"Augury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (solus). I am before the hour, the hour whose voice, Pealing into the arch of night, might strike These palaces with ominous tottering, And rock their marbles to the corner-stone, Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream Of indistinct but awful augury Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city! Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which makes thee A lazar-house of tyranny: the task Is forced upon me, I have sought it not; 10 And therefore was I punished, seeing this Patrician ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... headland the elements of two hemispheres meet and contend. As Dias saw it, so he named it, 'The Cape of Storms'. But his master, John II, seeing in the discovery a promise that India, the goal of the national ambition, would be reached, named it with happier augury 'The Cape of Good Hope'. No fitter name could have been given to that turning-point in the history of mankind. Europe, in truth, was on the brink of achievements destined to breach barriers, which had enclosed and diversified ...
— Progress and History • Various
... a circumstance, Sir, of happy augury for the motion before the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared themselves hostile on principle to Parliamentary Reform. Two Members, I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan now submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had had its fulfilment for him; therefore he did not think it right to make an attempt on the city, at least until he should have had recourse to sacrifice, and should have learnt whether the deity 69 permitted him or whether she stood opposed to him: and as he was sacrificing for augury 70 in the temple of Hera, a flame of fire blazed forth from the breasts of the image; and thus he knew the certainty of the matter, namely that he would not conquer Argos: for if fire had blazed forth from the head ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... 25th October, 1809, was the Jubilee of the reign of George III. I am not aware of anything being done in Royston, but if there was it was probably a half-hearted affair and contrasting greatly with the happy augury of the Jubilee of the reign of Queen ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... like man forespent, While God his angel Gabriel sent The couch of Carlemaine to guard. All night the angel kept watch and ward, And in a vision to Karl presaged A coming battle against him waged. 'Twas shown in fearful augury; The king looked upward to the sky— There saw he lightning, and hail, and storm, Wind and tempest in fearful form. A dread apparel of fire and flame, Down at once on his host they came. Their ashen lances the ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... particularly in those of the ultra-Republican press. In La France, a moderate and well-conducted journal, I find the following remarks:—"Paris is the capital of France and of the world. Paris besieged is a beautiful, a surprising spectacle. The sky is blue, the atmosphere is pure, this is a happy augury, fifteen days of patience on the part of the Parisians, fifteen days to arm in the provinces, and the German army will be irreparably compromised. It will then be unable to cut its way out of the circle of fire which will surround it." When journals of the standing of La France ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... parents and a sister, which for me was a sweet augury at my departure, greeted me no more at ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... at once munificent and careful about money; calmly asleep amid a crowd of trembling sailors, yet never going to ride without a nervous caution; defying augury, yet seriously disturbed by a gipsy's prattle. He could be the most genial of comrades, the most considerate of masters, and he secured the devotion of his servants, as of his friends; but he was too ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... that, for her, toleration is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... hissed and foamed as before. Suddenly, as if by a stroke of the magician's wand, the clouds parted, and the bright sun shone forth in a clear space of blue. The men on deck cheered as they saw it. To them it seemed an augury of safety. A satisfactory observation was taken, the exact longitude was obtained, at noon they would find the true latitude, and then, should Virginia Island have been laid down correctly, they might steer with confidence towards ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Chieftain's plan Bespeaks the father of his clan. But wherefore sleeps Sir Roderick Dhu Apart from all his followers true?' 'It is because last evening-tide Brian an augury hath tried, Of that dread kind which must not be Unless in dread extremity, The Taghairm called; by which, afar, Our sires foresaw the events of war. Duncraggan's milk-white ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... with gold. And on the summit of the M. I saw Descending other lights, that rested there, Singing, methinks, their bliss and primal good. Then, as at shaking of a lighted brand, Sparkles innumerable on all sides Rise scatter'd, source of augury to th' unwise; Thus more than thousand twinkling lustres hence Seem'd reascending, and a higher pitch Some mounting, and some less; e'en as the sun, Which kindleth them, decreed. And when each one ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... associate with their actions at least the appearance of moral right. However distorted may be their conceptions of virtue, however feeble their efforts to attain even to their own ideals, it is a pleasing feature and a hopeful augury that they should wish to be justified. No community embarks on a great enterprise without fortifying itself with the belief that from some points of view its motives are lofty and disinterested. It is an involuntary tribute, the humble tribute of imperfect beings, to the eternal temples of Truth ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... in which surmise and conjecture played ducks and drakes with fact, the party divided into two camps, the majority taking the stand that it was a local affair and would lead to nothing; the minority, led by a retired army captain called Fensome, reading a dark augury for the future. In the midst of all the chaffing Selwyn noticed, however, that the placidity of decorum had been dropped, and both men and women were leaning forward in the unaccustomed stimulus of their brains rallying to meet a new and ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... capital of Mexico than that of the United States, were augury of the peace of the administration thus ushered in! Happily, they were needless. All who remember that inauguration will recall the dull, dead quiet with which the day passed off. The very studiousness of precaution took away from the enjoyment of the spectacle even; and a cloud was thrown ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... with an eye single to the gain of the purse, but thinking, rather, to pluck green laurels for themselves, and to bring to the Queen and England gifts of waning danger, waxing power! What reproach—what evil augury—nay, perhaps, what maiming of our enterprise! Leaders and commanders that you are, with your goodly ships, your mariners and soldiers awaiting you, and above us all the lode-star of noblest duty, truest ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the augur, led the Mysians, but his skill in augury availed not to save him from destruction, for he fell by the hand of the fleet descendant of Aeacus in the river, where he slew others ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... prediction, announcement; program, programme [Brit.] &c (plan) 626; premonition &c (warning) 668; prognosis, prophecy, vaticination, mantology^, prognostication, premonstration^; augury, auguration^; ariolation^, hariolation^; foreboding, aboding^; bodement^, abodement^; omniation^, omniousness^; auspices, forecast; omen &c 512; horoscope, nativity; sooth^, soothsaying; fortune telling, crystal gazing; divination; necromancy &c 992. [Divination ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a Magus, got by Gellius out of his mother (Marriage nefand!) who shall Persian augury learn. Needs it a Magus begot of son upon mother who bare him, If that impious faith, Persian religion be fact, So may their issue adore busy gods with recognised verses 5 Melting in altar-flame fatness contained by ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the prisoner,—a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that a fresh declaration was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... may be counted as belonging definitely to the new religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations are still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the continuance of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. There are many signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be coming as swiftly as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may seem at present as though nothing very much were happening, ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... I swung over the side of the boat into the water, when I found myself knee-deep. Olivia looked from me to Tardif with a flushed face—an augury that made my pulses leap. Why should her face never change when he carried her in his arms? Why should ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... the oracle, and does injustice to the old heathen prophet. He spake no word whatever about dominion; all he dared conjecture for his city was safety. Even that is put in a highly hypothetical mood. The augury begins with an "if," regarding the apocryphal story of Romulus and the twelve vultures. But whether the fable of the vultures be true or not, the augury of twelve centuries of safety deduced from it is undeniably false, whether it refers ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... it as a thing Of signal augury, and one which bodes Heaven's confidence in me and in my line, That I should rule as King in such an age!... Well, well.—So this new march of Bonaparte's Was unexpected, forced perchance ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... cajoled, the bright anticipations of his companions were suddenly saddened. In the midst of their preparations, Cromwell arrested several noted Royalists in London: it was obvious that he had discovered 'the design.' But that dark cloud had its silver lining; it was even converted into an augury of success. The conspirators at Cologne were 'cheered by letters' from their colleagues in England, assuring them 'that none of their particular friends at the intended ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... always kept about him so as to be prepared for any event, in the folds of the soft cambric, and gave it back to the Princess, who quickly put it into her pocket. That also seemed to him to be a good augury, and, in fact, in the course of a few hours he received a note in disguised handwriting, by the post, in which his bold wooing was graciously entertained, and an appointment was made for the same night in the pavilion of the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... vessels of silver, and six hundred marks of silver in dishes and trenchers and other things. When all this was done they took their departure and went out of Valencia, and the Cid rode out a long league with them. He looked at the birds, and the augury was bad, and he thought that these marriages would not be without some evil. And his heart smote him, and he began to think on what Dona Ximena had said, and to fear lest evil should befall him from these sons-in-law, for the manner of their speech was not as it was ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... to what is told by Aelian of Pindar, that a swarm of bees settled upon his lips, and fed him with honey, when he was left exposed upon the highway. It probably had some foundation in fact, whatever may be thought of the implied augury of the special favour of the gods which is said to have been drawn from it at the time. In any case, the picture of the strayed child, sleeping unconscious of its danger, with its hands full of wild- flowers, is pleasant ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth." What was the beginning of Rome, the metropolis of all the world? what was it but a concourse of thieves, and a sanctuary of criminals? it was justly named by the augury of no less than twelve vultures, and the founder cemented his walls with the blood ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... war, the cost of maintaining armies, the dangers of military despotism, and the impossibility of ever subjugating the South. He pleaded for peace with the rebels, and from the event of the great battle near Manassas he drew an augury of defeat to the cause of the Government on ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... hat-patterns which give the exact shape of the head, I have found this is not uncommon. The phrenologist made all sorts of predictions of what I should be and do, which proved about as near the truth as those recorded in Miss Edith Thomas's charming little poem, "Augury," which some of us were reading ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hours a day's work in the navy yards of the United States. This was the beginning of the eight hour agitation in Congress. I had not given much thought to the necessity for such legislation in this country, but the proposed measure seemed to me an augury of good to the working classes, as the Ten Hour movement had proved itself to be twenty years before. It could plead the time laws of England as a precedent, enacted to protect humanity against the "Lords of the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... will which the Catholic religion was beginning to acquire. At any rate the example set by the governing body of the new republic attending Mass in a Roman Catholic edifice, offering up their devout orisons in the language, service and worship of Rome, would be a memorable one, an augury of the new spirit of religious freedom which later would be breathed into the Constitution of these same ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... lastly, E signifieth Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there was a great feare that some troubles might have arisen about the crown." As this did not happen, Heywood, who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets out of the scrape by saying, "Yet proved this augury true, though not according to the former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration of King James, there was great mortality, not in London only, but through the whole kingdom, and from which the nation was not quite ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... be met. His promise was undeniable. The vessel, too, though it lay now in harbour and had not yet been proved by the buffets of the elements on the great ocean, had made a good trial trip, and got well through stormy weather, as the records of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No augury could be hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal severe, the Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a Spring! But, bright as it was, the baronet relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Bavaria!" sobbed August; for it is always a name of dread augury to the Tyroleans, by reason of those bitter struggles and midnight shots and untimely deaths which come from those meetings of jaeger and hunter in the Bayerischenwald. But the train stopped; Munich was reached, ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... as cups and as dishes (Fig. 5, No. 6). Wooden dishes are likewise used, but they are employed chiefly in ceremonies for the feeding of the spirits or to hold the rice from which a bride and groom receive the augury of the future (Fig. 5, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... six years; having passed the stage of love at first sight, hopeless love, worshiping love from afar, patient love, love requited and love rewarded; I am now so happy, so unspeakably optimistic, that I accept without question the happy augury of enchanted moonlight, as being truly prophetic. Besides, having a wife so noble, so good and so wise, to make it possible; how could our honeymoon be other than the most delightful ever known to the history of ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... had done was to intimate his intention of recommending himself to her, and the view with which he had placed himself at Avonmouth; nor was he in the slightest degree disconcerted by her vehemence, but rather entertained by it, accepting her faithfulness to her first husband's memory as the best augury of her affection for a second. He did not even own that ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the twentieth and twenty-third ult. are received. Of the tone and temper of both I do not complain. The desperate fortunes of a bad cause excuse much irritation of temper, and I pass it by. Indeed, I received it as a favorable augury, and as evidence that you are not indifferent to the opinions of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Goncourts could in any circumstances subordinate literature to any other interest was the merest illusion. Nothing in the world pleased them half so well as the sight of their own words in print. The arrival of a set of proof-sheets on the 1st of January was to them the best possible augury for the new year; the sight of their names on the placards outside the theatres and the booksellers' shops enraptured them; and Edmond, then well on in years, confesses that he thrice stole downstairs, half-clad, in the March dawn, to make sure that ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... sailors said—hopelessly, among the breakers of the North Sands. She had tried to run in without a pilot, and ours seemed to think her fate the justest of judgments; but to disinterested and unprofessional spectators the sight was very sad, and somewhat discouraging. So with omen and augury, as well as the wind ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... probably accounted in some measure for the frequent gaiety which he attributed to improving health and revived hopes. Everything he undertook was easy to him, and by a pleasant self-deception he made the passing of a school task his augury of success ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... better; but again Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply fulfilled. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... their departure they arrived. It was a beautiful, rosy May morning, when the steamer cast anchor in the immense river of the Plata, near the shore along which stretches the vast city of Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentine Republic. This splendid weather seemed to him to be a good augury. He was beside himself with joy and impatience. His mother was only a few miles from him! In a few hours more he would have seen her! He was in America, in the new world, and he had had the daring to come ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in so short a time, and with such threats from a man who is one of the most prominent exponents of the San Francisco mining-ring staring me and this whole community defiantly in the face and pointing to a completion of your augury, do you blame me for feeling that this communication is the last I shall ever write for the Press, especially when a sense alike of personal self-respect, of duty to this money-oppressed and fear-ridden community, and of American fealty to the spirit of true ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 7: An epithet derived from [Greek: sminthos], the Phrygian name for a mouse: either because Apollo had put an end to a plague of mice among that people, or because a mouse was thought emblematical of augury.—Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 68, observes that this "worship of Sminthian Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and its neighbouring territory, dates before the earliest period of AEolic colonization." ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... killing time, our orders came through to leave for the front, two of us to go by motor and the rest by train. Our experience with the British officer at the base had certainly been pleasant and proved to be a happy augury of our future relationships with them. The British officer in France is quite a different man from the same officer in England, and does not impress you with the fact that the war is being carried on by his ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... her, and was more than half inspired to hope, and too artfully assisted to deceive the count and the marquis under the guise of simple friendship. Letters passed between them in books given into one another's hands with an audacious openness of the saddest augury for the future of the pair, and Nevil could be so lost to reason as to glory in Renee's intrepidity, which he justified by their mutual situation, and cherished for a proof that she was getting courage. In fine, Rosamund abandoned her task of pleading. Nevil's communications ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a doubt of tha-at, not a doubt of tha-at! There must have been something in it to obtain the palm of victory in the face of such prodigious competeetion. It's the see-lect intellect of Scotland that goes to the Univairsity, and only the ee-lect of the see-lect win the palm. And it's an augury of great good for the future. Abeelity to write is a splendid thing for the Church. Good-bye, John, and allow me to express once moar my great satisfaction that a pareeshioner of mine is a la-ad of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... rear, so that their situation, during this day and night, appeared nearly desperate. In the night Xenophon had a dream—the first which he has told us since his dream on the terrific night after the seizure of the generals—but on this occasion, of augury[62] more unequivocally good. He dreamt that he was bound in chains, but that his chains on a sudden dropt off spontaneously; on the faith of which, he told Cheirisophus at daybreak that he had good hopes of preservation; ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... it," said Ravenswood, "and should be more so, were I confident that Bucklaw would change his company and habits with his fortunes. This appearance of Craigengelt, acting in the capacity of his friend, is a most vile augury for his ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... for augury. Aengus of the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... broke, showing blue sky and one streak of sunshine. But the augury was without warrant. The wind increased. A huge black pall bore down from the mountains and it brought rain that could be seen falling in sheets from above and approaching like a swiftly moving wall. Soon ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... and human interest, nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still improve it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high character and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, nurserymen and dealers are good augury for the future. But all this is not sufficient. Quantity-production will be an increasing source of wealth, but it cannot satisfy ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... with great splashes of water, and the soaked parts clung tightly to his breast. At the neck it was already open, and they both thought they could see at this moment a quick contraction of the throat. An additional augury was found in the fact that Alf simultaneously had succeeded in dribbling some of the brandy between Pa's teeth, and although some of it ran out at the corners of his mouth and out on to his cheeks, some also was retained and would help to revive him. Alf ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... Leaguing, its Self-fulfilment wrought from Heaven. And Lo! from Darkness came to Light A Child Of Carnal Composition Unattaint,— A Rosebud blowing on the Royal Stem,— A Perfume from the Realm of Wisdom wafted; The Crowning Jewel of the Crown; a Star Under whose Augury triumph'd the Throne. For whose Auspicious Name they clove the Words "Salamat"—Incolumity from Evil— And "Auseman"—the Heav'n from which he came— And hail'd him by the title of Salaman. And whereas from no Mother Milk he ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... come, and whither they were going. In reply AEneas gave a brief account of his wanderings since the fall of Troy. Then the goddess directed him to go into the city and present himself before the queen, and she pointed to an augury in the sky—twelve swans flying above their heads—which, she said, was a sign that the ships they had supposed to be lost were at that moment sailing into ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... gentleman of Naples, the Cavaliere Giuseppe de Cesare, was the first to notice (not long since, I presume) the curious circumstance of Dante's having terminated the three portions of his poem with the word "stars." He thinks that it was done as a happy augury of life and renown to the subject. The literal intention, however, seems to have been to shew us, how all ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... concerning the reasons for which I myself left my native Fatherland! I make it a rule never to converse on painful subjects. You tell me you have tried to atone; then believe that the atonement is made, and that Gloria is the sign of its acceptance, and—happy augury!—here she comes." ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... sheep. Now, from what you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidate for the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or three more years at the College to enable him to qualify, should that be his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him. It's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to be Solomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened to be David. I don't see my way to building up God's House on the old farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... joyous Book of Spring Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird Of evil augury is seen or heard: Come now, like Pan's old crew, we'll dance and sing, Or Oberon's: for hill and valley ring To March's bugle-horn,—Earth's ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... drawing-room with recovered equanimity. She had only had time for a quick hand-shake with the other visitor, but the glance which had been exchanged between them was delightful in its memory of past meetings—its augury of good ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals): "I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men were slightly wounded: most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not been wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in an unscrupulous course of public or private action which has every calculable chance of causing widespread injury and misery, can be called moral because he comes home to dine with his wife and children and cherishes the happiness of his own hearth, the augury is not good for the use of high ethical and ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... the twentieth of February, dawned brightly—so brightly indeed that I began to draw from the smiling appearance of the heavens a good augury for the luck of Henri Derblay. It was about eight when I set out. The conscription was to begin at nine, but already the one straggling, narrow street which bisects the old bathing-town was filled with country-people hastening in groups ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... ensigns of Jupiter, supremely good and great, has mounted the Capitol, should be seen with a chalice and wand; what impropriety, I say, that he should, with his head veiled, slay a victim, or take an augury in the citadel? When, in the inscription on a person's statue, the consulship, censorship, and triumph shall be read with patience, will the eyes of readers be unable to endure the addition of the office of augur or pontiff? In truth (with deference to the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... the attention paid to him by the down-at-heels servant—it was good augury for the success of the interview. He lowered his voice to a deep bass whilst asking for Miss Feverel, and he fixed his eyeglass at a more strikingly impressive angle. He looked at women from four points of view, and he had, as it were, a sliding scale ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... to see a fire," said I, in reply to the English nobleman, "for some dreadful accident always results therefrom. Yet, on the whole, they are of good augury, and I am sure, my lord, that your health or your affairs ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... This personage is a charlatan, with an apparatus for divining lucky numbers for the lottery. The "soft bastard Latin" runs off his tongue in an uninterrupted stream of talk, while he offers on a waiter to the bystanders a number of little folded papers containing a pianeta, or augury, on which are printed a fortune and a terno. "Who will buy a pianeta," he cries, "with the numbers sure to bring him a prize? He shall have his fortune told him who buys. Who does not need counsel must surely be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the eagerness of those generous young souls was to me a good augury for the future, of them, and of their native land. They seemed to me—and I say again it touched me, often deeply—to be realising to themselves their rightful place in the community of the civilised nations of all lands, and of all times—realising ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... advised—the Chieftain's plan 55 Bespeaks the father of his clan. But wherefore sleeps Sir Roderick Dhu Apart from all his followers true?" "It is, because last evening-tide Brian an augury hath tried, 60 Of that dread kind which must not be Unless in dread extremity, The Taghairm called; by which, afar, Our sires foresaw the events of war. Duncraggan's ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... on a December day I recall the fact that I have myself within the last week successfully foretold a spell of cold after observing a great arrival of winter thrushes from the north. This particular branch of augury is, in fact, neither so inadequate nor so absurd as most others. Von Jhering may turn out to be right in his notion that at least some forms of divination have their origin in practical needs and in the skill of uncivilised man in discerning ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... to learn the future comes from the old system of augury from sacrifice. Who sees in the nuts thrown into the fire, turning in the heat, blazing and growing black, the writhing victim of an ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... that I shall earn the flaying! The punishment shall be no more savage than the deed that invites it! But enough of that. If I go to Tanis and find her the spoil of the fan-bearer, thine augury will hold, I return not to Memphis. . . . If she was ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the opportunity of being alone with his hostess, and talked to her of the great venture with all the good humour he could command. Mrs. Morton had seen two notices of Alma's debut; both were so favourable that she imagined them the augury of a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... chief gods worshiped by the Romans were Jupiter, god of the sky; his wife, Juno, the goddess of maternity; Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; Apollo, the god of augury and the arts; Diana, the goddess of the chase and archery; Mars, the god of war; Bellona, the goddess of war; Vesta, patron of the Roman state and of the national hearthstone; Ceres, the goddess of agriculture; Saturnus, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... household duties. When the bride and bridegroom were together in the house, they ate an apple between them, to signify the pleasantness and harmony they were to enjoy in after life. Recourse was had to augury, the day before the wedding, to ascertain whether the married life was to be prosperous. Before the bride retired for the night, she was bathed with water drawn from nine different springs. The time of the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad augury. For instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, Lord Byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... head of the earth—just as it had been given into the absolute power of Adam to stretch an impious right hand, and pluck of the Fruit of Knowledge; but, said he—his voice pealing now into one long proclamation of awful augury—just as the abuse of that power had been followed in the one case by catastrophe swift and universal, so, in the other, he warned the entire race to look out thenceforth for nothing from God but a lowering sky, and ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... that pleasure is found in the marital relation is a favourable augury for impregnation, it has been long noticed that Messalinas are sterile. It was observed in Paris, that out of one thousand only six bore children in the course of a year, whereas the ordinary proportion in that city for that time is three and ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... which had been interrupted by the melancholy wanderings of his mind, he gave the signal to his companions to mount. The horses, which had continued passive and trembling amid the raging of the fire, received their burdens with a satisfaction so very evident, as to furnish a favourable augury of their future industry. The trapper invited the Doctor to take his own steed, declaring his intention ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and as I watched the yellowing leaves blown about the garden, I had seen a flock of birds rise above the half-denuded poplars and wheel in the darkening sky. I had felt there was a mysterious meaning in that moment, and in that flight of dim-seen birds an augury of ill-omen for my life. It was a mood of Autumnal, minor-poet melancholy, a mood with which, it had occurred to me, I might fill out the rhymes of ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... delivered, the exact words of which will never be known—for you can not summon the dead as witnesses; then a brief hesitation, and a dozen sentences exchanged between the first and second in command; and then—every trooper in the Brigade understood what he had to do. Many drew true and evil augury from the cloud lowering on the stern ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... and style are ELLIS ASHMEAD BART— Ah! happy augury. Would I could Leave it so. But 'twill not do. Like soap of Monkey brand, It will not wash clothes, Or, in truth, ought else. 'Tis but an accident of rhythm Born of the imperative mood that makes one Start a poem of this kind on ten feet, Howe'er it may thereafter ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... Carapresa and served certain Christian fishermen there. The girl, hearing the name of Carapresa, albeit she was exceeding woebegone and knew not what reason moved her thereunto, took it unto herself for a good augury to have heard this name[273] and began to hope, without knowing what, and somewhat to abate of her wish to die. Then, without discovering who or whence she was, she earnestly besought the good woman to have pity, for the love of God, on her youth and give her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... This moderation was no augury of permanent quiet. Brackenridge, who was a keen observer of men, says of the temper of the western population at this period: "I had seen the spirit which prevailed at the Stamp Act, and at the commencement of the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... the third cannot be come at. He must be cut down afterwards; and, indeed, when so many men must fall, what matters a eunuch more or less? Thus it shall be, then. To-morrow night, at three hours before midnight thou dost cast the final augury of the issue of the war. And then thou wilt, as is agreed, descend alone with me, having the signet, to the outer chamber of the Queen's apartment. For the vessel bearing orders to the Legions sails from Alexandria at the following dawn; and alone with ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... attendants (victimarii), and actually slaughtered by them: from it they extracted the sacred parts (exta), liver, heart, gall, lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting them to see that they had no abnormality—but not in the earlier period for purposes of augury—wrapped them in pieces of flesh (augmenta), cooked them, and brought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as an offering upon the altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the flesh (viscera) was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant and ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... that experience and authority dictate; as we are sure that he who has not learned to obey when young will never, when of age, know how to govern either himself or others: so a singular conduct in all the children of dust towards the Father of Spirits justifies a still more gloomy augury; inasmuch as the difference between the knowledge of man and the ignorance of a child, absolutely vanishes, in comparison with that interval which must ever subsist between the knowledge of the Eternal ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... herself—appeared to have upon the public, of which these two men were the nearest representatives. A glance; a passing word or two; a coarse laugh; and she was doubtless forgotten before they turned the corner. They cared nothing for her dignity, and just as little for her degradation. Then, also, the augury of ill-success, uttered from the sure wisdom of experience, fell upon her half-dead hope like a clod into a grave. The man's wife had already tried the same experiment, and failed! How could the born lady—the recluse of half a lifetime, utterly unpractised ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... without a word of augury, and loosed her hand. Her fingers clung one moment, but he drew his away, called 'King's-cross' to the coachman, and she was whirled off. Angler as she was, she no longer felt her prey answer her ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... written legibly all over their lovely petals. You wish me a rose-strewn itinerary, all conceivable forms of 'good luck'; as though you stood on tip-toe and shouted after me: 'Gluck auf.' As a happy augury, I accept it. Like the old Romans, you have offered up for me a dainty sacrifice to propitiate Domiduca—the goddess who grants travellers a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... housekeeper's pretty and love-sick niece, holding a long conference with one of these old sibyls behind a large tree in the avenue, and often looking round to see that she was not observed. I make no doubt that she was endeavouring to get some favourable augury about the result of her love quarrel with young Ready-Money, as oracles have always been more consulted on love affairs than upon anything else. I fear, however, that in this instance the response was not so favourable as usual, for I perceived poor Phoebe returning pensively towards ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... soon as he opened his eyes the radiant sunshine filled him with hope. His first thought was that he would see the Pope that evening at nine o'clock. Ten more hours to wait! What would he be able to do with himself during that lovely day, whose radiant sky seemed to him of such happy augury? He rose and opened the windows to admit the warm air which, as he had noticed on the day of his arrival, had a savour of fruit and flowers, a blending, as it were, of the perfume of rose and orange. Could this possibly be December? What a delightful land, that the spring should seem to flower ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... diviner, being invited by Balak, the king, to come and devote the Israelites to destruction, God put blessings into his mouth instead of curses;[124] and this bad prophet, amongst the blessings which he bestows on Israel, says there is among them neither augury, nor divination, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... gathered to that place, which was strong because of the fen which surrounded it. They built the city over those dead hones, and for her, who first had chosen the place, they called it Mantua, without other augury. Of old its people were more thick within it, before the stupidity of Casalodi had been tricked by Pinamonte.[4] Therefore I warn thee, that if thou ever hearest otherwise the origin of my town, no falsehood may defraud ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... other a cut depicting the rival candidate up to his armpits in the bog of Civil Service Reform, described as "Spinney's Walk-Over" (a happy blending, as Nick called it, of serious principle and humorous suggestion), I appeared on the door-steps and delivered a few halting sentences of gratitude and augury for success, which were received with loud plaudits and the rattle of the drum corps. Thereupon I invited the battalion to enter and partake of a little simple hospitality, which they hastened to do to the number of two hundred, including a dozen ward heelers in ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... sound his trumpets and set forth once more. "I shall not budge from here, till Paris is taken," she said. No doubt her spirit was up, and a determination to recover lost ground strong in her mind. While the commanders consulted together, there came a band of joyful augury into the camp, the Seigneur of Montmorency with sixty gentlemen, who had left the party of Burgundy in order to take service under the banner of the Maid. No doubt this important and welcome addition to their ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter could witness the achievement of his nephew, which filled him with an admiration he did not affect to conceal. The intrepidity he displayed on this occasion gave augury of his character in later life, when he succeeded his uncle in command, and surpassed him in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... other views: there were prophecies... At any rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy augury. In this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing a chance of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself would be present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that one of the godfathers was to be ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... in my ear, his arm round me, my head resting on his shoulder, the cries of a bat, surprised by an owl, disturbed us. This death-cry struck me with such terror that Felipe carried me half-fainting to my bed. But don't be alarmed! Though this augury of evil still resounds in my soul, I am quite myself this morning. As soon as I was up, I went to Felipe, and, kneeling before him, my eyes fixed on his, his hands clasped in mine, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... sovereigns charged him to express to Cardinal Sforza their disapproval of his action in supporting the Borgia party, that Cardinal, though a Spaniard, being persona non grata to them; and in so doing he wrote to his friend the dubious augury, "God grant he may be grateful to ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... nature of the raven. It is an impure bird, of somber and funereal color, with a strong beak and a harsh, shrill voice. It scents dead bodies from a great distance, and therefore men fear its voice as a certain augury of an impending death. It feeds upon carrion and enjoys localities made foul ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... adventurous disposition, careless of personal safety, gave a charm the more to the magnificent young King, handsome, noble, brave, and full of universal friendliness and sympathy, who comes forth smiling in the face of fate, ready to turn back every gloomy augury and bring in another golden age. Pitscottie's description is full ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... total was 1,200,000 men. Supreme over all was the Emperor as War Lord, but Lieutenant General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the General Staff, was the practical director of military operations. General von Moltke was a nephew of the great strategist of 1870, and his name possibly appealed as of happy augury for repeating the former ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... with her smile, with that serious smile of love and of grace, which expresses at once confidence and pity for the pains of probation, for the burdens of an exile that should end, sweet and calm augury, wherein is revealed, even in the present, the certainty of our infinite hopes, the grandeur ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... he rose to his feet he was sure of a cold, too often almost an insulting, reception. By no chance or possibility could anything which he said or suggested please his prejudiced auditors. The worst augury for any measure was his support; any motion which he made was sure to be voted down, though not unfrequently substantially the same matter being afterward moved by somebody else would be readily carried. That cordiality, (p. 032) assistance, and sense of fellowship which Senators ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Yet no breach of unity has ever propagated itself by steps so sudden and irrevocable. One short decennium has comprehended within its circuit the beginning and the end of this unparalleled hurricane. In 1834, the first light augury of mischief skirted the horizon—a cloud no bigger than a man's hand. In 1843 the evil had "travelled on from birth to birth." Already it had failed in what may be called one conspiracy; already it had entered upon a second, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the suddenness of Benito's announcement and its menacing augury, Inez sought her father and Adrian. The latter acted instantly. "Do not tell your wife," he said to Windham. "There may be nothing amiss. And if there should be, she will find no profit in knowing. Tell her you ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... an uncomfortable feeling, amounting almost to an augury of ill, to hear Uncle Bernard talking of Margot Blount with such unusual interest. The first definite wish which he had expressed was in connection with her name; his last remarks virtually sanctioned with his ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... augury, for which, however, I could assign no satisfactory cause, I shut myself up in my apartment at the inn, and having dismissed Andrew, after resisting his importunity to accompany him to St. Enoch's Kirk,* where, he said, "a soul-searching divine was to haud forth," ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... follow a braggingmatch among the warriors, for a recital of the past was meant as an augury for the future. The time was towards the close of the Wicking-tide, and the world was becoming hard for simple folk. There were endless bickerings with the Tronds in the north and the men of More in the south, and a certain ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... gladly accept their services, Van Voorden, and, as you say, the people will certainly draw a good augury from ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... to your hut, and wait until I send for you!" answered Umbulazi, making a grimace from which Denis drew no favourable augury. He thought ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston |
