"Portent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where our Headquarters were, waking us from sleep with a sudden start. It did no harm, but on the next day we were informed that we were all to move back to our old quarters in Barlin. I always said that I regarded a bomb dropped on Headquarters as a portent sent from heaven, telling us we were going to move. Accordingly on September 6th we all made our way to Barlin, where I was given a billet in an upper room in an estaminet. The propriety of housing (p. 207) a Senior Chaplain in an estaminet might be questioned, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... No more my half-dazed fancy there, Can shape a giant In the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form;— 90 The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... wholly skeptical as to the existence of any such portent as the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good doctor furnished, in my opinion, but another instance of learning and intelligence oddly associated with some one hallucination. I was so miserable, however, that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, But—leave your sports a little while—the dead are borne this way! Armies dead and Cities dead, past all count or care. God rest you, merry gentlemen, what portent see you there? Singing.—Break ground for a wearied host That have no ground to keep. Give them the rest that they covet most, And who shall next to sleep, good sirs, In such a ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman's system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... heard for the first time by the excited Andy—never later recalled without a thrill as he realized from that experience its terrific portent. ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... Dactyli, Fingers, was given them. The right gods broke the spells which the left wove, the right pointed out the ore which the left had buried, the right disclosed the remedies for the sickness which the left had sent. This venerable division is still retained when we speak of a sinister portent, or a right judgment. It is of physiological interest as showing that "dextral pre-eminence" or right-handedness was prevalent in earliest historic times, though it is unknown in any ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... as if to shut out the loathsome facts of an abattoir, a curtain of dreadful portent was drawn before ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... croaking since she is beautiful to a marvel!" said Don Ruy lightly. "If they tell us truly that the world is round, who knows that we may not be nicely balanced on an opposite to Seville, and all things of life and portent to be reversed? There's a thought for your 'Relaciones!'—treasure it, ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... loathe and detest a boy that is 'wicked before his time', when he sees you, like some frightful portent, old in sin but young in years, with the bodily powers of a boy, yet deep in guilt, with the bright face of a child, but with wickedness such as might match grey hairs? Nay, the most offensive thing about him is that his ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... insignificant fact was published in the papers the next morning, the South burst into a storm of indignation and abuse. Some of the Southern journals saw, in what was a mere routine incident, a terrible portent, foreboding that Roosevelt planned to put the negroes back to control the Southern whites. Others alleged the milder motive that he was fishing for negro votes. The common type of fire-eaters saw in it one of Roosevelt's unpleasant ways of having fun by insulting the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... arrested only by the disastrous pause at Derby, had frightened the Londoners from their propriety, and all but scared the Second George beyond seas. This terror in time subsided, but the interest in the northern savages still survived, and was further stimulated when, about fifteen years after, the portent of Macpherson's Ossian burst on the astonished world of literature. Then about eleven years later, in 1773, the burly and bigoted English Lexicographer buttoned his great-coat up to the throat and set out on a Highland sheltie from Inverness, on that wonderful 'Tour to ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... to it as to a promised land. We sat upon our horses, spellbound, gazing upon what seemed at once too grand and too beautiful to be real. Had we been superstitious like soldiers of an ancient time, we might have seen a miraculous portent in it; and even as it was, such sentiment as may be permitted in the sceptical spirit of our own day could find a happy omen in the scene. We were entering upon a new chapter in our military lives, and it was cheering to us, in entering East Tennessee, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... This portent befel south at Mossfell, the self-same night, that Onund dreamed how Raven came to him, covered all over ...
— The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald - 1875 • Anonymous
... me for a moment; then, as I listened, that strange apathy once more began to creep over me. Was it really the truth he had told me? Was it? Well—and then? What meaning had it to me?... Of what help was it?... of what portent?... of what use?... What door did it unlock? Surely not the door I had closed upon myself ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... not know." Privately he believed that it had been a glimpse of heaven, and was disturbed lest it might have been a portent of death. But his mind was too active, his nature too independent to sit down under superstition. If he died on the desert, it would not be through lack of effort to get out ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... rapidly groping toward definite outline; and following hard upon them crept a tingling apprehension. The reappearance of this rattish youth, casual as was the air with which he strove to invest it, began to assume, for me, the character of a theatrical entrance of unpleasant portent—a suggestion just now enhanced by an absurdly obvious notion of his own that he was enacting a part. This was written all over him, most legibly in his attitude of the knowing amateur, as he surveyed Miss Elliott's painting patronisingly, his ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... jaw-bone of an ass. Men have always accepted the Bible's account of the slaughter. But when an ass, without the aid of any Samson, killed a lion in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Priori, in Florence, the event was looked upon as of evil portent, exceeding the laws of nature. For Pope Boniface had presented the Commonwealth of Florence with a young and handsome lion, which was chained up and kept in the court of the palace aforesaid. A donkey laden with firewood was driven in, and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... now but singing their third welcome to the earliest dawn, when Alcmena called forth Tiresias, the seer that cannot lie, and told him of the new portent, and bade him declare what things should ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. (5) Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. (6) Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... and painfully penetrating. His complexion was a yellowish-brown, bespeaking Indian blood. I knew at once that it must be John Randolph. As he uttered the words, 'Mr. Speaker!' every member turned in his seat, and, facing him, gazed as if some portent had suddenly appeared before them. 'Mr. Speaker,' said he, in a shrill voice, which, however, pierced every nook and corner of the hall, 'I have but one word to say,—one word, sir, and that is to state a fact. The measure to which the gentleman has just alluded originated ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the full portent of the situation escape the attention of the reporters' gallery. Dick Cullen observed to Hansel ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... of man's skill, That stood within a vale of hollow ground, And bulk'd scarce smaller than the bitter-hill,— The common barrow that the dead men fill Who died in the long leaguer,—not of earth, Was this new portent, but of tree, and still The Trojans stood, and ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... very great multitude indeed of words I shall omit, and I will proceed to the termination itself of thine aberrations. For after that thou hadst come to the Molossian plains, and about the lofty ridge of Dodona, where is the oracular seat of Thesprotian Jove, and a portent passing belief, the speaking oaks, by which thou wast clearly and without any ambiguity saluted illustrious spouse of Jove that art to be; if aught of this hath any charms for thee.[64] Thence madly rushing along the seaside track, thou didst dart away ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... his Morning-Star all dimmed and dusky-red; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet no more.' The thunder-struck Air-sailor is not wanting to himself in this dread hour: but what avails it? We omit the passionate expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and not even ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the gods is sometimes abused; but wit and fine talents by a natural law gravitate towards virtue; accidents may drive them out of their proper direction; but such accidents are a sort of prodigies, and, like other prodigies, it is an alarming omen, and of dire portent to the times. For if virtue cannot keep to her allegiance those men, who in their hearts confess her divine right, and know the value of her laws, on whose fidelity and obedience can she depend? May such geniuses never descend to flatter vice, encourage folly, or propagate irreligion; ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... "what's HE know about it?" And, if his portent proves correct, we come back feeling still more angry against him, and with a vague notion that, somehow or other, he has had something to do ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... Sherman, of Ohio, the Republican candidate for speaker, who had signed a qualified recommendation of the book. After a long contest the Republicans dropped Sherman for Pennington, of New Jersey, whom they elected. The Impending Crisis was a portent and an impulse of the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... which, in few weeks more, filled the Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of darkness;—which, in short, exploded about New-year's time, as the world-famous VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant on-lookers. Of which it is now our sad duty to say something; though nowhere, in the Annals of Jurisprudence, is there a more despicable thing, or a deeper involved in lies and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... portent, the effect was startling. Steele's bulky assailant paused, remained stock-still, his purpose arrested, all his anger gone out ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... The portent of this was simple enough: If any man sought to fire on the soldiers below he must first unfasten a window and expose himself in the light; and after he fired admittance would be made easy for those who came searching for him to ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... dignified cap, and in front of that upon her brow, hair was PAINTED. I have never seen the like since. She had been maid to the widow of Sir Roderick Blenderhasset Impey, some sort of governor or such-like portent in the East Indies, and from her remains—in Mrs. Mackridge—I judge Lady Impey was a very stupendous and crushing creature indeed. Lady Impey had been of the Juno type, haughty, unapproachable, given to irony and a caustic wit. Mrs. Mackridge had no wit, but she had acquired the caustic voice and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... to enjoy the Carnival; but, planted there with his face pale with fasting and his knees stiff with praying, he seemed so stern a satire on it and on the crazy thousands who were preferring it to his way, that I half expected to see some heavenly portent out of a monastic legend come down and confirm his choice. Yet I confess that though I wasn't enamoured of the Carnival myself, his seemed a grim preference and this forswearing of the world a terrible game—a gaining one only ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... sober hearts, full of anxious portent for the future, but on the surface at least was naught but merriment. The gayest abandon prevailed. Strathspey and reel and Highland fling alternated with the graceful dances of France and the rollicking jigs of Ireland. Plainly this was ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... were living in a state of expectancy, waiting for the long-predicted Messiah, the words of this strange prophet in the wilderness were fraught with deep portent. Could it be that he was the Christ? He spoke of One yet to come, mightier than himself, whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to loosen,[289] One who would separate the people as the thresher, fan in hand, blew the chaff ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... on Comets, Lecture II. p. 44. Increase Mather, in his Discourse concerning Comets, printed at Boston in 1683, says of this one: "Its appearance was very terrible, the Blaze ascended above 60 Degrees almost to its Zenith." Mather thought it fraught with terrific portent to the nations ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... pagan gods came back, drunk and debauched with their long exile under the earth, and the garden-god assumed the throne of the Holy of Holies. Alexander, Caesar, Lucrezia, the threefold divinity, might be shown as a painter has shown one of them on the wall of one of his own chapels: a swinish portent in papal garments, kneeling, bloated, thinking of Lucrezia, with fingers folded over the purple of his rings. Or the family might have been shown as Rossetti, in one of the loveliest, most cruel, and most significant ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Deluge, in the time of Saurid, the son of Sabaloc, who, it is said, was the first to receive a warning dream of the coming flood. Saurid, being convinced by his priests, astrologers and soothsayers that the portent was a true one, became from that time possessed of one idea, which was that the vast learning of Egypt, its sciences, discoveries and strange traditions should not be lost,—and that the exploits and achievements of those who were great and famous in the ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... right. The portentous days came on apace, and each one brought a new and greater portent. The faces of men lost a driven look besetting them in the days of badgered waiting, and instead of that heavy apprehension one saw the look men's faces must have worn in 1776 and 1861, and the history of the old days grew clearer in the new. The President went to ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... Sanitatsmachine, turns it on from behind, and its pinkish shower, goldened by a ray of sunlight, falls around the LITTLE MAN's head, transfiguring it as he stands with eyes upraised to see whence the portent comes.] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... awakening, king," said his stout old follower. "'Twas the great Olaf, thine uncle, Olaf Tryggvesson the king, that didst call thee. Win Norway, king, for the portent is that thou and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... possibilities the night might hold; for more than once before, the weight of the 'St. George's Gazette', with Lakely at its back, had turned the political scales. To be marked by him as a coming man was at any time a favorable portent; to be singled out by him at the present juncture was momentous. A thrill of expectancy, almost of excitement, passed through him as he surveyed his appearance preparatory to ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... vowed a temple to Honour and Valour, its dedication was impeded by the pontiffs, who said, that one shrine could not with propriety be dedicated to two deities; because if it should be struck with lightning or any kind of portent should happen in it, the expiation would be attended with difficulty as it could not be ascertained to which deity sacrifice ought to be made; nor could one victim be lawfully offered to two deities, unless in particular cases. Accordingly ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... to the wind. But this wind was a wind of miracle and portent. To be a member of the Convention was to be a wave of the ocean. And this was true of its greatest. The force of impulsion came from on high. There was in the Convention a will, which was the will of all, and yet was the will of no ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... the only portent having reference to his marriage. After describing shakings and tremblings of his bed, for which indeed a natural cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a persistent howling for a long time; how some ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... a word of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that never failed to brighten her deepest ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... a sheep happened to yean a lamb, with the perfect shape and color of a tiara upon the head, and testicles on each side; which portent Alexander regarded with such dislike, that he immediately caused his Babylonian priests, whom he usually carried about with him for such purposes, to purify him, and told his friends he was not so much concerned for his own sake as for theirs, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... With the prophet instinct of the artist he knew better. Though at no time taking an active interest in politics or giving expression to party bias of any kind, his personal associations led him into a familiar knowledge of the trend of political opinion and the portent of public affairs, and I can truly say that during the fifty years that passed thereafter I never discussed any topic of current interest or moment with him that he did not throw upon it the side lights ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... where she stood with her hand on the flap, turning a hasty look behind her, when a shot out of the dark from the direction of the river-bank struck her ears with a suddenness and a portent which seemed to carry the pain of death. She was facing that way; she saw the flash of it; she saw Jerry Boyle leap with lithe agility, as if springing from the scourge of flames, and sling his pistol from the hostler under ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... noticed that Peter's eyes often rested with a troubled look upon his sister. In fact, it seemed to Paul that a black shadow of direful portent hung over them throughout ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... Eretria first, taking with him both Ionians and Aiolians; and after he had put out to sea from thence, Delos was moved, not having been shaken (as the Delians reported to me) either before that time or since that down to my own time; and this no doubt the god 8601 manifested as a portent to men of the evils that were about to be; for in the time of Dareios the son of Hystaspes and Xerxes the son of Dareios and Artoxerxes the son of Xerxes, three generations following upon one another, there happened ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... finally ends its career in the Lake Bracciano. Regarded from whatever point of view, the flight was certainly extraordinary, and it is not surprising that in that age it was regarded as nothing less than a portent. Moreover, little details of the wonderful story were quickly endowed with grave significance. The balloon on reaching the ground rent itself. Next, ere it plunged into the water, it carefully deposited a portion of its crown on the tomb of Nero. Napoleon, on learning ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... stalked back to his chair with stately dignity, unmarred by even the semblance of a smile. Young Peter Johnson howled with the rest, his sulks forgotten; and even the withered serving-man relaxed to a smile—a portent ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... come out of the skies like the malediction of an evil spirit. Without uttering the words of any language — Poe's "Nevermore" was, of course, a poetic license — people of all nationalities appear to understand that some dire calamity, some wicked portent, is being announced every time the unbirdlike creature utters its rasping call. The superstitious folk crow with an "I told you so," as they solemnly wag their heads when they hear, of some death in the village after "the bird of ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... sensuous long dark lashes hung above her dreamy eyes, Like twin clouds of stormy portent balanced over limpid deeps; Like the wings of birds of passage seen against the hazy skies; Like the petal o'er the pollen of the flow'ret ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... the First Consul, and gave him a very mean opinion of Livingston's talents. The critical Mr. Dennie caused his "Portfolio" to give forth this solemn strain: "If, during the present season of national abasement, infatuation, folly, and vice, any portent could surprise, sober men would be utterly confounded by an article current in all our newspapers, that the loathsome Thomas Paine, a drunken atheist and the scavenger of faction, is invited to return in a national ship to America by the first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... of the long continuance of the war) who he was, who threw out those dark expressions concerning the Alban lake? After he heard that he was an aruspex, being a man whose mind was not without a tincture of religion, pretending that he wished to consult him on the expiation of a private portent, if he could aid him, he enticed the prophet to a conference. And when, being unarmed, they had proceeded a considerable distance from their respective parties without any apprehension, the Roman youth having the advantage in strength, took up the feeble old ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; And the loud, exultant cry ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... de l'Eternel. Sur ces murs tenebreux des lances sont rangees, Dans des vases de sang leurs pointes sont plongees; Appareil menacant de leur mystere affreux. Le pretre de ce temple est un de ces Hebreux Qui, proscrits sur la terre et citoyens du monde, Portent de mers en mers leur misere profonde, Et, d'un antique ramas de superstitions, Out rempli des longtemps ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... scorn, Strong child of righteous judgment, whom with grief The rent heart bears, and wins not yet relief, Seeing of its pain so dire a portent born, Must thou not spare one sheaf of all the corn, One doit of all the treasure? not one sheaf, Not one poor doit of all? not one dead leaf Of all that fell and left behind a thorn? Is man so strong that one should scorn another? Is any as God, not made of mortal mother, That love ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... before the visible fulfilment of the great promise of salvation. To them, to be sure, or rather to many of them, not to all, merciful helps were granted. The unseen and the hoped-for was sometimes, not always, made more tangible to them by the grant of some sign and token, some portent or miracle, by the way. But the careful Bible-reader knows how very little such things are represented in the holy histories as being the "daily bread" of the life of the old believers. Even in the lives where they occur most often ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... Attentiveness—I found that the Arch thereof looked shaky and insecure; moreover, that a Great and Irregular-shaped Cleft or Crack ran, after the fashion of a Lightning-flash in a Painted Sea-scape, athwart the structure thereof from Keystone to Coping. As I was regarding this unpleasing Portent, the Genius told me that this Bridge was at first of sound and scientific construction, but that the flight of Years, Wear and Tear, vehement Molecular Vibration, and, above all, Negligent Supervision, had resulted in its present ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... some work and tried to sew. Her catching breath, her drawn and altered face were ominous of the end. But still a little hope flickered in those sisterly hearts. "She grows daily weaker," wrote Charlotte, on that memorable Tuesday morning; seeing surely no portent that this—this! was to be the last of the days and ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... their lives on this singular occasion was fourscore and four persons, including fifteen children; and at this expense of blood was extinguished a flame that arose as suddenly, burned as fiercely, and decayed as rapidly, as any portent of the kind within the annals of superstition. The Commissioners returned to Court with the high approbation of all concerned; prayers were ordered through the churches weekly, that Heaven would be pleased to restrain the powers ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... impossible a l'homme de connoitre la cause physique du premier individu de chaque espece, que d'assigner aussi physiquement la cause de l'existence de la matiere ou de l'univers entier. C'est au moins ce que le resultat de mes connaissances et de mes reflexions me portent a penser. S'il existe beaucoup de varietes produites par l'effet des circonstances, ces varietes ne denaturent point les especes; mais on se trompe, sans doute souvent, en indiquant comme espece, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... science, phenomena attributed to spiritual agencies has been the work of my life. I have, naturally, gone through strange difficulties in accomplishing my mission. I propose in these pages to relate the histories of certain queer events, enveloped at first in mystery, and apparently dark with portent, but, nevertheless, when grappled with in the true spirit of science, capable ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... and all the inmates of the convent paused in their sorrow to rejoice in the happy portent of the death and burial of one whom they loyally believed to be no less entitled to beatification than Catherine herself. Her miracles may not have been of the irreducible protoplastic order, but they had ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Secretary of Utah Territory, in 1852-1853, he found that the Mormons were still expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date forward to 1870. All through Smith's autobiography and the Millennial Star will be found mention of every portent that might be construed as an indication of the coming disruption of this world. As late as December 6, 1856, an editorial in the Millennial Star said, "The signs of the times clearly indicate to every observing mind that the great day of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... of another Thirty Years' War, and asserted that no intelligent man ever entertained the wish that Germany should attain world-domination. There was a time when this frank reflection on the Hohenzollern intelligence would have constituted lese-majeste. Coming from a Minister it amounts to a portent. Now he has gone, but the growing belief that military operations cannot end the war has not been scotched by his fall, and Herr Erzberger vigorously carries on the campaign against Chancellor Hertling ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... is young. Even with these eyes I saw the molten mountains rise From out the seething deep, while Earth Shook at the portent of their birth. I saw from out the primal mud The reptiles crawl, of dull, cold blood, While winged lizards, with broad stare, Peered through the raw and misty air. Where then was Cretan Jove? Where then This king ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... comet had been observed in those ages we might not recognize the description of it. Thus in the fourth year of the 101st Olympiad, the Greeks were startled by a celestial portent. They did not draw fine distinctions, and posterity might have remained ignorant that the terrifying object was possibly a comet, had not Aristotle, who saw it as a boy at Stagira, left a rather more scientifically worded description ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... all the summer with my old friend, It seems that only from such a remote solitude can one view things mundane in the right perspective, and in their true proportion. One would see how important or unimportant portent in the cosmos was the agricultural ant's dream of three millimetres and an aphis compared with the aspirations of the English labourer. One would justly focus the South African millionaire, Sandy McGrath and the ram, and bring them to their real lowest common denominator. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... fait un recueil de ces derniers, je prends la liberte de lui offrir un petit recueil de nos betises qui meritent le nom qu'elles portent aussi bien que les Irish bulls. J'ai fait autrefois une dissertation ou je recherchois quelle etoit la cause du rire qu'excitent les betises, et dans laquelle j'appuyois mon explication de beaucoup d'exemples et ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... in the wood. It seemed as if he was so thoroughly convinced of a divine manifestation against him, that he despised any exceptional scepticism as utterly beneath his notice or attention—thoroughly engrossed, as he appeared to be, with the terrible sanction of a portent of some coming retribution. His silence in some degree distressed me, as I thought he resented my levity in commenting upon his convictions; so it was with some relief that Dr. Rogers came in and sat down at the table, apparently to wait for a call to the bedroom. A man this ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... at the knees, might even behold a portent new to his experience, the emperor's elephant. Haroun El Raschid, the great Sultan of the 'Arabian Nights' had sent it to Charles, and it accompanied him on all his progresses. Its name was 'Abu-Lubabah', which is an Arabic word and means 'the father of intelligence[A]', ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... by fits and starts, in the deposed family who were his relatives and—enemies. In Marshall's opinion the breech between these kinsfolk ought not to be healed. Amy's presence in the house was a disastrous portent. She must be gotten out of it as soon as possible, and in such a way that she would not care ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... honoured with a quarter of a line in the Dunciad. But it attracted some notice on account of the situation of the writer. For, a hundred and twenty years ago, an eclogue or a lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent, [372] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... killed two malefactors dead at his feet; and in a fourth the other John, the Baptist, is painted with a rope round his neck, dragged by an executioner before Herod. The executioner next beheads the saint, and evidently sees some terrible portent on doing so, for his hair stands on end, and his hand flies up in horror. The two other medallions are separate subjects. In one, a figure with a rope round his neck is dragged before Christ by demons; other demons, one red and one white, scream and hold out threatening claws; perhaps their question ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... really great master among Italian painters, however, was Giovanni Cimabue, who lived in Florence during the last part of the thirteenth century; he infused into his work a certain vigor and animation which were even more than a portent of the revival which was to come. Other Italian painters there had been before him, it is true, and particularly Guido of Siena and Giunta of Pisa, but they fail to show in their work that spirit of originality and that ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... people's woe. Again I use the figure: it is like a rock of the sea, set here in the midst of the Mediterranean world, washed by all the tides of history, beat on by every pitiless storm of the passion of man for blood. The torch of Greece, the light of the Cross, the streaming portent of the Crescent, have shone from it, each in its time; all governments, from Greek democracy to Bourbon tyranny, have ruled it in turn; Roman law and feudal custom had it in charge, each a long age: yet civilization in all its historic forms has never here done more, ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... moment's monument,— Memorial from the Soul's eternity To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, Whether for lustral rite or dire portent, Of its own arduous fulness reverent: Carve it in ivory or in ebony, As Day or Night may rule, and let Time see Its flowering crest impearled and orient. A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals The soul,—its ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... grew blacker, the superstitious fears of Lafaele increased, and every day some new portent was reported. "On May 16," says the diary, "Lafaele and Araki reported that while walking on the road they met Louis riding on my horse Musu. What was their surprise and terror when they reached home to find that he had not left the house all day. Great anxiety ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... that the howling dog, or wish-hound of Hermes, whose appearance under the windows of a sick person is such an alarming portent, is merely the tempest personified. Throughout all Aryan mythology the souls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their howling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying as they pass by their houses. [73] Sometimes the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Queen Yolande a widow. Scotland was widowed indeed. For long years thereafter she was to be a battlefield for fiercely contending nations, and if the ghost that danced at Jethart was truly a portent of the death of the King of Peace, it also was a portent of the death of many a gallant warrior and of much grievous spilling of innocent blood in the woeful years ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... confirmed by a vision. Thus doubtfully, amidst rumour and portent, cloud and spiritual light, comes Arthur: "from the great deep" he comes, and in as strange fashion, at the end, "to the great deep he goes"—a king to be accepted in faith or rejected by doubt. Arthur and his ideal are objects ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... greatly aggravate the anxiety of the Man. Aesop being at hand, a sage of nice discernment, whom nature could never deceive {by appearances}, remarked:— "If you wish, Farmer, to take due precautions against {this} portent, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... que les anciens donnoient a la mer Caspienne, contribuoit egalement beaucoup a augmenter la largeur de l'Asie. Ptolemee a laisse intacte, dans l'evaluation de la terre habitee, selon Posidonius, la distance des iles Fortunees au passage de l'Euphrate a Hierapolis. Les reductions de Ptolemee ne portent que sur les distances de l'Euphrate a la Tour de Pierre et de cette tour a la metropole des Seres. Les 225 deg. de Marin de Tyr deviennent, selon l'Almagest (lib. ii., p. 1) 180 deg., selon la Geographie de Ptolemee (lib. i., p. 12) 177-1/4 deg.. Les cotes des Sinae[4] reculent donc du meridien ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable perversion of moral sense ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... portent thus," she answered: "they shall be united, but not here. Yon is a Spirit bridge, and, see: the waters of Death foam ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... pool if the hand hung or the foot weighed on them. No safe way went to the water but at this lower side, where the riven, tumbled white blocks shelved easily to the bottom; and Luis and Lolita looked down these natural stairs at the portent in the well. In that white formation shot up from the earth's bowels, arbitrary and irrelevant amid the surrounding alien layers of slate, four black stones were lodged as if built into the wall by ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... womanly grace to gleam out upon my page with a strange repulsion and unattainableness in the very spell that made her beautiful. At her side, and familiarly attentive to her, sat a gentleman of whom I remember only a hard outline of the nose and forehead, and such a monstrous portent of a beard that you could discover no symptom of a mouth, except, when he opened it to speak, or to put in a morsel of food. Then, indeed, you suddenly became aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lozenge, de meme de celui des veuves; et en France et ailleurs, celles-ci l'ornent et l'entourent d'une cordeliere ou cordon a divers neuds. Quant aux femmes mariees, elles accollent d'ordinaire leurs armes avec celles de leurs epoux; mais quelquefois elles les portent aussi ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... connected with a firework bomb, which, when Tuxall pressed the switch, exploded, releasing a flaming 'dropper.' About the time the 'dropper' reached the earth Tuxall lighted up his well-oiled barn. All Harwick, having had its attention attracted by the explosion, and seen the portent with its own eyes, believed that a huge meteor had fired the building. So Tuxall and Company had a well attested wonder from the heavens. That's the little plan which Bailey's presence threatened to wreck. Is it your opinion that ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... two-mile cross, and within that distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained winding-sheet. {5a} Many thought that this apparition was a portent of the deaths ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they might but procure the works of Burns." This first edition only brought the author L20 direct return, but it introduced him to the literati of Edinburgh, whither he was invited, and where he was welcomed, feasted, admired and patronized. He appeared as a portent among the scholars of the northern capital and its university, and manifested, according to Mr Lockhart, "in the whole strain of his bearing, his belief that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation he was where he was entitled ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... week the portent stood in sun and rain And fluttered rags of dread. A sparrow, nathless, Whose nestlings cried, dashed down and snatched a grain, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... which the second change was only a portent, all remained fairly peaceful in the big burrow under the whins and brambles. Occasionally, in the brief winter days, Brock was awakened from his comfortable sleep by the music of the hounds, as they passed by on the scent of Vulp, the fleetest and most cunning fox on the countryside, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... not disorganised, and had no reason to fear the future, were busy catching dolphins,—another portent—which made their appearance at London Bridge ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... yet had not realized the full portent of the soldiery and the mob. When it was approaching it had occurred to her that it might be another triumphal escort, such as she had once seen surround him on his way to a feast. As it advanced, the roar bewildered, and she had ceased to conjecture; then ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... this form of infanticide is a policy derived from ancestors who found it necessary. In the kingdom of Apollonia (Guinea) the tenth child was always buried alive; never a Decimus was allowed to stand in the way of the nine seniors. The birth of twins is an evil portent to the Mpongwes, as it is in many parts of Central Africa, and even in the New World; it also involves the idea of moral turpitude, as if the woman were one of the lower animals, capable of superfetation. There ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... against the decree of the Powers-that-Be, together with the fact that these two officers were only doing their duty. He invited them to eat and drink. They accepted the favour, our good spirits revived, and we informally discussed the new situation and its portent. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... fresh portent; where the ridge of lofty Tenedos filled the sea, there breaks a swelling surge, and the broken waves rebound and threaten the calm: as when in the silent night the sound of oars is borne afar, when navies ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... own line, and also to all his predecessors on the throne; a magistrate to all who have occupied his office before him. Ancient China possessed an elaborate ritual, and occasions of sacrifice were frequent. Every change of season, every portent of nature, every important step either in public or in private life, required its consecration. It is in accordance with the genius of the people that the sacrifices are not of the nature of propitiation, but expressions of gratitude and devotion merely. Asceticism has no place in this ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... whose obscurity was our pride is an open hook for thousands of eager allies and enemies, while on the lips of every wife and mother, from Maine to California, Belleau Woods have become words full of fearful portent. I often wonder then, if the brave Americans who are actually disputing inch by inch my home and its surroundings have ever had time to think that a little village known as "Ecoute s'il pleut," might find ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... to be wondered at therefore that this was in the main a century of religious depression, a time when the fear of the gods filled every man's heart and when every trifling apparent irregularity in the course of nature was exaggerated into a portent declaring the wrath of the gods and needing some immediate and extraordinary propitiation. It is in just such a moment as this in the middle of the century (B.C. 249) that the next recorded instance of new gods occurs. The first war with Carthage was in progress, Rome had just suffered ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... consider another "miracle" discovered in the plays,—a miracle if the actor be the author. The new portent is the courtliness and refinement (too often, alas! the noblest ladies make the coarsest jokes) and wit of the speeches of the noble gentlemen and ladies in the plays. To be sure the refinement in the jests is often conspicuously absent. How could the rude actor learn his quips and pretty ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... handed to Mr. Davis while at church. He arose quietly and retired, but the portent of the message was soon known and caused great consternation among the inhabitants of the Confederate Capital. For almost four years Richmond had been the defiant centre of the rebellion. Now it was to be abandoned on less than ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the simple fool, Who says that wars are over? What bloody portent flashes there, Across the Straits of Dover? Nine hundred thousand slaves in arms May seek to bring us under But England lives and still will live, For we'll crush the despot yonder. Are we ready, Britons all, To answer foes with thunder? Arm, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... if at the hearing of some portent, the professor stood rooted to the spot for a moment, and then was about to leap to the door, when the simulacrums before him sprang to their feet and with a tremendous stamping, smote their wooden legs upon the floor, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... dismally above the monotonous creaking and puffing of the donkey-engine, swept through the cheerless, draughty dock, chilling the spectators to the marrow. The sun, vainly trying to break through the banks of leaden-colored clouds, cast a grayish pall over land and sky. A day it was of sinister portent, that could not fail to have a depressing effect on ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... Street Star! Saturn wonders who you are, Up above the world so high, Like a portent in the sky. Wonders if, Jove-like, you want, Him to banish and supplant! Fear not, Saturn; Punch's bolt Arms Right Order, not Revolt; Dread no fratricidal wars From this ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... yet, since on the holy height, The Temple's marble walls of white and green Carved like the sea-waves, fell, and the world's light Went out in darkness,—never was the year Greater with portent and with promise seen, Than this eve ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... . . . still veiled. The unexpectedness of his coming was the only thing, you understand, that saved him from being at once dispatched with krisses and flung into the river. They had him, but it was like getting hold of an apparition, a wraith, a portent. What did it mean? What to do with it? Was it too late to conciliate him? Hadn't he better be killed without more delay? But what would happen then? Wretched old Allang went nearly mad with apprehension and through the difficulty of making up his mind. Several times the council was broken up, and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... uncanny had the entire occurrence been that there was not a one of them who could find a ray of comfort penetrating the dead blackness of its ominous portent. What had happened to one of their number each conceived as being a wholly possible fate for himself—in fact quite his probable fate. If such a thing could happen in broad daylight what frightful thing might not fall to their lot when night had enshrouded them in her mantle of darkness. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lying beneath the earth, enveloped in his shroud, still unconscious of bitter toils. Would that the dark wave, when the maiden Helle perished, had overwhelmed Phrixus too with the ram; but the dire portent even sent forth a human voice, that it might cause to Alcimede sorrows ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... masts and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential, black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and terrible portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must surely spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men, but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything but a narrow and personal ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... is the Milky Way just now! F. True. In addition to the regular stars I saw a number flash and disappear. E. I too. A heavenly portent, let us hope, Presaging triumph ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... January 1st, 1905, I began to write. Within two days I had written about fifteen thousand words—for the most part on the subject of reforms and how to effect them. One of the documents prepared at that time contained grandiloquent passages that were a portent of coming events—though I was ignorant of the fact. In writing about my project I said, "Whether I am a tool of God or a toy of the devil, time alone will tell; but there will be no misunderstanding Time's answer if I ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... profusely as Billy. Three times had they met in noble battle, and three times had Billy been the conqueror, but somehow the spirit of young McMasters did not seem particularly broken, nor did he become a serf. Billy felt that the air was full of portent, and he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... and that some peculiarity of form in the meteor had been exaggerated by the obscuring influence of the frost-rime and the briefness of the survey; but the apparition had filled his whole mind, as one of strange and frightful portent from the spiritual world. And often since that night has it returned to us in recollection, as a vision in singular keeping with the wild valley which it traversed, and the credulous melancholy of the solitary ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Mail-Coach, my NOBBS, is no more What it was when you put on the man; We've Mail Trains, all rattle and roar, And that portent, the Packet Post Van. A Pullman, and not the Box-seat, Is the aim of our modern Lord BOBS; But the old recollections are sweet; And Punch drinks to your health, ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... overwrought emotions. There was no beauty here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its somber portent an unshakable ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... over the latter part of the book of prodigies, compiled by the otherwise unknown writer Julius Obsequens from the records of the pontifices quoted in Livy's history, we can get a fair idea of the kind of portent that was troubling the popular mind. They are much the same as they always had been in Roman history,—earthquakes, monstrous births, temples struck by lightning, statues overthrown, wolves entering the city, and so on; they are extremely abundant in the terrible years of the Social ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... shock of his life when he met the gaze of those contrasting eyes. Yet he did not believe that his strange feeling came from sight of different-colored eyes. There was an instinct or portent in that meeting. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... irresolute, before he knew how to comport himself. But before he could make up his mind—cr'r'k, a second time— the Presence had assailed him again, fighting with deadly force, and in a white heat of frenzy. Trevennack had no leisure to think what this portent might mean. Man or fiend, it was a life-and-death struggle now between them. He stood face to face at last in mortal conflict with his materialized enemy. What form the Evil Thing had assumed to suit his present purpose Trevennack knew not, nor did he even care. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment to perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon of golf. Her next ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... literary portent of all time. Here the Black Country is painted in all its inspissated gloom by a master-hand—sardonic, salubrious, superb.... We approach this work on all-fours. Any other attitude on the part of a reviewer would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... Malachy having pity for this new and unheard-of trouble, prayed, and the woman was delivered. Those who were present rejoiced and wondered. For all saw with what ease and rapidity she brought forth in the same place, and the sad portent of birth denied was changed to ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments, astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle prophecies. "Is he not swift?" said the young. "How glad he is," said ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... to ring a bell for silence; seemed to carry with it some hidden portent that stopped idle conversation as a striking clock that marks the hour ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine |
