"Omen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... syncopate. Show (noun), display, ostentation, parade, pomp, splurge. Show, exhibit, display, expose, manifest, evince. Shrink, flinch, wince, blench, quail. Shun, avoid, eschew. Shy, bashful, diffident, modest, coy, timid, shrinking. Sign, omen, auspice, portent, prognostic, augury, foretoken, adumbration, presage, indication. Simple, innocent, artless, unsophisticated, naive. Skilful, skilled, expert, adept, apt, proficient, adroit, dexterous, deft, clever, ingenious. Skin, hide, pelt, fell. Sleepy, drowsy, slumberous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... masters," he called, in a loud voice, to those around him. "Do you know who that black raven before you is? If not, I will tell you. He would peck out your eyes if he could, and devour you and your substance, as he has done that of many others. That bird of ill omen ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... long-waited for moment has come at last. We march from Bloemfontein on a glorious autumn morning, in fresh cool air and the sky cloudless. Forty miles off Thaba Nchu, that hill of ill omen, might be ten, so bold and clear it stands up above the lower ranges. The level plain between the island hills is streaked ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... they flew to: she would anxiously watch the road at her feet, and when a spider crossed her path in the morning she would cry out aloud: then she would wish to go home and there would be no other means of not interrupting the walk than to persuade her that it was after twelve, and so the omen was one of hope rather than of evil. She was afraid of her dreams: she would recount them at length to Christophe; for hours she would try to recollect some detail that she had forgotten; she never spared him one; absurdities piled one on the other, strange ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... chase, and sold his mantle to redeem a lamb from the butcher. He taught the people not to be afraid of the strange, ugly creatures which the light of the moving torches drew from their hiding-places, nor think it a bad omen that approached. He tamed a veritable wolf to keep him company like a dog. It was the first of many ambiguous circumstances about him, from which, in the minds of an increasing number of people, a deep suspicion and hatred ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... of such Indeavours, when not one of a hundred of the vulgar have believed their undertakings feasable. And it it also fit to be added, that they have one advantage peculiar to themselves, that very many of their number are men of Converse and Traffick; which is a good Omen, that their attempts will bring Philosophy from words to action, seeing the men of Business have had so great a share ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... learned something of the ravages of smallpox among the unvaccinated—to try to forecast their natural and, in the view of many, their almost certain end. Hence these pages from the life history of the pitiable, but unfortunate Dr. Therne.[*] Absit omen! May the prophecy be falsified! But, on the other hand, it may not. Some who are very competent to judge say that it will not; that, on the contrary, this strange paralysis of "the most powerful ministry of the generation" ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... the kindred -cultus- of the Penates of the community.(7) Six chaste virgins, daughters as it were of the household of the Roman people, attended to that pious service, and had to maintain the wholesome fire of the common hearth always blazing as an example(8) and an omen to the burgesses. This worship, half-domestic, half-public, was the most sacred of all in Rome, and it accordingly was the latest of all the heathen worships there to give way before the ban of Christianity. The Aventine, moreover, was assigned to Diana as the representative ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... look after the numbering and registering of the people in their tribes and centuries. The consuls in general commanded the army, but sometimes, when there was a great need, one single leader was chosen and was called dictator. Sometimes a dictator was chosen merely to fulfil an omen, by driving a nail into the head of the great statue of Jupiter in the Capitol. Besides these, all the priests had to be patricians; the chief of all was called Pontifex Maximus. Some say this was because ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... who accepted the incident as an omen of the victory that crowned their arms before the fight was over. They cheered and felt ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... honour; but he dropped into it the deadly drop. Only no man saw the thing that he did. But when they were all about to drink, some one spake an evil word to his neighbour, and Ion heard it, and having full knowledge of augury, held it to be of ill omen, and bade them fill another bowl; and that every one should pour out upon the ground that which was in his cup. And on this there came down a flight of doves, for such dwelt in the temple of Apollo without ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... father's hand with heart-felt but melancholy emotion, for this praise from the man he so truly loved was a keen pleasure; and yet he felt that it was of ill-omen that his duties as judge, of which he knew the sacred solemnity, should be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a woman!" cried the captain, and stamped with fury. "Not without reason have I been trembling and in fear of her from the first time I saw her! It must have been a warning of fate that I stopped playing ecarte with her. It was also a bad omen that I passed so many sleepless nights. Was there ever mortal in a worse perplexity than I am? How can I leave her alone without a protector, loving her, as I do, more than my own life? And, on the other hand, how can I marry ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, let us with one consent offer sacrifices ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... his uncle as well as his very moderate acquaintance with the law permitted, of anything like intimacy between himself and the girl whose face had fascinated him so strangely, it was gone now: that bird of evil omen had baulked his hopes as effectually as its ancestors ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Providence to make plain to the persecuted Countess his mission and business there: 'Then our vocation is at last revealed to us! Quinsey-doctor! I remember when a boy, wandering over the paternal mansion, and envying the life of a tinker, which my mother did not think a good omen in me. But the traps of a Quinsey-doctor are even lighter. Say twenty good jokes, and two or three of a practical kind. A man ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which it has power? Cambyses, from having dreamt that his brother should be one day king of Persia, put him to death: a beloved brother, and one in whom he had always confided. Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, killed himself out of a fancy of ill omen, from I know not what howling of his dogs; and King Midas did as much upon the account of some foolish dream he had dreamed. 'Tis to prize life at its just value, to abandon it for a dream. And yet hear the soul triumph over the miseries and weakness of the body, and that it is exposed to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the 4th of August; she had started to go round the world on the 4th of August; she had become a low fellow's mistress on the 4th of August. On the same day of the year she had married me; on that 4th she had lost Edward's love, and Bagshawe had appeared like a sinister omen—like a grin on the face of Fate. It was the last straw. She ran upstairs, arranged herself decoratively upon her bed—she was a sweetly pretty woman with smooth pink and white cheeks, long hair, the eyelashes falling like ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... was free, if she chose, to leave the Temple service, and even to marry. But Fabia had no intention of taking a step which would tear her from the circle in which she was dearly loved, and which, though permitted by law, would be publicly deplored as an evil omen. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... plays. These scribbling insects have what they deserve, Not plenty, nor the glory for to starve. That Spenser knew, that Tasso felt before; And death found surly Ben exceeding poor. Heaven turn the omen from their image here! May he with joy the well-placed laurel wear! Great Virgil's happier fortune may he find, And be our Caesar, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... latest effort of your literary power one further claim, besides the many you have already established, to the gratitude and veneration of Catholics, and trust that the reception which it has met with on all sides may be the omen of new successes which you are destined to achieve in the vindication of the teaching ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... landed his machine had burst into flames, as the escaping petrol caught fire. Jack considered that a good omen ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... the town and completely destroying many of the buildings, the cone or funnel, which had accompanied the Tornado like a dreaded omen, disappeared, showing that the whirling motion of the air had ceased, and the storm for the time being was spent. The rotary movement was to the left, which may be shown by standing upon one heel and turning around in that direction. ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... for one year at least, rejoice in the supreme rule of the Savory. We can't write of SAVORY without adding MOORE, so we must mention that the name of SAVORY is ominous for the continuation of the Mayoralty. The Guildhall Banquets end with a Savory. Absit omen! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... determine the antiquity of some of them, in which the idols are exact representations of woolly-haired Negroes, although the inhabitants of those countries to-day have straight hair. Among the Japanese, black is considered a color of good omen. In the temples of Siam we find the idols fashioned like unto Negroes.[43] Osiris, one of the principal deities of the Egyptians, is frequently represented as black.[44] Bubastis, also, the Diana of Greece, and a member of the great Egyptian Triad, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... beams as of fire, and he said to his father, "The pillars of the house are on fire." And his father said, "It is the gods who sit above the stars, and have power to make the night as light as the day." And he took it for a good omen. And Telemachus fell to cleaning ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... news from Brighton. Sophia is confined; both she and her baby are doing well, and the child's name is announced to be Walter—a favourite name in our family, and I trust of no bad omen. Yet it is no charm for life. Of my father's family I was the second Walter, if not the third. I am glad the name came my way, for it was borne by my father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather; also by the grandsire of that last-named venerable ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... wonder at euery strange thing, as this doubtlesse was, to see a lion in the Ocean sea, or fish in shape of a lion. What opinion others had thereof, and chiefly the Generall himselfe, I forbeare to deliuer: But he tooke it for Bonum Omen, reioycing that he was to warre against such an enemie, if it were ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... motor-boat, sat straining his eyes beyond the dripping bow, till he saw nothing but flashes of light that did not exist. The Flying Dutchman—the Flying Dutchman—why had he not known that she must be a boat of ill omen? Joe Pasquale—drowned in February. "We got him, but we never did find his boat"—"cur'ous ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... had the honor—and it was an honor for so young a man—to make a speech, which proved to be effective, in Lynch's behalf; and when the vote was taken, Lynch was chosen by 424 to 384. This first victory over the Blaine Machine, the Edmunds men hailed as a good omen. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... live on for a while to enjoy all this kindly circumstance. So do not grieve. There are many after-dinner pipes to be smoked, many talks to be talked yet.—Come into the house, and see it as you used to know it when we both were young. Surely it is a good omen that you, my earliest friend, should be my first visitor when I ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the hillocks behind the hotel at Huelva you can see in the distance East Rabida, Palos, Moguer, San Juan del Porto, and the sea, where the three birds of good omen went skimming past in the vague morning light 400 years ago, lest they might be seen by the Portuguese. Columbus means dove, and the arms of Columbus contained three doves. From Huelva I sailed to Rabida first. Rabida is on the last point of the promontory, nearest ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... eyes from the face of the orator. She too was pale with excitement; had she been willing to acknowledge it, it was fear. That deep-toned beginning of a protest from the great concourse was like an omen of failure to her sensitive ear. She longed to see John Harrington succeed and carry his hearers with him into an access of enthusiasm. John expected no such thing. He only wanted the people to understand thoroughly what he meant, for he was sure that if once ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... would give me two numbers and I could have an ambo, I should not win on a single number unless it came out first, whereas, if I did not specify their positions, my two numbers might come out anywhere and if they did I should win about 250 francs. Angelo accepted as a good omen the fact that neither of my numbers exceeded 90, and next morning we called on his cousin and put a franc on ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... the hour for the march, and almost came too late through suddenly receiving orders to take a circuitous route through the city. On former occasions they had marched out by the Via di Borgo Santi Apostoli, and the campaign had been unsuccessful. It was clear that there was some bad omen connected with the exit through this street against Pisa, and consequently the army was now led out by the Porta Rossa. But as the tents stretched out there to dry had not been taken away, the flags—another ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... women, enemy of the government and of France, without which she cannot live;" and several days previously he wrote to Fouche, "When I occupy myself with Madame de Stael, it is because I have the facts before me. That woman is a true bird of bad omen; she believes the tempest already arrived, and delights in intrigues and follies. Let her go to her Lake Leman. Have not the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... thing before—and for the immediate moment could not realise where, till a sudden flash of light through the cells of my brain reminded me of that scene of love and death in the vision of the artist's studio when the name 'Cosmo de Medicis' had been whispered like an evil omen. The murderer in that dream- picture had worn a collar of jewels precisely similar to the one I now saw; but I could only keep silence and listen with every nerve strained to utmost attention while ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Kor is haunted," she said, "and of a truth I do believe their saying, for never did I know so ill a night save one. I remember it now. It was on that very spot when thou didst lie dead at my feet, Kallikrates. Never will I visit it again; it is a place of evil omen." ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... less they please the more they drink, the more they drink the less they please. They don't quit because they can, if they couldn't quit they would, because they can, they won't. Thus they reason, while appetite eats its way into their wills, birds of ill omen peck into their characters and finally they will go down to drunkards' graves, as thousands before them have gone. Young men, in the morning of life, while the dew of youth is yet upon your brow, ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... said, "the Douglas badge is indeed a heart—but it is a bleeding heart. God avert the omen, and keep this young man safe—for though many love him, there be more that would rejoice at ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... told the following story: When Abbas the Great was hunting, he met one morning as day dawned an uncommonly ugly man, at the sight of whom his horse started. Being nearly dismounted, and deeming it a bad omen, the king called out in a rage to have his head cut off. The poor peasant, whom the attendants had seized and were on the point of executing, prayed that he might be informed of his crime. "Your crime," said the king, "is your unlucky countenance, which is the first object I saw this morning, and ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... crashed through her rigging, a piece hit the flag-halyards—parted them—and unstopped the flag. It unfurled itself gallantly in the breeze, and, as its beautiful striping waved aloft, the sailors upon the deck gave a loud cheer, for this was the omen of Victory. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... the guttering of a candle is a sign of impending death. All this he believes firmly, and acts upon, although he would candidly acknowledge his inability to explain the principle supposed to underlie the sequence between the omen and its fulfilment. It is the irrationality of the belief that constitutes its superstitious character, the contented acquiescence in some inconceivable and impossible law, whether physical or metaphysical, in virtue of which the predicted event is expected ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the less experienced were beside themselves with enthusiasm and delight. But Mr. Bob Blagdon was wondering what little Miss Blythe would think and say, and he thought it unkind of her, under the circumstances, to be the last to arrive. Unkind, because her doing so was either a good omen or an evil one, and he could not make up his ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... notes, something like "do, mi, mi, do," repeating them without pausing till it is too dark to see him, all the time getting lower, sadder, more deliberate, till one feels like running out and committing suicide or annihilating the bird of ill-omen. ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... the dust of the disloyal city, whose superstitious people were alive to many an omen that boded his approaching ruin,14 the unfortunate commander held on his way towards Pastos, in the jurisdiction of Benalcazar. Pizarro and his forces entered Quito not long after, disappointed, that, with all ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the deplorable alternative—the extirpation of the seceding member, or the never-ceasing struggle of two rival confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home. May Heaven avert the omen! The destinies of not only our posterity, but of the human race, are ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... her, but the stepmother, the traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of her, and wanted to include her in the love afloat. This little circumstance made a deep impression on the three witnesses. It was a good omen for Leam, and promised what indeed her new mother did honestly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... out of the window, and feel how deliciously fresh and cool it is!" commanded Winona. "Look at that bright planet! I think it must be Jupiter. I take it as a good omen for to-morrow. The storm will have cleared your brain, and your star's in the ascendant. Here's ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... happiness are promoted by care regarding trifles, they will not appear unimportant. The existence of schools to teach library science, and of manuals devoted to similar laudable aims, is an auspicious omen of the new reign of refined taste in those nobler arts of life which connect themselves with literature, and are to be hailed as authentic evidences of the onward progress ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... held his hands and looked long into his face. All indecision, all mournful forebodings were over; he felt again as the head of his house should feel. Before him stood, blooming in youth and health, the future of his family. He took it as an omen, as the voice of fate to him in the hour of decision. "And now," said he, "come home; there is no further need for ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... can be safely made for guidance on this point. Do not minimise danger when a timely warning may avert an accident, or other misfortune, nor should symbols of ill omen be exaggerated. As students become proficient, they will find many meanings in the tea-leaves in addition to those which they learn from this book. Much will depend upon circumstances ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... the Alps. Soared over Mount Terrible whither I dared not venture—yet! Saw no Huns. Back by sundown. Manitou dropped in to dinner—like a thunderbolt from the zenith. Astonishment of Blue Devils on guard. Much curiosity. Manitou a hero. All see in him an omen of American victory. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... sunshine came into the room. "Look! how bright and propitious for our plans. Dear Ruth, it seems like an omen for ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... doubt that the augury of the ancients was a good deal founded upon the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,—but two may be always regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather, one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together, it is only when the weather is warm and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... said to be found in no part of the world but China. It is described as of most admirable beauty; and their absence for any time from the imperial city regarded as an omen of misfortune to the royal family. The emperor and mandarins have the semblance of these birds embroidered ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... only of a few shillings; yet, with a cheerful heart, he walked to Philadelphia, a distance of thirty-three miles, with only his fowling-piece on his shoulder. He shot a red-headed woodpecker by the way,—an omen of his future pursuits, for hitherto he had devoted no attention to the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... out of place here? No! no! you are at home on the ramparts of Quebec, quite as much as in your own drawing-room at Tilly. The walls of Quebec without a Tilly and a Repentigny would be a bad omen indeed, worse than a year without a spring or a summer without roses. But where is my dear ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... be quite well to-morrow—the darling little man,' said Rachel, all the more fondly for that vague omen that seemed ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... condemnation of the two women, who had only been convicted of a crime by which neither of them had profited. The reprieve granted to Mme. Acquet, "whose declaration had deceived no one," seemed a good omen, indicating a commutation of her sentence. The nine "brigands" condemned to death received no pity. Lefebre was not known in Rouen, and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sympathy; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, and only interested the populace hungry for a spectacle ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... with great crashing waves, then everything grew calm under a golden sunset. I take this as a good omen. I feel happier already. The infinite peace of Nature is quieting my soul. I love the sea. I can almost say my prayers to ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... September came at once too rapidly and too slowly, and dawned crisp and clear; a good omen ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Creoles—to the incoming lower class of superstitious Germans, Irish, Sicilians, and others—he became an omen and embodiment of public and private ill-fortune. Upon him all the vagaries of their superstitions gathered and grew. If a house caught fire, it was imputed to his machinations. Did a woman go off in a fit, he had bewitched her. Did ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Dick has come?" she asked, joyfully. "Oh, how good of Mrs. Pine to send the chicken! We didn't have anything for supper but coffee and rolls and eggs. He's certainly bringing good things in his wake. How delicious that chicken does smell! Let's take it as a good omen, Alec, a forerunner of better days. He'll surely get you out of ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... their high cliffs to look. Wunpost scrambled to his hillock and watched their effortless flight; and they swung to the north, where they circled again, not far from the spot where he was hid. Here was an omen indeed, a sign without fail, for below where they circled his enemy was hiding—or slipping up ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... have fallen just as he entered the room and this seemed to him an omen, though whether of good or ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... you again, my boy!" exclaimed the proprietor of the circus, as he held out his big hand to Toby; "and I must say this looks like a good omen to me, meeting you away up here, after you had so much to do with finding the rest of my stock. I'm shy just one fine educated monkey, the famous Link who's said to be the Missing Link, which he is right now, at least. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... people that every bird chose its mate on Valentine's day; and at one time it was the custom for young folks to go out before daylight on that morning and try to catch an owl and two sparrows in a net. If they succeeded, it was a good omen, and entitled them to gifts from the villagers. Another fashion among them was to write the valentine, tie it to an apple or orange, and steal up to the house of the chosen one in the evening, open the door quietly, and throw ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... rash standing out; but most frequently they occur when there is little or no eruption, or when it fades, becomes livid, or disappears altogether. A sudden disappearance of the rash, before the sixth day, commonly increases the typhoid symptoms, and must be considered a bad omen. Also the invasion of the larynx, which is happily of rare occurrence, is ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... the lovely glow in the sky was a sort of good omen for our life at Windy Gap, and she felt happier on her journey back in the railway that evening than she had done since papa and ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... great regard to omens; and, in the important affairs of life, are guided rather by considerations of lucky and unlucky than the maxims of wisdom. The name of the present Pope the Romans hold to be decidedly of evil omen; so much so, that to affix it anywhere is to make the person or thing a mark for calamity. And I was told a curious list of instances corroborative of this opinion. The first year of the reign of Pius was marked by an unprecedented and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... the child had breathed on them in order to look out, but they had soon closed up again. The old woman sat staring straight into the stove with big, round eyes; her little head quivered continually; she was like a bird of ill omen, that knew a great deal more than any one could bear ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and he undertook a lesson on the spot, pointing out that they saw life through similar eyes; that art, music, literature spoke with a common voice; that if true marriage were perfect companionship, the auguries were not uncertain in their happy omen; so on till he ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... for that recommendation. I take it as a good omen for the future and invite you to my wedding on the spot," answered Mr. Brooke, who felt at peace with all mankind, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... strip of rattan rapidly back and forth beneath a piece of dry wood. This process of making fire he called Musa, and it is still the only method used in obtaining fire for ceremonials, such as the naming of a child, or when communicating with the omen-birds. Laki Oi also taught them the use of the fire-drill, which he ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... remembered that General de Lorencez's violation of the sacredness of a treaty had taken place on Good Friday at half-past three o'clock, and I was told that this coincidence had been looked upon by many among the soldiers as a bad omen. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... of weather with a tendency towards rain. If Dr. Forster's theory be true, it is decidedly one of the minor instances, as far as London weather is concerned.—It will take a good deal of evidence to make us believe in the omen of a Saturday Moon. But, as we have said of the Poughkeepsie Seer, the thing is very curious whether true or false. Whence comes this universal proverb—and a hundred others—while the meteorological observer {323} cannot, when he puts down a long series of results, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... always cries click; Then woe be to those in the house who are sick: For, as sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost, If the maggot cries click when it scratches the post; But a kettle of scalding hot-water injected Infallibly cures the timber affected; The omen is broken, the danger is over; The maggot will die, and the sick will recover. Such a worm was Will Wood, when he scratch'd at the door Of a governing statesman or favourite whore; The death of our nation he seem'd to foretell, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... walk with Mr. Barmby, reading the omen of his tones in the request. Dorothea and Virginia would have her go. The clerical gentleman, a friend of the Rev. Abram Posterley; and one who deplored poor Mr. Posterley's infatuation; and one besides who belonged to Nesta's musical choir in London: seemed a safe companion for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and to stop up ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... as an omen of success when about 8 o'clock in the morning of May 22, 1916, six captive balloons stationed over the right bank of the Meuse exploded, thus depriving the German batteries of their observers on whom they counted to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... central Texas and Pan-Handle cattle. Both my ranches sent out their usual contribution of steers and cows, consigned to the care of the firm, which was now giving more attention to quality than quantity. The absence of the men from the Northwest at the cattle convention that spring was taken as an omen that the upper country would soon be satiated, a hint that retrenchment was in order, and a better class of stock was to receive the firm's attention in its future operations. My personal contingent of steers would have passed muster in any country, and as to my consignment of cows, they were ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... Hayward as he came up with his prize. "I regard it as a good omen—a sort of turn in the tide which will encourage ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Whaling in a few days. He had posed among the natives as a spirit-doctor and had, according to reports, worked many wonderful cures by his incantations. Three whales had come into the hands of the East Cape hunters. This was an excellent catch and had been taken as a good omen; the bearded stranger was doubtless highly favored by the spirits of ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... and the light died out of his voice. Surely it was an evil omen, this man's coming; for it was Captain Francis who had taken the vacant seat and who was watching his astonishment with a ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a sharp decline in stocks. A few hours after the House of Peers adjourned at six o'clock in the morning, a run for gold began on the Bank of England. The simultaneous effort of the French to abolish their hereditary peerage was hailed as an omen of what was coming in England. Riots broke out all over England. The return to Bristol of Sir C. Wetherell, one of the chief opponents of the bill, was made the occasion of ominous demonstrations. A riotous mob burned the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... grows wild—a friend May introduce, and name the bloom, the fruit!' Here somebody dares wave a handkerchief— She'll want to hide her face with presently! Good-by then! 'Cigno fedel, cigno fedel, Addio!' Now, was ever such mistake— Ever such foolish ugly omen? Pshaw! Wagner, beside! 'Amo te solo, te Solo amai!' That's worth fifty such! But, mum, the grave face at ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the Chevalier, rising; 'Good-night, and joy be with you!—Good-night, fair ladies, who have so highly honoured a proscribed and banished Prince.—Good-night, my brave friends;—may the happiness we have this evening experienced be an omen of our return to these our paternal halls, speedily and in triumph, and of many and many future meetings of mirth and pleasure in the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... watched curiously to see what religion the Queen would establish. Even before her accession the keen eye of the Spanish ambassador had noted her "great admiration for the king her father's mode of carrying on matters," as a matter of ill omen for the interests of Catholicism. He had marked that the ladies about her and the counsellors on whom she seemed about to rely were, like Cecil, "held to be heretics." "I fear much," he wrote, "that in religion she will not go right." As keen an instinct warned the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... hope it is. 'The wine-dark sea' and the 'rosy-fingered dawn' are all I remember; though I'm glad you know what comes next. It's a good omen. But look at the yacht; she's ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... extract the pilot and parts of the machine, which was deeply embedded in the hole. For hours the wreckage remained the centre of attraction to many visitors. The General hailed the burnt relics, not inappropriately, as a lucky omen. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... might, by a different conduct, be sometimes delayed. This has surely now happened to the veteran advocates for an absolute and unaccountable ministry, who have discovered on this occasion, by the weakness of their resistance, that their abilities are declining; and I cannot but hope, that the omen will be fulfilled, and that their infatuation will be quickly ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... dreams, not all, but I can tell the significant ones, usually by the impression they make on me. The dream that comes to me just before waking up generally means something to me. To dream of snakes has always been a bad omen to me. When I first started out smashing, while in Wichita jail, I dreamed of two enormous snakes, one on one side of a road, the other on the other; one raised to strike me, the other made no move. I was impressed that the one that was the most venomous and in the attitude of ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... winding path she walked, and I as slowly followed. When I reached her, she was standing at her mother's grave, just as she had stood the morning we first met. I tried to accept this as an omen, but failed miserably, and omens, after all, depend on the point of view. She raised her eyes, and, seeing me, blushed, another omen which means comparatively little to a man who is aware of the thousand emotions that are responsible for the blush of woman. I was again ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... very jealous of a Raven, because the latter was regarded by men as a bird of omen which foretold the future, and was accordingly held in great respect by them. She was very anxious to get the same sort of reputation herself; and, one day, seeing some travellers approaching, she flew on ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of plantain-eaters here, but, although their screech was as appalling as I have heard in Angola, they were not regarded, by the Ajumba at any rate, as being birds of evil omen, as they are in Angola. Still, by no means all the birds here only screech and squark. Several of them have very lovely notes. There is one who always gives a series of infinitely beautiful, soft, rich-toned whistles just before ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... disappeared from view just as Ted started from the corral, and Kit could see it no more. He took this for a bad omen. Evidently, the wolf had seen that he had lured a rider from the ranch house, and, having accomplished its purpose, it was no longer necessary ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... distinctive, and poetical words, thou, thyself, thy, thine, and thee, would certainly be in no danger yet of becoming obsolete. Nor can they, indeed, at any rate, become so, till the fairest branches of the Christian Church shall wither; or, what should seem no gracious omen, her bishops and clergy learn to pray in the plural number, for fashion's sake. Secondly, it is not true, that, "thou, who touch'd," ought indispensably to be, "thou, who touchedst, or didst touch." It is far better to dispense with ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."—But those are words of bad omen.—"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped" (Epictetus, ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... scene in Hesperian sky, When the courts of heaven are all ablaze With the glorious tints and pageantry That to mortal mind so clearly portrays The mighty power of omnipotent hand, And the tender touch of a boundless love, Is an omen true—infallible proof Of a Deity ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... omen, that," observed my companion; "but, at the same time, it may have been shot through, and a puff of wind have blown ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... the future by the past, the Fifth Column, that shadowy group of secret agents now entrenched in every important country throughout the world, is an omen of what is to come. Before Germany marched into Austria, that unhappy country witnessed a large influx of Fifth Column members. In Czechoslovakia, especially in those months before the Republic's heart was handed to Hitler on a platter, there was a tremendous increase in the numbers and activities ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... Message of joy.]—Creon says this for the sake of the omen. The first words uttered at such a crisis would be ominous ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... good omen, for, sensible as he was, he believed in presentiments and prognostics. He entered without waiting to be urged. When he had crossed the lawn he stood facing two detached buildings, separated by a mass of verdure: to the right, an old summer-house, used from ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... hasten to sell their warm tunic and to buy some light clothing. We are your Ammon, Delphi, Dodona, your Phoebus Apollo.(7) Before undertaking anything, whether a business transaction, a marriage, or the purchase of food, you consult the birds by reading the omens, and you give this name of omen(8) to all signs that tell of the future. With you a word is an omen, you call a sneeze an omen, a meeting an omen, an unknown sound an omen, a slave or an ass an omen.(9) Is it not clear that we are a prophetic Apollo to you? If you recognize ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... prevented from renewing attempts by sea through the fact that they had been worsted when first making a trial of it, although this is the ordinary course that people pursue who fail in the first undertaking and think that they can never again succeed, viewing the past in the light of an omen. On the contrary, they applied themselves to the watery element with an even greater zeal, and chiefly because they were ambitious and did not wish to appear to have been diverted from their purpose by the disaster. (Mai, p.180. Zonaras 8, 8, sq.) 5. Hanno, who was in no wise disposed to make ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... call that an omen!" said Carlo, with forced cheerfulness. "This time, princess, I am the fatum which has alarmed you! It is my own fault that this string broke. It was already injured and half broken this evening when ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... decapitated, it being considered an essential that the head should be severed with one blow. As soon as the head was cut off there was a rush on the part of the sacrificers to see in which direction the head faced. If the head faced towards the north or west, it was considered an evil omen; if it faced towards the south or east, a good omen. The east is a lucky quarter amongst the Assamese also. The people ended up the proceedings by giving a long-drawn-out, deep-toned chant, or kynhoi. Immediately after the ceremony ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, etc. 'Tis reported, that when this standard was first erected, the ball on the top of it fell off, which the superstitious Highlanders were very much concern'd at, taking it as an omen of the bad success of the cause for which they were then appearing, and indeed, the event has proven that it was no less. Thereafter they went to a small town named Kirkmichael, where having proclaim'd the Pretender, and summon'd the people to attend his standard, they staid some few days, and ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Gertrude, look not so reproachfully at me. Thou shalt soon see that I mean not to die, but to live for thee. Here in this fair, free spot we begin our new life together. It may be even yet — for see, is not that bright sky, illumined by those quivering shafts of light athwart our path, an omen of good? — that as thou showest me this fair spot with which thou hast endowed me, I may one day show thee again and endow thee with the broad lands ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... he might pass the tombstone of one long dead; it has fallen face upwards, loosened by time, but he wastes no moment deciphering it. Another will take the next turning when he sees me in the distance; I am a sight of ill omen, to be shunned by the man whose saviour and benefactor I had been not so ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... o'clock, the way to Mrs. Agnew's was so intricate that we could not find it, till one of the king's footmen recollecting me, I imagined, came forward, a volunteer, and walked by the side of the chaise to show the postilion the house.—N.B. No bad omen to worldly augurers. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... decline in the author's power of awaking interest. Many of his best works were, however, still to follow. And, as regards imagination and the elements of mystery and awe, surely in the "Underground City" with its cavern world, its secret, undiscoverable, unrelenting foe, the "Harfang," bird of evil omen, and the "fire maidens" of the ruined castle, surely with all these "imagination" is ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... to be shaded by the Indulgent Boughs of an ancient Bay-Tree. He was delighted with the Choice he had made, for he found a Hollow in the Myrtle, as if purposely contriv'd for the Reception of one Person, who might undiscovered perceive all about him. He looked upon it as a good Omen, that the Tree Consecrated to Venus was so propitious to him in his Amorous Distress. The Consideration of that, together with the Obligation he lay under to the Muses, for sheltering him also with so large a Crown of Bays, had like to ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... great nest of Indian pipe. She bent listlessly to pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to herself that they were like some beautiful dead thing; and then she came upon a delicate flush on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and wondered if it were an omen. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... (i. e. wonder) and of the ocean nymph Electra (i. e. splendour); was the goddess of the rainbow, and as such the messenger of the gods, particularly of Zeus and Hera, the appearance of the rainbow being regarded as a sign that communications of good omen were passing between heaven and earth, as it was to Noah that they would continue to be kept up; she is represented as dressed in a long wide tunic, over which hangs a light upper garment, and with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... have the same effect upon your other work," said Tom modestly. "If I do, you will call me a lucky omen." ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... making the Eastern sign to scare away evil spirits. "The omen!" she whispered. "The omen! A broken string of ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... star of promise. Myriads of upturned faces greeted it from hills, mountains, temples, terraces, teocallis, house-tops, and city walls; and the prostrate multitudes hailed the emblem of light, life, and fruition, as a blessed omen of the restored favor of their gods, and the preservation of their race for another cycle. At regular intervals, Indian couriers held aloft brands of resinous wood, by which they transmitted the "New Fire" ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... be in society certain persons who are mercuries[412] of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time determine for the curious their standing in the world. These are the chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this class by their pretension, or imagine that ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cheered up amazingly. It actually seemed as if they were preposterous enough to take this ordinary meteorological incident as an omen. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... ground was barren and my bed-rock swept clean by that unseen hand which I always felt but could never avoid. I leased proven properties, only to find that the pay ceased without reason. I did this so frequently that owners began to refuse me and came to consider me a thing of evil omen. Once a broken snow-shoe in a race to the recorder's office lost me a fortune; at another time a corrupt judge plunged me from certainty to despair, and all the while my time was growing shorter and I ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... own day would find readier sale were they to pander to various superstitions not altogether different from that here suggested. The man, for example, who believes that to have a black cat cross his path is a lucky omen would naturally find himself attracted by a book which took account of this and similar important details of natural history. Perhaps, therefore, it was its inclusion of absurdities, quite as much as ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams |
