttering a word. Poor boy, while of course he could not know that this was to be his last trip, I believe he had a presentiment that ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride |
