"Visitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sighing forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched itself, swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on its sagging hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, steamy room. But whatever ghostly visitant had paused upon the threshold, he had evidently decided not to enter, for the catch snapped shut with a quick, passionate vigour. The echo of the slamming door rang ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... 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 down under their new condition. An opening of the violin, removal of upper ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... and I believe never held a 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, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... room, 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
... 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
... 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
... The mortal visitant was amazed to see in the Moon a world resembling his own, full of wood and water, and containing even cities and castles, though of a different sort from ours. It was strange to find a sphere so large which had seemed so petty afar ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... or ten years old, to whom Caroline Campbell had occasionally made such gaudy present as were likely to attract his savage fancy. This won the child's affections, so that he became a familiar visitant, almost an inmate of their dwelling, and, being unrestrained by the courtesies of civilized life, he would inspect everything which came in his way. Some poison, prepared for a mischievous fox which had long troubled the little settlement, was discovered ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... The supernatural visitant paints a rather rosy picture of the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian kingdoms. But it would be a mistake to infer from their superficial splendour that the inhabitants generally were wise or happy. The tendency of man to ascribe ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Till the waste places All the grey globe over Ooze, as the honeycomb Drips, with the sweetness Distilled of my strength, And, teeming in peace Through the wrath of my coming, They give back in beauty The dread and the anguish They had of me visitant! Follow, O follow, then, Heroes, my harvesters! Where the tall grain is ripe Thrust in your sickles! Stripped and adust In a stubble of empire, Scything and binding The full sheaves of sovranty: Thus, O, thus gloriously, Shall you fulfil yourselves! Thus, O, ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... 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, and ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... conception and treatment are thoroughly characteristic. Mr. Redlaw, a chemist, brooding over an ancient wrong, comes to the conclusion that it would be better for himself, better for all, if, in each of us, every memory of the past could be cancelled. A ghostly visitant, born of his own resentment and gloom, gives him the boon he seeks, and enables him to go about the world freezing all recollection in those he meets. And lo the boon turns out to be a curse. His presence blights those on whom it falls. For ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... of this spectral visitant was a strong objection to disorder or untidyness of any kind, or even to an alteration in the general routine of the house. For instance, she showed her disapproval of any stranger coming to sleep by turning the chairs face downwards on the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... gaped at Drake's words of amity, at Sir John Nevil's grave smile, and Carlisle's friendly face, but most of all at that one who had been the peer of great captains, but who now stood amongst them undetached, ghost-like, a visitant from the drear world of the dishonored dead. The palm-trees edging the square began to wave and rustle in the wind; the youth upon the litter moved restlessly, uttering moaning and incomprehensible words. Drake was speaking to Arden and others ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... from a ramble with the children, they encountered a young man who was greeted, without much fervour, as 'cousin Lionel.' Mr. Tarrant professed himself merely a passing visitant; he had come to inquire after the health of his grandmother, and in a day or two must keep an appointment with friends elsewhere. Notwithstanding this announcement, he remained at Teignmouth for a fortnight, exhibiting a pious assiduity in his attendance ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... 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 other ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... College of Lincluden, which stand on the junction of the Cluden and the Nith, a short mile above Dumfries. He gave us the Vision; perhaps, he dared not in those yeasty times venture on the song, which his secret visitant poured from her lips. The scene is chiefly copied from nature: the swellings of the Nith, the howling of the fox on the hill, and the cry of the owl, unite at times with the natural beauty of the spot, and give it life and voice. These ruins were a favourite ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Fair visitant, the time of flowers, We welcome now with thee, When all the birds' unnumbered choir Warbles from ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... see if we were followed, but the white visitant appeared content with driving us off, for ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... metamorphosis! But here stands she that has vindicated your fames. Take heed of such insectae hereafter. And let it not trouble you, that you have discovered any mysteries to this young gentleman: he is almost of years, and will make a good visitant within this twelvemonth. In the mean time, we'll all undertake for his secrecy, that can speak so well of his silence. [COMING FORWARD.] —Spectators, if you like this comedy, rise cheerfully, and now Morose is gone in, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... the house which Mrs. Vanderbeck had given as her place of residence was visited, but as in the Bently affair, it proved to be empty, and Mrs. Vanderbeck seemed to have vanished as completely as if she had been a visitant from ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a 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 solitude, a visitor is a pleasurable excitement. Maltravers ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... year. In 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 ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... well be discovered upon inquiry to be an answer to her prayer. This capuchin who had stared at me from the courtyard became at once to her mind—so ill-balanced upon such matters—a supernatural visitant, harbinger, as it were, of my ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... composed of heathens, but they saw, were conquered, and came home reporting it was good, and requested that there be similar meetings held among them. It was so planned and arranged. A Nez Perce Presbyterian minister was to be their visitant evangelist. ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... were turned to the door at which Eustace entered, with an unacknowledged expectation of another visitant, and she stood incapable of the promised introduction. But the well-remembered, long-desired voice of Eustace had penetrated the inner-chamber, and Constantia, pale and silent, advanced to meet her betrothed love; held out her hand with timid joy, and sunk speechless into his arms. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... We shall draw from our little box a small white packet, and, though Nostradamus may offer us every secret of magician or alchemist in exchange for it, we shall refuse offhand. How shall he lure us with a shadow, a ghostly visitant, savoring of the pit and summoned only by the most marrow-freezing incantations? Here in our hand is a mysterious, more potent charm, bringing us the warm, human personality of the man. We are not spiritualists, yet here sealed in the white packet ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... 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 as to the volume of slanders supposed to have been cut out of newspapers and preserved. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... candle and darted out into the hall, I followed him. He made directly for the staircase, and part way up he turned off to the right through a small door. We were on the gallery itself; below us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was not in sight. There was no sign of my ghostly visitant, but as we stood there the Bokhara rug, without warning, slid over the railing and ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... art seeks for in its models,—in which modesty is the outward, and tenderness the latent, expression; the bloom of youth, both of form and heart, ere the first frail and delicate freshness of either is brushed away: and when even love itself, the only unquiet visitant that should be known at such an age, is but a sentiment, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the events of the preceding night, and bitterly did he regret having yielded to a curiosity which had cost the unfortunate Sambo so much. He judged correctly that they had been followed in their nocturnal excursion, and that it was the face of some prying visitant which Sambo's superstitious dread had transformed into a hideous vision of the past. He recalled the insuperable aversion the old man had ever entertained to approach of even make mention of the spot, and greatly did he blame himself for having persisted in offering ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... exquisite gown which so subtly suited her, the creation of which had aroused the artist in a celebrated Parisian dressmaker, Victoria was, indeed, a strange visitant in that kitchen. She took a seat by the window, and an involuntary exclamation of pleasure escaped her as her eyes fell upon the little, old-fashioned flower garden beneath it. The act and the exclamation ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mr. Sterling to be present," he observed with a touch of displeasure—whether intended for M. Auguste or the spiritual visitant I could ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... was a visitant from another world, Maurice would not, at the moment, have felt much surprise; but on hearing the name of this distant land, on which he would probably never set foot, a sense of desolation overcame him. He realised anew, with a pang, what an utter stranger he was to her; of her past ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... saw plainly that Zeppa was a white man and a maniac, they turned, with one consent, and fled as if a visitant from the nether realms ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... the trees; and in a few moments a figure, muffled like himself in a cloak, passed him rapidly by. Wagner was debating in himself what course he should pursue—for he feared that some treachery was intended toward Nisida—when to his boundless surprise, he heard the mysterious visitant say in a low tone. "Is it you, lady?"—to which question the unmistakable and never-to-be-forgotten voice of his Nisida answered, "'Tis I, Demetrius. Follow me noiselessly, and breathe not another word for ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... wild birds of the fen came to St. Guthlac, and he fed them after their kind; how the ravens tormented him, stealing letters, gloves, and what not, from his visitors; and then, seized with compunction at his reproofs, brought them back, or hanged them on the reeds; and how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was sitting with him, discoursing of the contemplative life, two swallows came flying in, and lifted up their song, sitting now on the saint's hand, now on his shoulder, now on his knee; and how, when Wilfrid wondered ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... and, monotonous in its forms, and destitute of brilliant colouring, its sward probably unenlivened by any of the smaller flowering herbs, its shades uncheered by the hum of insects, or the music of birds, it must have been but a sombre scene to a human visitant. But neither man nor any other animals were then in existence to look for such uses or such beauties in this vegetation. It was serving other and equally important ends, clearing (probably) the atmosphere ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... cross the room, and approach the foot of the bed. The curtains would be agitated, and something would be perceived mounted on the bed, and proceeding up it, just upon the body of the person in it. The supernatural visitant would then stretch itself full length on the person of the agitated guest, and the next moment he would feel an oppression at his chest, as of a nightmare, and something extremely cold would ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... purpose. We struck the river bank again after much wandering and kept to it, hoping the mist would clear. A man in a goufa appeared from nowhere and floated away out of sight into nowhere like a ghostly visitant from another world. The sun began to show through the fog and blue sky appeared overhead. Soon the steaming vapours dispersed, showing a view of buildings among palm trees and a ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... attention of its participants was arrested by the sound of breaking twigs and 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, erect frame, a large, intellectual ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... look, "here, most convenient to your hand, is a fine sharp knife, in case you are afraid of the ghost or any other midnight visitant and so—good night, madam!" Saying which, I took up one of the candles and crossed to the door of that room—which had once been Donald's, but here I paused to glance back at her. "Furthermore," said ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... 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
... romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gaunt would better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus to produce such an emotional ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... imperfect light which the jailer had provided him. He presently closed the volume and laid it away. While he then sat musing, and thinking of the morrow, and of the fate which then probably awaited him, the door of his cell slowly opened. He looked, expecting to see his usual visitant the jailer, but it was a form very different from his. The door closed, and the figure advanced to where Probus sat. The gown in which it was enveloped was then let fall, and the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Sabbath morning; the gray dawn was just streaking the east with the earliest beams of day, when the father, who sat a little distance from his child, thought he saw her gasp for breath. He sprang to her side, and saw too truly, that that pale visitant from the spirit land, that comes to us but once, was dealing with his child. The mother and grandmother, who had watched over her so unweariedly, soon reached the bed; but the brittle thread of life was snapped, and the pure spirit had passed away, with the pale messenger, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... sorrow that assailed his soul. His heart and imagination were already far from the spot on which he stood, when he felt an iron hand upon his shoulder. He turned, shuddering with an instinctive knowledge of his yet unseen visitant, and beheld standing over him the terrible warrior ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Aklis! and it is ablaze, knowing a visitant near. Tighten now the hairs of Garraveen about thy wrist; touch thy lips with the waters of Paravid; hold before thee the Lily, and make ready to enter the mountain. Lo, my betrothed, thou art in possession of the three means that melt opposition, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the hurricane was across the island from the South-east; and as its fury had blown down more trees than were found lying on the ground when Mr. King landed on it, he conjectured that it was not an annual visitant of the island. This conjecture seems now to be justified, as nothing of the kind ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... unknown depths, crossing 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
... 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. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, alls Bob White, Bob White, as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... 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 ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... party had dropped off one by one, with the exception of Deeside, Macquoich, the young Englishman, and a Scotch laird, who were playing poker—an amusement which he understood they frequently protracted until three in the morning. It was nearly time for him to expect his mysterious visitant. Before he went upstairs he thought he would take a breath of the outer evening air, and throwing a mackintosh over his shoulders, passed out of the garden door of the billiard-room. To his surprise it gave immediately upon the fringe of laurel ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... these unpleasing doubts and perplexities, I retired to rest. I was wakened, after having slept uneasily for some hours, by some person shaking me rudely by the shoulder; a small lamp burned in my room, and by its light, to my horror and amazement, I discovered that my visitant was the self-same blind, old lady who had so terrified me a few weeks before. I started up in the bed, with a view to ring the bell, and alarm the domestics, but she instantly anticipated me by saying, "Do not be frightened, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... pleasurable sensations; for overmastering pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life, and the true commander of man's soul and body—alas! pain has its own way with all of us; it breaks in, a rude visitant, upon the fairy garden where the child wanders in a dream, no less surely than it rules upon the field of battle, or sends the immortal war-god whimpering to his father; and innocence, no more than philosophy, can protect us from this sting. As for taste, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... out her netting, (which was a purse for Lady Tinemouth,) and taking a seat beside Euphemia, united with her to occupy his attention entirely, that he might not catch even one of those insolent glances which were passing between Lascelles and a new visitant the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... fealty; And both the undying fish that swim 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 of might. Now another ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... treasure he had found. A new life stretched out before him. He was a new man. He had entered into a new world whose center of gravity was in heaven, "where Christ is," and an indescribable, exultant gladness filled his soul. He had received Him, the divine Visitant from that other world, and his own soul was quickened with the life He brought. Henceforth he claimed kinship with Him and with the Father. A new motive power of living had entered into his being. ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the surprise and regret had died away, a sudden sound of alarm ran through the city, in curiously muffled tones that blanched the bravest faces,—a visitant, then feared beyond measure, that science had not been able to cope with. People spoke of it with bated breath. It was not simply among the poor and destitute, or those indifferent to cleanliness and order, but it spread ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... intolerable severity. The American soldiers suffered from all the miseries of hunger and cold and insufficient pay, Kosciuszko, to whom the piercing rigour of the climate must have seemed as a familiar visitant from his northern Lithuanian home, was on the borders of Canada when he heard of the arrival in Trenton of a Pole, famous, as Kosciuszko himself as yet was not, in the national records of Poland—Kazimierz Pulaski. With his father, brothers, and cousin, Pulaski had led the war of ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... my visitant, of sturdy form, Draped in such clothing As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm, Look ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... a capacious one, having been greatly enlarged circumferentially since it acquired its full longitude, there was accommodation in it for both the soul of Pullwool himself (it was a very little one) and for his distinguished visitant. Indeed, there was so much room in it that they never crowded each other, and that Pullwool hardly knew, if he even so much as mistrusted, that there was a chap in with him. But other people must have been aware of this double tenantry, or at least must have been shrewdly suspicious ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... craggy vale; It seems the abode of Solitude. So high The rock's bleak summit[69] frowns above our head, Looking immediate down, we almost fear Lest some enormous fragment should descend With hideous sweep into the vale, and crush The intruding visitant. No sound is here, 260 Save of the stream that shrills, and now and then A cry as of faint wailing, when the kite Comes sailing o'er the crags, or straggling lamb Bleats for its mother. Here, remote from man, And life's discordant roar, might Piety Lift up her ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... the little birds do not know that this modest-colored bird is an assassin. At least, I have never seen them scold or molest him, or utter any outcries at his presence, as they usually do at birds of prey. Probably it is because the shrike is a rare visitant, and is not found in this part of the country during the nesting season of ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... fancied during the night that she saw something stirring in her bed-room. In the idea 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
... the warriors in the white plumes which she shed at the visit. Every warrior, as he approached the spot where they fell, picked up a feather of snowy white to adorn his crown; and the celestial visitant thus became the means of furnishing the aspirants of military fame with an emblem which was held in the highest estimation. Succeeding generations imbibed the custom from this incident to supply themselves with a plumage approaching it as nearly as possible; ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... sketch of bliss to be With the undreamed of, sad reality; Yet this and more the afflicted heart may bear, If Faith, celestial visitant, be there, Whispering of greener shores, of purer skies, Of flowers unfading, love that never dies, A glimpse of joy to come in mercy given, The ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... general sentiment was opposed to the idea, that a third visitant had made application at the door of the deserted house. A few, however, adhered to this new marvel, and even declared that a red gleam, like that of a torch, had shone through the great front window, as if the negro were lighting a guest up the staircase. This, too, was pronounced a mere fantasy. ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The divine visitant enlarged on the glories of the heavenly state beyond any of the prophets who had gone before. The description is clothed in figurative language, affording only a partial view of "the glory which is to be revealed;" sufficient ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... valley's edge, With plunging of horses, and hurling of snow, and many a shouted word, And carry away the keen-scented fruit of his cutting, cord upon cord. Not the sound of a living foot comes else, not a moving visitant there, Save the delicate step of some halting doe, or the sniff of a prowling bear. And only the stars are above him at night, and the trees that creak and groan, And the frozen, hard-swept mountain-crests with ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... The idea of a mysterious, young, and beautiful stranger who would visit the earth and perform mighty wonders, was always one which Mark Twain loved to play with, and a nephew of Satan's seemed to him properly qualified to carry out his intention. His idea was that this celestial visitant was not wicked, but only indifferent to good and evil and suffering, having no personal knowledge of any of these things. Clemens tried the experiment in various ways, and portions of the manuscript are absorbingly interesting, lofty in conception, and rarely worked out—other ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... decorum would have said that she was decidedly improved, that she had grown more womanly; and something of this change appeared also in her work, which tended now to the graceful rather than the grotesque. She received her fashionable visitant with off-hand friendliness, not altogether ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Syrian King, who to surprize One man, 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 of the meanest, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... their pillared shade since Wordsworth wrote his poem, that Yew-tree grove has suggested to many a wanderer up Borrowdale, and visitant to the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... like footsteps shuffling in the dark passage behind the arras, struck her ear; she knew her strange visitant was come. She started up, clasping her hands hard together as she listened, wondering who and what like she might be. She suspected no harm,—for who could desire to harm her who had never injured a living being? Yet there she stood on the one side of that black ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 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. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... 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 song ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... broad 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
... line of sky, sent forth a blaze of light from the mountain heights, across the river, and into the chamber of death! Was it this sudden illumination that kindled the fire of life in the dying man into a last expiring flame, or was it indeed the presence of a spiritual visitant, visible only to the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... attendant upon the fearful hair-pulling 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 ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... figure was instantly before my eyes, at precisely the same distance! I was then convinced it was the Bodach Glas. My hair bristled and my knees shook. I manned myself, however, and determined to return to my quarters. My ghastly visitant glided before me (for I cannot say he walked) until he reached the footbridge; there he stopped and turned full round. I must either wade the river or pass him as close as I am to you. A desperate courage, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the theory that, playing truant from the house while his father was engaged in work below stairs, he had been overwhelmed and perhaps wholly consumed by a detached fragment from the fiery visitant. This picturesque suggestion found many supporters until, on the afternoon of December fourteenth, a coat and waistcoat were found on the seashore a mile north of the village. The Reverend Mr. Prentice identified the clothes as his son's. Searching parties ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... life, and an inert gentleness of nature, could make its inhabitants. They were people to be loved, but loved without a thought. Their wings had never grown, nor their eyes coveted a wider prospect than could be seen from the parent nest. The friendly visitant could not discompose them by a remark indicating any expansion of mind or life. Much as I enjoyed the beauty of the country around, when out in the free air, my hours within the house would have been dull enough but for ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... 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, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... name with a ruined tower, a mountain glen, a cell in a convent. In the recollections of the following generation, his solemn and melancholy form mingled reluctantly, and for a while, in the brilliant court of the Scaligers; and scared the women, as a visitant of the other world, as he passed by their doors in the streets of Verona. Rumor brings him to the West—with probability to Paris, more doubtfully to Oxford. But little that is certain can be made ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of the cave towards which he rushed, Sam 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
... 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 me in ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... with 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
... the day when he should be able to fulfil his promise to his poor stricken father, who, albeit somewhat relieved of his incubus, since the night when father and son watched together, was not yet quite free from his ghostly visitant; moderns would say ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... in the tomb, looked as it had looked in life, 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 has troubled ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... shrouds, thrummed the taut ropes against the steel masts, and from the myriad tiny ropes far aloft evoked a devil's chorus of shrill pipings and screechings. And yet, through this bedlam of noise, came Captain West's voice, as of a spirit visitant, distinct, unrelated, mellow as all music and mighty as an archangel's call to judgment. And it carried understanding and command to the man at the wheel, and to Mr. Pike, waist-deep in the wash of sea below us. And the man at the wheel obeyed, and Mr. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... 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 pointing to the page before him, he asked in a husky voice, "What ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... heard of it before. I will look into it, and see what can be done." Here further conversation was suspended by a visitant. I waited with impatience till the guest had retired; but he had scarcely left the room when my brother entered. I supposed my father would have immediately introduced this subject, and, as my brother usually represented him in every affair ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... many have felt after being with his brother, Ralph Waldo, that I had entertained an angel visitant. The fawn of Marvell's imagination survives in my memory as the fitting image to recall this beautiful youth; a soul glowing like the rose of morning with enthusiasm, a character white as the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... and shapeless with glaring eyes" stood before me. It proved, however, neither ghost nor goblin, but my friend Boatswain, the great Newfoundland dog, who had conceived a companionable liking for me, and occasionally sought me in my apartment. To the hauntings of even such a visitant as honest Boatswain may we attribute some of the marvellous stories about ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... The bow you 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
... 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 importance. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... profile of her face and head were distinctly visible, and when at last she stopped and stood there full in my view just, but only just beyond the door, I saw—it came upon me like a flash—that she was no stranger to me, this mysterious visitant! I recognised, unchanged it seemed to me since the day, ten years ago, when I had last seen her, the beautiful features of ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch At the gray ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... one must have entirely overcome the severe ordeal of sea-sickness, and then with the high health that generally follows the departure of this disagreeable visitant, life on the ocean is not without a beauty and variety of its own. In a fortnight one becomes sufficiently versed in the laws of equilibrium to maintain his place in his hammock from a sudden lurching of the ship in a squall or night of tempest, or so skilfully to balance ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... "and breakfast with us. You are strange to me. I never heard of you. You seem like a visitant from another world. Tell me, my brother, how came you to ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... on another life." 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
... once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn't its signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to preserve ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... which was of gayer hues and more fashionable texture. I rallied her on these tokens of a sweetheart, and amused myself with expatiating to her on the qualifications of her lover. A clownish fellow was frequently her visitant. His attentions did not appear to be discouraged. He therefore was readily supposed to be the man. When pointed out as the favourite, great resentment was expressed, and obscure insinuations were made that her aim was not quite so low as that. These denials I supposed to be customary on such ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... with delight. It was true it had never occurred to him to look at Susy in the light of a celestial visitant, and I fear he was just then more struck with the fair complimenter than the compliment to his companion, but he was pleased for her sake. He was not yet old enough to be conscious of the sex's belief in its irresistible domination over mankind at all ages, and that Johnny in his check apron ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... one thousand were taken by the wrecked crew. The same skin of prime quality sells in a London auction room to-day for one thousand dollars. And in spring, when the sea-otter disappeared, there came herds—herds in millions upon millions—of another visitant to the shores of the Commander Islands—the fur seal, {57} which afforded new hunting to the crew, and new wealth to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... end 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 the head, which was perfectly familiar ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... afraid than either, leaped into the bed, and meauled with the most piteous exclamation. — Loyd, thus informed of the nature of the annoyance, rose and set the door wide open, so that this troublesome visitant retreated with great expedition; then securing himself, by means of a double bolt, from a second intrusion, he was left to enjoy his good ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... soothing visions under the influence of which the dame connived at an attachment, which lulled also to pleasing dreams, though of a character so different, her charge and her visitant. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... paroxysms he would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. On such occasions he insisted on perfect privacy, even from the intrusion of his most trusted servants; his voice was frequently heard, sometimes in earnest supplication, sometime as if in loud and angry altercation with some unknown visitant; sometimes he would, for hours together, walk to and fro throughout the long oak wainscoted apartment, which he generally occupied, with wild gesticulations and agitated pace, in the manner of one who has been roused ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... portray,—a beauty which seems to hover around the form, words, and motions of those whose special recipients it is; a sort of ethereal loveliness, concentrating the tints of the rainbow, the sun's golden rays, and so acting upon the mind's eye of the observer as almost to convince him that a visitant from a sphere of perfection ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... sacred visitant into the inner recesses of the human heart, those recesses must be neat indeed. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... 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 to mention ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... exposed. On the seacoast we again find health; Charleston, till within a few years past, was remarkably healthy. Since '93 it has been afflicted, at different times, during the summer, with an epidemic, which has certainly proved extremely fatal; but ought it to be called an "annual visitant" here any more than at Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c., all of which places have been equally, and some of them more, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... dinner in the Boulevard Malesherbes at which Madame de Vionnet had been present with her daughter, he was called upon to play his part in an encounter that deeply stirred his imagination. He had the habit, in these contemplations, of watching a fellow visitant, here and there, from a respectable distance, remarking some note of behaviour, of penitence, of prostration, of the absolved, relieved state; this was the manner in which his vague tenderness took its course, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... wild, unkempt figure, with straggling beard, hideously staring eyes. With its hands it clutched at its hair—at its chin; plucked at its mouth. No moonlight touched the features of this unearthly visitant, but scanty as was the illumination we could see the gleaming teeth—and the wildly ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Love his due. He is not evil; he is good. He is a joy forever. He is vitally necessary in the scheme of things. Happy are they who in the real great work of life can carry with them this angel visitant, fluttering free along their path, now close and sweet, now smiling mischievously at a distance, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... except Bunco, began to glance uneasily from side to side, and grasped their weapons firmly. Suddenly a frightful-looking face was observed by Larry peeping through the bushes right over Muggins's unconscious head. The horrified Irishman, who thought it was no other than a visitant from the world of fiends, was going to utter a shout of warning, when a long hairy arm was stretched out from the bushes and Muggins's hat was snatched ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... at length relieved; a rude folding-door opened opposite, and showed a low dim sitting-room beyond, from which there rose a few steps to the entrance of my chamber. On these appeared, not, alas! the fancied visitant who was to flit about my bedside, and mix her bright presence with my dreams, but stately and severe, with a pale cheek and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... gloomy boughs Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, His only visitant a straggling sheep, The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper; And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath And juniper and thistle sprinkled o'er, Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here An emblem of his own unfruitful life; And, lifting ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... 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 deadly ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... bien jolie, au matin, sans atours, De son jardin naissant visitant les merveilles, Dans leur nid d'ambroisie epiant ses abeilles, Et du parterre en fleurs ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... had myself seen and heard. Demanded by his lordship, what was the succour that I had come to entreat at his hands? Replied, licence for my exorcism, that so I might, ministerially, allay this spiritual visitant, and thus render to the living and the dead release from this surprise. 'But,' said our bishop, 'on what authority do you allege that I am intrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... resembling themselves in all respects as to their person, features, 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 ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... too? Do not fear resistance; my life is a blank without him. He is dead; let death come to me; it would be a welcome visitant. The only kindness that you could now bestow upon me would be my death-blow. Strike then, and end it all! In death we should be united, George and I; and as my limbs grew stiff and my breath passed away, my whitening lips ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... in that place, a visitant who had lately knocked at my own door was about to enter. I met the master of the house on the landing of the stairs outside his study, and he led me in for the few moments we could spend together. He spoke of the shadow so near, and said he supposed there could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... assessment, the damage sustained under foot of her fiery barb by the Fairy realm; comfort with handsome presents the rejected suitors; and until, thoroughly tame, she yields into her softened and opened bosom, now rid of its intemperate inmates, an entrance to the once debarred and contemned visitant—LOVE. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... and hope into the wearied 'Man,' the Angel ordains that a pure and good woman shall join her fate with his; that innocent young souls shall descend and dwell with them. Domestic love and quiet bliss are the counsel of the heavenly visitant. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... frightened, and clasped his two hands upon, his forehead, trying to think who the late visitant could be. Why should any one come to him at such an hour, unless—unless it was discovered? There could be no other justification for ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... exceedingly sparing of her favours to this spot. As every thing must be raised by dint of labour, it cannot be supposed that the inhabitants plant much more than is sufficient for themselves; and as they are but few in number, they cannot have much to spare to supply the wants of visitant strangers. The produce is sweet potatoes, yams, tara or eddy root, plantains, and sugar-canes, all pretty good, the potatoes especially, which are the best of the kind I ever tasted. Gourds they have also, but so very few, that a cocoa-nut shell ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... 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' ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... too horrible to last. With a wild cry, "Lucia! Ha! Lucia! Fury! Avenger! Fiend!" he started to his feet, and glared around him with a bewildered eye, as if expecting to behold some ghastly supernatural visitant. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... one approach—had heard no footstep advance towards me, and was satisfied that no one besides myself could be in the garden. The presence of the figure inspired me with an undefinable awe! and, I can scarce tell why, but a thrilling presentiment convinced me that it was a supernatural visitant. Without motion—without life—without substance, it seemed; yet still the outward character of life was there. I started to my feet. God! what did I behold? The face was turned to me—my father's face! And what an aspect, what a look! Time ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by the opposite road. The liveries were flaunting and the attendants numerous. They drew nearer, and he perceived that it was the equipage of lord Osborne. Since therefore the lovers were to be so soon interrupted by the entrance of a new visitant, he thought proper ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... as Walter called a spruce and maple which grew so closely together that their boughs were inextricably intertwined. Jem had hung an old string of sleigh-bells, given him by the Glen blacksmith, on the Tree Lovers, and every visitant breeze called out ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 sources ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... the things that boiled, or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of human deportment, human superstition and human creeds. The "Letters from the Earth" referred to in the following, were supposed to have been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a friend, describing the absurdities of mankind. It is true, as he said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the manuscript contains some of his mgt delicious writing. Miss Wallace, to whom the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and utter fall, when the Ghost rehearses his story on those solemn battlements of Elsinore. But think what he is seeing: not the stage-vision for which we care so little, but the spectre of his father,—a midnight visitant from the grave! It has been asserted that no man ever believed he saw a spirit and survived the shock. And it is strongly urged, as a defence of Booth's conception of this scene, that, in the closet interview with the Queen, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... of 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 imperceptible degrees the brightness faded in the west, the figures, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... clergyman, or the lawyer does not improve his social or public standing by violent addictions in these directions; to drink his companions under the table, to be known to have the largest number of illicit sex relations, to be recognised as an habitual visitant of the gambling saloon, does not, even in the case of a crowned head, much enhance his reputation, and with the ordinary man may ultimately prove a bar to all success. If the New Woman's conception ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... her own request, she had sat by the bed of death—a Queen ministering to the comfort of a saint." It was in a cottage at Osborne that the same gentle and august almsgiver was found reading comfortable Scripture words to a sick and aged peasant, quietly retiring upon the entrance of the clerical visitant, that his message of peace might be freely given, and thus allowing the sufferer to disclose to the pastor that the lady in the widow's weeds was Victoria of England. These are examples, which it would be easy to multiply, of that true oneness of feeling ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... were two saints, either of whom might have been the mysterious visitant who invited St. Patrick to Ireland. St. Victoricus was the great missionary of the Morini, at the end of the fourth century. There was also a St. Victoricus who suffered martyrdom at Amiens, A.D. 286. Those do not believe that the saints were and are favoured with supernatural communications, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly and 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 him, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the heads of the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... aisle, two rows 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 ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... entertaining, and amusing poetry. Whoever resorts to these saline springs in search of amusement, if he has money and time at command, cannot fail, during the season, between May and November, of being highly gratified, except the mind is entirely depraved. To every visitant, the guide of Mr. Moncrief will not only be useful but entertaining. The poetical epistles of Miss Fidget are not only descriptive but very humorous, and the poetry of Mr. ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... the mere reader. Amid the awful, the overpowering interest of the story, amid the terrible convulsions of passion and suffering, and pictures of moral and physical wretchedness which harrow up the soul, the tender influence of Cordelia, like that of a celestial visitant, is felt and acknowledged without being quite understood. Like a soft star that shines for a moment from behind a stormy cloud and the next is swallowed up in tempest and darkness, the impression it leaves is beautiful and deep,—but vague. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... 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, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley |
