"Foretell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then I have made a woman-child that has grown up quite like them. And others think of numbers without having to count on their fingers, and watch the sky at night, and give names to the stars, and can foretell when the sun will be covered with a black saucepan lid. And there is Tubal, who made this wheel for me which has saved me so much labor. And there is Enoch, who walks on the hills, and hears the Voice continually, and has given up his will to do the will of the Voice, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... might do as he liked—or rather, as Claud liked; but it was not difficult to foresee the day when the valet who dictated to her cook would become too much for the proud spirit of the lady of the house, with whom it had ever been dangerous to make too free—or to foretell what would ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... the age, the worldliness of the clergy, the selfish ease of the wealthy while the poor were crying for bread in want and sickness. The good citizens of Florence believed that he was an angel from heaven, that he had miraculous powers, could speak with God and foretell the future; and while the women of Florence cast their jewels and finery into the flames of the "bonfire of vanities," the men, inspired by the preacher's dreams of freedom, were preparing to throw off the yoke of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... was that he could not foretell their conversation even ten seconds in advance. It was full of the completely unexpected. He thought to himself, "You never know what a girl like that will say next." But what would ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... offices. He is very subject to have accesses of weakness, which render him incapable for exertion, and deprive his life of much of its enjoyment. They do not appear at present to hasten its termination, but how soon they may do so it is impossible to foretell or foresee. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... both functions depending on the nerves. In ordinary cases Nature begins of herself to destroy the nerves by a sure process. But how do you know what happens when decay is not only arrested but prevented before it has begun? How can you foretell what may happen when a skilful hand has restored the tissues of the body to their original flexibility, or preserved them in the state in which they ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... his arrogance, he dies. 255 To whom the blue-eyed Deity. From heaven Mine errand is, to sooth, if thou wilt hear, Thine anger. Juno the white-arm'd alike To him and thee propitious, bade me down: Restrain thy wrath. Draw not thy falchion forth. 260 Retort, and sharply, and let that suffice. For I foretell thee true. Thou shalt receive, Some future day, thrice told, thy present loss For this day's wrong. Cease, therefore, and be still. To whom Achilles. Goddess, although much 265 Exasperate, I dare not disregard ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... to an unconstrained development. Therefore, when Mr. Mill unrolls his petition in Parliament to secure the political equality of women, it bears the names of those English men and women whose thoughts foretell the course of civilization. The measure which the report of the Committee declares to be radically revolutionary and perilous to the very functions of sex, is described by the most sagacious of living ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... felt his nerves on edge with apprehension. It was impossible to foretell what might happen. For all they knew, the three men may have suspected that they had been followed, and were now laying a clever trap, in order to take the explorers off ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Nations! Who may see The outcome, or foretell the end? Hark men and weeping women, misery That none may mend. Ruin in peaceful marts, Dazed commerce, stricken arts. God, to the ravaged ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... for it but to obey this order, though he well knew its meaning, and could foretell only ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... went. They were still, you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible new weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do—What THEY would do no man could foretell. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... concern at all, except that he was young, and the captain could foretell the weather much better than the probable ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... deny that man the name of saint? And who, if by that sagacity which comes from the combination of intellect and virtue, he sometimes seemed miraculously to foretell coming events, would deny him ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... past there have been rumors more or less definite in character that a young lady in Brooklyn was not only living without food, but was possessed of some mysterious faculty by which she could foretell events, read communications without the aid of the eyes, and accurately describe occurrences in distant places, through clairvoyance or whatever other name may ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... all my wish and thine complete, By turns we languish and we burn, Let sighing gales our sighs repeat, Our murmurs, murmuring brooks return. 7 Let me, when Nature calls to rest, And blushing skies the morn foretell, Sink on the down of Stella's breast, And bid ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... a-talking to those new-comers: then Ursula gave him a song-reward of their broken meat, and he flew up and perched on her shoulder, and nestled up against her cheek, and she laughed happily and said: "Lo you, sweet, have not the wild things understood my words, and sent this fair messenger to foretell ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... foretell, of course, what obstacles to the carrying out of this daring proposal would arise. Both boys felt certain, however, that so far they were not suspected, and that first Jack and then Frank had successfully thwarted the attempt of Morales ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... consequences that resulted from the mischievous, and perhaps at the outset merely sportive, proceedings of the children in Mr. Parris's family, we have a striking illustration of the principle, that no one can foretell, with respect either to himself or others, the extent of the suffering and injury that may be occasioned by the least departure from truth, or from the practice of deception. In the horrible succession of crimes through which those young persons were led ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... as they are called—are like great comets, chance visitors to our world. Now and then they come, but we cannot foretell their coming. Such an aerolite exploded some fifteen miles above Madrid at about 9{h} 29{m}, on the morning ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... youth, expounded well The boding dream, and did the event foretell; Judged by the past, and drew the Parallel. Thus early Solomon the truth explored, The right awarded, and the babe restored. Thus Daniel, ere to prophecy he grew, The perjured Presbyters did first subdue, And freed Susanna from the canting crew. Well may our monarchy triumphant ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... demand much wit to foretell that sooner or later we should be asked to offer ourselves for service abroad. The question was put for the first time on the 13th of August, at Duffield. A rough estimate was made that at least 70 per ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... he said, "perhaps you will deign to raise the veil of the future for me. You wise men of the Jews are seers and can foretell events—so they say. A hundred thousand chariots filled with soldiers brave, determined and strong, are at my command. Tell me, ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... Roman delusions and customs were as extraordinary as those of any nation with which history has made us acquainted. The augurs pretended to foretell future events from the flight of birds and the chirping and feeding of fowls, and also from other appearances. "Augurium" and "auspicium" were generally used promiscuously. Auspicium was properly the foretelling of future events from the inspection of birds; augurium from ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... by man, and that this mass of literature is so saturated with the conception of a people chosen not for its own but for universal salvation, that the more material prophecies—evoked moreover in the bitterness of exile, as Belgian poets are now moved to foretell restoration and glory—are practically swamped. At the worst, we may say there are two conflicting currents of thought, as there are in the bosom of every nation, one primarily self-regarding, and the other setting towards the larger life of humanity. It may help us to understand ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... of his century to invite ridicule by any manifestation; he shut his jealousy into his soul, and it emerged in a different form on every different occasion. To words of love, so sweet that they seemed the speech of angels, succeeded those bitter and biting utterances that foretell approaching division. Before long, the marquis and the marquise only saw each other at hours when they could not avoid meeting; then, on the pretext of necessary journeys, and presently without any pretext at all, the marquis ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... yon cowardly dog Anster, but because I would give no occasion for a fray, having no leisure to look to stabs, slashes, and broken bones. Men call the old hag a prophetess—I do scarce believe she could foretell when a brood of chickens will chip the shell—Men say she reads the heavens—my black bitch knows as much of them when she sits baying the moon—Men pretend the ancient wretch is a sorceress, a witch, and, what ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... be the future place of these islands in the government of the world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and influences very different from those which made England what she is are in the ascendant, ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... hour, making his deductions from the several events of the man's life which he should be informed of, exactly as in working back a geometrical problem; for it belonged, he said, to the same science both to foretell a man's life by knowing the time of his birth, and also to find out his birth by the knowledge of his life. This task Tarrutius undertook, and first looking into the actions and casualties of the man, together with the time of his life and manner of his death, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "Who can foretell the whimsies of a selfish man?" answered the Shepherd. "He has only his own will to consider, but my opinion is he'll turn out those whose holdings lie nearest the forests and would be best for game, whatever he may do ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Elect Few who understand admiringly and understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows, write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the Reader? Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The destiny of the Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let us not hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... political life of a nation is not to be ruled by catch-words. History is the only builder of state organisms. No one can foretell in what direction our young democracy will develop. In view of the indifference of the German people to politics it may be assumed, however, that it will develop on similar lines to that of America when we have once accepted the principle of the election of the President by the people. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... tends him back to life, and who in that Northumbrian dance could fail to recognise a rite sprung from the same primitive worship as the myths of Nemi? But if one had been able to stand beside that murderous and apprehensive priest, and to foretell to him that in future centuries, long after his form of religion had died away, far off in Britain, beside the wall of the Empire's frontier, his tragedy would thus be burlesqued by Bessy, Jack, and the doctor, one may doubt if he ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... they do, warn us of great revolutions and imminent mutations: their prophecies are present and palpable, they need not go to heaven to foretell this. There is not only consolation to be extracted from this universal combination of ills and menaces, but, moreover, some hopes of the continuation of our state, forasmuch as, naturally, nothing falls where all ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a placid sky, to bid the trees Assume the lively verdure of their leaves: The vine to bud, and, joyful in its shoots, Foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits: The ripen'd corn to sing, whilst all around Full riv'lets glide; ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... most powerful and renowned ally. With the setting of that October sun, vanished forever the career of prosperous ease, the gratification of ordinary ambition, which the genius and the accomplishments of Wendell Phillips had seemed to foretell. Yes, the long-awaited client had come at last. Scarred, scorned and forsaken, that cowering and friendless client was wronged and degraded humanity. The great soul saw and understood."—Oration on Wendell Phillips ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... not lack them with me. Thou knowest the lore of the stars, and canst foretell the designs of enemies,—the hour whether to act ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... allies look askance at each other. Those great Anglo-American Talleyrands, Metternichs, etc., bring down the clear and large intellect of Louis Napoleon to the atomistic proportions of their own sham brains. I do not mean to foretell Louis Napoleon's policy in future. Unforeseen emergencies and complications may change it. I speak of what was done up to this day, and repeat, not the slightest complaint can be made against Louis Napoleon. And in justice to Mr. Mercier, the French minister here, it must be recorded ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... the principal chief, in single line. At the head of this line was placed a kind of chaplet, or crown, the possession of which by any woman was supposed to confer the power of necromancy or magic, rendering her able to heal diseases and to foretell events. The line having been formed, all of the young maidens of the tribe were drawn up in a body at the further extremity and any of them who aspired to the possession of the chaplet was at liberty, having first uncovered ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Frenchy. "But just what you'll be is hard telling, Ikey. Even that old witch of the island couldn't foretell your ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... Marquis of Falmouth's lodgings at Deptford: and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out to the marquis' daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it was ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... and prophet, warned us that it would be a hard winter, and the plainsmen agreed that it was a humdinger. I asked the wise old Indian how he could foretell the winter. "By food on shrub and tree," he said, "heap plenty; the heavy coat of the animals; the bear and squirrel storing heap much for eat, and the bear he get ready go sleep early." And so the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... disposest all things well, I want but what thou givest me, Oh how can we thine acts foretell, When Thou art far more wise ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... Processional caterpillar, found on the pine-tree, has its back covered with meteorological spiracles which sense the coming weather and foretell the storm; the bird of prey, that incomparable watchman, sees the fallen mule from the heights of the clouds; the blind bats guided their flight without collision through the inextricable labyrinth of threads devised ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... answer you, the veneration you would have for him would make you hasten to do what he had said; his prediction would be to you an order. But we have changed the question. We are not concerned with what God will foretell but with what he foresees. Let us therefore return to foreknowledge, and distinguish between the necessary and the certain. It is not impossible for what is foreseen not to happen; but it is infallibly ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... Our science cannot foretell whether all traces of the Great Ice Age are to disappear, and the earth is to enjoy again the genial climate of the Tertiary, or whether the present is an interglacial epoch and the northern lands are comparatively soon again ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... curiosity, but that having myself felt the malignant presence that was said to be haunting him, and being told that only confession would remove it, I hoped he would consider the matter seriously before obstinately closing the door of opportunity now open to him. "Who could foretell when he might have ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... frightful animation. What is to be done with this apparatus? How fetter this stupendous engine of destruction? How anticipate its comings and goings, its returns, its stops, its shocks? Any one of its blows on the side of the ship may stave it in. How foretell its frightful meanderings? It is dealing with a projectile, which alters its mind, which seems to have ideas, and changes its direction every instant. How check the course of what must be avoided? The horrible cannon struggles, advances, backs, strikes right, strikes left, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... best say that everything is for good," continued Margot. "If so, I wonder whether anyone can foretell what can be the good of a stranger, a man that we have never seen, and who has everything about him to make him great, thrusting himself between us and our children, to take their hearts from us. I asked L'Ouverture ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... vecchia." He contented himself with saying: "I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians are a most unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything, and they know what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their mercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the cab-driver down to—to Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it. Yet in their heart of hearts they are—how superficial! They have no conception of the intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini, who exclaimed to me the ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... patted the emperor's forehead with her white hand. "No clouds must darken my morning sun," she said, "for they would foretell a gloomy day. I wish you could transform ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... brought the crisis about. But Sir Wilfrid did not step into this difficulty by mischance. He knew precisely what he was doing though he did not foresee the consequences of his action because with all his experience and sagacity he never could foretell how political developments would react upon the English-Canadian mind. The educational provisions of the autonomy bill were designed to remove the still lingering resentment of Quebec over the settlement of the Manitoba school ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... victims bow Before the storm because its breath is rough, To thee, my Country! whom before, as now, I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre And melancholy gift high Powers allow To read the future: and if now my fire Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive! I but foretell thy fortunes—then expire; 30 Think not that I would look on them and live. A Spirit forces me to see and speak, And for my guerdon grants not to survive; My Heart shall be poured over thee and break: Yet for a moment, ere I must resume Thy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... will reach the saheb. Now, supposing that the sins of a former birth fail to checkmate all these machinations, and that the new arrival actually finds himself swimming in the unfathomed bliss of a belt with a brass plate, and a princely income of seven Queen's rupees every month, who could foretell that almost before a year has passed he will again be floundering in the mire of disappointed ambition? Yet so it is. He hears of another Chupprassee with only eleven months' service against his twelve, who has been promoted to eight rupees, and immediately ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... class of men who assumed knowledge of supernatural phenomena. These were known as astrologers or star-gazers, wizards, magicians, witches, sooth-sayers. By the practice of certain arts and repetition of certain formula, these pretended to divine and foretell events both of a public and private nature. They were believed in by the mass of people, and were consulted on all sorts of matters. By both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities their practices and pretensions were sometimes ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... the Juggler has the art of imposing on these simple credulous creatures, and even often succeeds by it in his divinations. Sometimes he does not need all this ceremonial. He pretends to foretell off-hand, and actually does so, when he is already prepared by his knowledge, cunning, or natural penetration. His divinations chiefly turn on the expedience of peace with one nation, or of war with another; upon matches between families, upon the long life of some, or the ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... what an oracle he must have been, and with what reverence his friends must have looked upon the "little, glassy-headed, hairless man," and hung upon his every utterance! And with what unerring gift of prophecy could he foretell the long and husky droughts of summer—the gracious rains, at last,—the milk-sick breeding autumn and the blighting winter, simply by the way his bones felt after a century's casual attack of inflammatory rheumatism! And, having ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... the Princess Irene and the Prince of India were driven by the storm to accept hospitality in the White Castle. And if it get abroad, that Mahommed, son of the great Amurath, came also to the Castle, who may foretell the suspicions to hatch in the city? No, my Lord, I submit it is better for me to depart with the Princess at the subsidence of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... believed that these stars, being powerful deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens the Chaldean priests ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... so; but it is impossible to foretell the result. The doctors spoke very despondingly of his case; but we must ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... when their hearts are in a state of excitement, foretell the future, but then they are speaking under divine inspiration. For the sun, which is, as natural philosophers say, the mind of the world, and which scatters our minds among us as sparks proceeding from itself, when it has inflamed them with more than usual vehemence, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of being enables us to 84:15 commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired, - yea, to reach the range of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... time for leaving them approached. She had gone through so much that evening, that this discovery made but a slight impression upon her—she had seen how her friend could sacrifice himself; how he had saved another, and had himself been saved. These strange incidents seemed to foretell an important future to her—but not an ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... asked me if I could foretell the future," the Queen said equably. "Of course I can't. That's silly. Just because I'm immortal and I'm a telepath, don't ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... rain-clouds sweep up and open their sluice-gates. Is the albatross hindered in his flight by the rain which pelts violently down on his back and wings? Well, yes, he must certainly be delayed, but he can foretell the weather with certainty enough to keep clear, and he is swift enough on the wing to make his escape when overtaken by rain. And he can always descend, fold his pinions, and rest ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Another illustration was that of the Russians in the war of 1904; the practical disadvantages under which the Russian fleet operated at Tsushima were too great to be balanced by the advantage of the attack; especially as the situation was such that the Japanese were able to foretell with enough accuracy for practical purposes the place where the attack would be delivered, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... arose. Persons resorting to Rome for the purposes of study were forbidden to remain there after they were twenty-one years of age. The force of this persecution fell practically upon the old religion, though nominally directed against the black art, for the primary function of paganism was to foretell future events in this world, and hence its connexion with divination and its punishment ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... certainly an improvement upon "Quaker ladies," the name by which the Houstonia is known in some parts of New England; "death-baby" is a term that is given, Mrs. Bergen tells us, "from the fancy that they foretell death in the family near whose house they spring up. I have known of intelligent people rushing out in terror and beating down a colony of these as soon as they appeared in ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... blinks at me with its beautiful eyes!" cried Noemi, beaming with delight. "We are going to put him in a glass, catch flies for him, and he will foretell the weather for us. Oh, the dear little thing!" And she held the frog ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks, and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I ought not to forget the prophets and conjurors, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen to-morrow or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite unconscious of what ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 8:12] There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come by reading the holy books, by using several different forms of purifications and by being constantly familiar with discourses of the prophets; and it is only seldom that they ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... to prophesy fifty years earlier that a second Emperor should some day sit upon the throne of France? Who would have ventured to foretell that this capricious people, loathing as they did in 1815 the name of Buonaparte, should one day choose by universal suffrage another of that family to rule ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... whole system of things, which we manifestly have not, and mere faith grounded on probability. Is it unreasonable to suppose that in a revealed system there should be the same superiority to our intelligence? If we cannot explain or foretell by reason what the exact course of events in nature will be, is it to be expected that we can do so with regard to the wider scheme of God's revealed providence? Is it not probable that there will be many things not explicable by us? From our experience ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... think, sir, the Gubbaun knew it all. Some said surely that he could foretell. There was the house, all beautiful and nate, and a most splendid intertainment on the table; there was a large party of the Gubbaun's friends, and plenty of all ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... every one has experienced the troubles which distress you; above all, believe that we do not walk blindfold, that Mysticism is an absolutely exact science. It can foretell the greater part of the phenomena which occur in that soul which the Lord intends for a perfect life; it follows also spiritual operations with the same clearness as physiology observes the different states of the body. For ages and ages it has disclosed the progress of grace and its effects, now ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... was to have invaded and conquered Scotland. But that ill wind which ever opposed all the projects upon which the Prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz back into our camp again, to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual. The Chevalier (the king of England, as some of us held him) went from Dunkirk to the French army to make the campaign against us. The Duke of Burgundy had the command this year, having the Duke of Berry with him, and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... of the tragedy and divide it into acts. But in our own history we are like players in the middle of the piece, and though we may be able to say 'This is the third act or the fourth act', we cannot say 'This is the last act or the last but one'. We cannot foretell the future; the work of art we are studying is incomplete, and therefore we cannot possibly apprehend it as an artistic whole, however vivid may be our experience of isolated scenes and situations. The first point in favour of Greek history is its completeness and its true perspective ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... delighted in the swell and subsidence of the rhythm, and the happily recurring rhyme. Nor was Clifford incapable of feeling the sentiment of poetry,—not, perhaps, where it was highest or deepest, but where it was most flitting and ethereal. It was impossible to foretell in what exquisite verse the awakening spell might lurk; but, on raising her eyes from the page to Clifford's face, Phoebe would be made aware, by the light breaking through it, that a more delicate intelligence than her own had caught a lambent flame from what she read. One glow of this kind, however, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ill-treatment of the messengers. These are, of course, the prophets, whose office was not only to foretell, but to plead for obedience and trust, the fruits sought by God. The whole history of the nation is summed up in this dark picture. Generation after generation of princes, priests, and people had done the same thing. There is no more remarkable historical fact ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... river, where it was deepest, and therefore that spot is now called "The Bell's Hollow." But it found neither sleep nor rest there. Down at the merman's it still rings; so that at times it is heard above, through the water, and many people say that its tones foretell a death; but there is no truth in that, for it rings to amuse the merman, who is now no ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... spoke of Monsieur de Farandal before him. Was this because of a sort of instinctive modesty, or was it perhaps from one of those secret intuitions of the feminine heart which enable them to foretell that of which ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... which is, of course, either a misreading or a misprint, probably the former, as it is to be found in all editions of his book.] has stayed. What I shall do next I don't know yet. If only someone could foretell whether I shall not fall sick ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the freshened air and the stir of leaves began to foretell the coming of the dawn. Finally, just as the dawn-star began to pale, Florizel and Florian hurried out of the prison through the twenty doors, and fled to ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... almanacs and learn from them all the astronomical phenomena which are anticipated during the year, that we are apt to forget how in early times this was impossible. It has only been by slow degrees that astronomy has been rendered so perfect as to enable us to foretell, with accuracy, the occurrence of the more delicate phenomena. The prediction of those transits by Kepler, some years before they occurred, was justly regarded at the time ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... always stood for clean, pure, wholesome fiction, and helped the cause by that quality in his books, but in 'The Eyes of the World' he has made the most profound appeal of all, and who can foretell the far-reaching influence of such ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... Positive Philosophy is a curious commentary on Lichtenberg's prophecy. But whether the end be seventy years hence, or seven hundred—be the close of the mortal history of humanity as far distant in the future as its shadowy beginnings seem now to lie behind us—this only we may foretell with confidence—that the riddle of man's nature will remain unsolved. There will be that in him yet which physical laws will fail to explain—that something, whatever it be, in himself and in the world, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... earth, with seven men, and seven horses, because he had associat himself with Tydeus, Capaneus and other impious commanders marching to the siege of Thebe." ("Gillespie's Miscel. Quest.," p. 178.) AEschylus makes Eteocles give the following description of the character of Amphiaraus, and foretell his destiny.—("Septem cont Thebas," ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... and answer your kind intention of adding to the attractions of the bill, be they what they might; but our judges are not the same, you know, two consecutive evenings, and therefore it is impossible to foretell the sentence of a second representation, for no "benefit" but that of the public itself. Isaure is a refined patrician beauty, and I am sometimes inclined to think that the Memphian head alone is of fit proportions for uttering oracles in the huge space of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the foreign field. Workers in Sunday Schools, missionary meetings, and mission study classes, and also preachers of missionary sermons, will find them very usable and effective. Miss Brain's earlier popular books of missionary stories foretell an extensive use of the ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... but Melampus took care of the young ones and fed them carefully. One day when he was asleep under the oak, the serpents licked his ears with their tongues. On awaking he was astonished to find that he now understood the language of birds and creeping things. This knowledge enabled him to foretell future events, and he became a renowned soothsayer. At one time his enemies took him captive and kept him strictly imprisoned. Melampus in the silence of night heard the wood-worms in the timbers talking together, and found out by what they said that the timbers were nearly eaten ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... to see from what special type of knowing the copy-theory arose. In our dealings with natural phenomena the great point is to be able to foretell. Foretelling, according to such a writer as Spencer, is the whole meaning of intelligence. When Spencer's 'law of intelligence' says that inner and outer relations must 'correspond,' it means that the distribution of terms in our inner time-scheme ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... prophecy?" said he. "Why, did not your Majesty foretell the poor lady's death a full day before it came to pass? Did you not say that she was already dead, or ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... in their midnight oil. But let a purblind mortal dare the task The embryo future of itself to ask, The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, Or name the shuddering night that toppled down Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, When earth's blind prisoners fired ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... when the time For secret flight was come, no sailor shout Rang on the shore, no trumpet marked the hour, No bugle called the armament to sea. Already shone the Virgin in the sky Leading the Scorpion in her course, whose claws Foretell the rising Sun, when noiseless all They cast the vessels loose; no song was heard To greet the anchor wrenched from stubborn sand; No captain's order, when the lofty mast Was raised, or yards were bent; a ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... study of this book and by carefully following the principles here laid down may with practice quickly learn to read the horary fortunes that the tea-leaves foretell. It should be distinctly understood, however, that tea-cup fortunes are only horary, or dealing with the events of the hour or the succeeding twenty-four hours at furthest. The immediately forthcoming events are those which cast their shadows, so to speak, within the circle ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... joy in life, the poems of 1908-11 are an instructive study. From the perfected brutality of Jealousy or Menelaus and Helen or A Channel Passage (these bite like Meredith) we see him passing to sonnets that taste of Shakespeare and foretell his utter mastery of the form. What could better the wit and beauty of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... cigars since the year began, and have now no wish to return to the habit, as it is called. I see no reason why one should not be able to vanquish, with God's assistance, these noxious thoughts which foretell evil but cannot ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... impossible at this time of day, to foretell how the future destinies of Europe may be influenced by the subject of these lines. To use the words of the talented author of the Improvisatrice, "Poetry needs no preface." However in this instance, a few remarks may not be uninteresting. Until I met with the following stanzas, I was not aware ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... he said readily, "but now with the soldiers about it is safer. You see, the soldiers can approach the garden through the open banquet hall"—and he nodded to the colonnade behind them—"and though it is forbidden, one cannot foretell ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hours are they constrained to endure them—up to that of noon. Then, the notes of a bugle, rising clear above the hissing of the cascades, foretell a change in the spectacle. It is the call, "Boots and saddles!" The soldiers are seen caparisoning their horses and ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Impatience grew. Watches were held in hands of feverish men, who stood, now scrutinizing their small dial-plates, and then, with neck thrown back, gazing toward the belfry, as if the eye might foretell that which could only be made sensible to the ear; for, as yet, there was no ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Certainly it would be hard to pass the skipper's state-room without looking in, particularly since in these warm latitudes the door would probably be open; for should the skipper be within at the time, they would peradventure scowl at each other, and he is a fool indeed who cannot foretell the future when a thousand generations of natural enemies exchange "the black look." Terence remembered his boy Johnny, a youth who, according to Mrs. Reardon, should never be a marine engineer, but ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... air, when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heat-making rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have generally observed a coppery or yellow sun-set to foretell rain; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and consequently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... up," I cried briskly, anxious to learn the nature of my comrade's communication, and hoping it would foretell his ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... have," said the farmer, whose name was Hreidmar, "for the rising clouds foretell a storm. But food I have none to give you. Surely huntsmen of skill should not want for food, since the forest teems with game, and the ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... Laulewasikaw, or 'the Prophet,' was made his successor. From his conical-shaped lodge, with its stout poles bound about by skins of animals, the Prophet gave forth his oracles. He was often consulted, and a well-worn path soon marked the way to his abode. It was believed that he could foretell the future, reveal the haunts of animals of the chase, and inform anxious inquirers about the fate of friends. He evaded impossible requests skilfully, and by moderation in his pretensions he was able to maintain the respect of his many ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... I have scarcely time to say or write a word. I am busily employed in getting the cash, or else Ned's almanac for March will foretell falsely. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... been often thought to foretell the speedy dissolution of this world. Part of this belief still exists; but the comet is no longer looked upon as the sign, but the agent of destruction. So lately as in the year 1832 the greatest alarm spread over the continent ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... deceive you, sir; if you had been as much at sea as I have you would know that those clouds foretell a gale; but such a gale as I hope the Zodiac will weather without straining a timber; and, for the pirate, we must keep our weather eye open, that he does not take us unawares. Perhaps, Providence tends ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... splendid," he concluded. She faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had conquered. With Ralph's eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had conquered. She ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... silence at my counsel. They waited for my words as for the showers; and opened their mouths as for the latter rain. I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners." And everything seemed to foretell a continuance of my happy lot. My prejudices and my convictions, my tastes and my affections, my habits and my inclinations, my interests and my family, all joined to bind me to the cause of Christ by the strongest bonds. And I seemed as secure to others as to myself. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. Pursuing duty may not always lead by smooth paths. Another course may look easier and more attractive, but pursuing duty for duty's sake is always sure and safe and honorable. It is not within the power of man to foretell the future and to solve unerringly its mighty problems. Almighty God has His plans and methods for human progress, and not infrequently they are shrouded for the time being in impenetrable mystery. Looking backward we can see how the hand of destiny builded for us and assigned ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... seamen, the confiscation of property belonging to our citizens captured on the high seas without even a decent pretence, and the many indignities heaped on our government and people by Great Britain, it needed no gifted seer or celestial visitant to foretell that an obstinate war with that ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... to say that I am at Lancaster. Where you all are I have not the very slightest notion. Pray let me hear. That dispersion of the Gentiles which our friends the prophets foretell seems to have ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... "almighty dollar" is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. "Smartness" is the quality thought most of. The boy who "gets on" by cheating at his lessons is praised for being a "smart boy," and his satisfied parents foretell that he will make a "smart man." A man who overreaches his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a "smart man," and stories of this species of smartness are told admiringly ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... no abiding thing in what we know. We change from weaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below. We can never foretell which of our seemingly assured fundamentals the next change will not affect. What folly, then, to dream of mapping out our minds in however general terms, of providing for the endless mysteries of the future a terminology ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... unrelated succession of events, can think that Israel has been preserved through centuries of discipline for no end whatever. On the contrary, we must believe that Israel has still a mission. What that mission is to be we cannot now foretell. We of this generation are looking upon the breaking down of European civilization. Some of us hope and expect that when the smoke of battle has cleared away there will gradually be built up a new and better ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... that I doubted whether there was any hell. Oh! but now I do believe it! Firmly, firmly! I foretell Of one that shall rank high there: he's a scoffer, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... duty. For his friends there is no exertion, no endurance, no forbearance, of which he has not shown himself capable. For his country——All I ask from Heaven for him is, opportunity to serve his country. Whether circumstances, whether success, will ever prove his merits to the world, I cannot foretell; but I shall always glory in him as my ward, my ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... calculate the nativities of the persons then born. On one is a complete horoscope, containing the places of the sun, moon, and every planet, noted down on the zodiac in degrees and minutes of a degree; and with these particulars the mathematician undertook to foretell the marriage, fortune, and death of the person who had been born at the instant when the heavenly bodies were so situated; and, as the horoscope was buried in the tomb with the mummy, we must suppose that it was thought ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... tender, and her epigrams were so pointed and poisonous, that every hostile criticism seemed to shrivel up in that glittering fire, and there seemed to be nothing left but to seek her friendship and good will. For instance, if things went well in Baden, one could confidently foretell that at the end of the summer season Natasha would be found in Nice or Geneva, queen of the winter season, the lioness of the day, and the arbiter of fashion. She and Bodlevski always behaved with such propriety and watchful care that not a shadow ever fell on Natasha's fame. It is true ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... to their unaccustomed palates were proving potent. The Stranger's cigars were singularly aromatic. It seemed the most reasonable thing in the world that the Stranger should be thus able to foretell ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... for myself, It were a sin to give her to his age— To twine the blooming garland of the spring Around the sapless trunks of wither'd oaks— The night, methinks, grows ruder than it was, Thus should it be, thus nature should be shock'd, And Prodigies, affrighting all mankind, Foretell the dreadful business I intend. The earth should gape, and swallow cities up, Shake from their haughty heights aspiring tow'rs, And level mountains with the vales below; The Sun amaz'd should frown in dark eclipse, And light retire to its unclouded heav'n; While darkness, bursting from her ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... known as 'lows' and 'highs' or cyclones and anti-cyclones. In the United States, an anti-cyclone generally means fair weather, and in an anti-cyclone the barometric column rises. That's why a barometer helps to foretell weather some time in advance; it responds to the vast movements of the atmosphere rather than ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... pleasures, without mixture of cares; and those to be enjoyed when time—which I therefore thought slow-paced—had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience have taught me these were but empty hopes, for I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Nevertheless, I saw there a succession of boys using the same recreations, and, questionless, possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... body of the expectant woman, "so that the birth may be easy, and as a protection against harm," and also touches the other members of the family. [50] She next directs her attention to the liver, for by its condition it is possible to foretell the child's future ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the corner struck ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock. Still the champions were as fresh as they had been at nine. No one could foretell the victor, though any one could easily have pointed out the poor victim. After ten o'clock the conversation was conducted almost entirely by Williams and Dic, with a low monosyllable now and then from Rita when addressed. She, poor girl, was too sleepy ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... its morning rain-bath, and showing along its green ridges those first, faint signs of yellow that foretell a coming ripeness, the grass-mantled prairie lay beneath the warm noon sun. The little girl, cantering over it toward the sod shanty on the farther river bluffs, frightened the trilling meadow-larks, as she passed, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... written on paper. It is written with characters of flesh and blood. Strive as hard as man may, he can never fully foretell how an ink-written act will play. There is an inexplicable something which playing before an audience develops. Both the audience and the actors on the stage are affected. A play—the monologue and every musical form as well—is one thing in manuscript, another thing ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... this world, who are asleep in their sins; the cock is the preacher who preacheth boldly, and exciteth the sleepers to cast away the works of darkness, exclaiming, Woe to them that sleep! Awake, thou that sleepest! and then foretell the approach of day, when they speak of the Day of Judgment and the glory that shall be revealed, and, like prudent messengers, before they teach others, arouse themselves from the sleep of sin by mortifying their bodies; and as the weather-cock faces the wind, they turn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... remained to move Dalton. He still continued in the same condition, not much changed physically, but in a state of mental torpor, the duration of which no one was able to foretell. Two short stages were required to take him to Dalton Hall. For this a litter was procured, and he was carried all the way. Edith went, with her maid and housekeeper, in a carriage, Dudleigh on horseback, and the other servants, with the luggage, in ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille |
