"Presentiment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer's commercial heart, and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was half-open, and the old housekeeper ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... a hurricane by the sulphurous exhalations of the earth, but especially by the incessant neighing of horses, bellowing of cattle, and general restlessness of these animals, who seem to acquire a presentiment of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... that the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by? They were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke down and wept. Did they sense that their father would never come back? Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment. Bill Isbel's convulsed face showed that he also caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good-by to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to the children, or else could not. He never looked at them. And his good-by to Ann was as if he were only ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... you not see from this visit that MY day is about to dawn, and that Bartenstein is the first lark to greet the rising sun? His visit proves that he feels a presentiment of his fall and my rebuff shall verify it. The whole world will understand that when Bartenstein was turned away from my door, I gave old Austria, as well as himself, a parting kick. Away with anxiety and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... their meeting, the chaplain had entertained a nervous dislike, approaching to a presentiment, toward Royston Keene. He regarded him as a brand likely to inflame others, but itself by no means to be plucked from the burning. The latter saw his gesture as he passed, and smiled—not pleasantly. "Remark the shepherd, M. le Vicomte," he said; "he sees the wolves prowling, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to throw off a similar presentiment concerning him,—a foolish presentiment that ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... returned home, mother Coupeau called to her that Madame Goujet required her to go round with her clothes, ironed or not; and she was so animated that Gervaise, seeing something was wrong, guessed what had taken place and had a presentiment of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the sick man showed that he was suffering agonies. Before half-past nine every guest had left, greatly troubled. The majority of those who had been present never saw the unfortunate monarch again. They all shared the same presentiment of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Vereker's will for my inspection, assuring me that this had been drawn up during his last visit to the State capital, while all his affairs were in the most perfect order, "the poor gentleman," as the alcalde expressed it, "being under the opinion that he would not have long to live," a presentiment of death I have often found many people ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... a few steps towards the door of the room. At this moment Gillette and Nicolas Poussin reached the entrance of the house. As the young girl was about to enter, she dropped the arm of her lover and shrank back as if overcome by a presentiment. "What am I doing here?" she said to Poussin, in a deep voice, looking at ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... man with a clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. As he came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless, under the engine house. The men had drawn down their hats and turned up their collars to screen their faces. For a moment the presentiment of Death laid its cold hand upon the manager's heart. At the next he had shaken it off and saw only ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... change, I will not here undertake to determine. Too certain it is that I was so. I never ridded myself of an over-mastering and brooding sense, shadowy and vague, a dim abiding feeling (that sometimes was and sometimes was not exalted into a conscious presentiment) of some great calamity travelling towards me; not perhaps immediately impending—perhaps even at a great distance; but already—dating from some secret hour—already in motion upon some remote line of approach. This ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... would wake up quite well the next morning. In a few minutes more the clock stuck nine; and Ida heard the servant's step ascending the stairs. She suspected what his errand was, and went out to meet him. Her presentiment had not deceived her; the police agent had arrived, and was ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... to marry you, after all that has passed between you. When I heard the news yesterday, I could hardly bring myself to believe it. Why, she has run twice from you, from the very altar rails, as it were. She must have some presentiment of evil. What can she want with you now? Your money? Nonsense! Besides, I should think you must have made a fairly large hole in your fortune already. Surely it is not because she is so very anxious to find a husband? She could find many a one besides yourself. Anyone would be better ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... minutes and then went up to his room, though he had never felt less like sleeping. He got into bed, however, but tossed about uneasily for hours, the distant roaring of the seals on the rookery and other unaccustomed noises keeping him awake. And ever, through it all, Colin was conscious of this presentiment of some trouble on hand. Suddenly, this feeling rushed over him like a flood and, impelled by some force he could not resist, he sprang from bed and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was the sudden fate of the man who had returned to England from wandering alone within a stone's throw of the Matabele bivouac fires unknown and unhonoured by the public. I wonder if Baden-Powell had a presentiment of what was to be when, in the early days of the siege, he corrected the proofs of Aids to Scouting, and came upon his own words towards the end of that manual: "Remember always that you are helping your side to win, and not merely getting glory for yourself ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... head during the night. I was awakened about three o'clock in the morning by an explosion, and immediately sprang out of bed and rushed into the Captain's cabin to find out the cause, though with a terrible presentiment in my heart. Quickly as I went, Goring went more quickly still, for he was already in the cabin stooping over the dead body of the Captain. It was a hideous sight, for the whole front of his face was blown in, and the little room was swimming in blood. The ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... physical coward, and in a quarrel he would have stood up bravely enough to face his antagonist. But this was very different. He had been ruled by Matilde Macomer through many years, and when he thought of meeting her he had a deadly presentiment of assured defeat. She would extract from him something more than the silent assent which he had been forced into giving on the previous evening, and she could not let him go till he promised to marry Veronica. He walked more slowly, as he felt the fear and uncertainty ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... the day of My embalming hath she kept it.' (St. John xii. 7.) He assigns to her act a mysterious meaning of which the holy woman little dreamt. She had treasured up that precious unguent against the day,—(with the presentiment of true Love, she knew that it could not be very far distant),—when His dead limbs would require embalming. But lo, she beholds Him reclining at supper in her sister's house: and yielding to a Divine impulse she brings forth her reserved ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... "And how fortunate for me that I should have happened to take the precaution of locking and bolting my door. Oddly enough, I had a sort of presentiment that if I did not bolt my door something dreadfully unpleasant might happen. Normally, you see, I don't bolt the door or lock it. It I do, it means that I have to get up when my maid brings my morning tea. But the night before last I seemed to have a warning, so last ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for himself—touching ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... patricians by the sumptuousness of their velvets, their brocades, and their pearls, and by the splendour of their breasts. He saw Auroras scattering roses, and a multitude of naked Dianas and Nymphs surprised on the banks of retired streams. And the great Margaritone died, strangled by so horrible a presentiment of the Renaissance and ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... his door on the piazza, the cushioned footfalls like those of a swift dog. He thought with a certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had sat like a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring room, and he listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for the sounds of capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping for the fox's bootless return, when he ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... are come," she said. "I was thinking of sending my father for you, but I had a presentiment that you would be here this evening. The fact is, I wanted to tell you that I am going to France. I shall start on Friday. It is necessary for me to go there, if I wish to become ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... remember, some dim sense Of vague presentiment Swept o'er me, as beyond the gates we turned To ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Jim Cleve again? When would he recognize her? What would he do? What could she do? Would Kells be a devil or a man at the end? Was there any justification of her haunting fear of Gulden—of her suspicion that she alone was the cause of his attitude toward Kells—of her horror at the unshakable presentiment and fancy that he was a gorilla and meant to make off with her? These, and a thousand other fears, some groundless, but many real and present, besieged Joan and left her little peace. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... you are thinking of," said Klingemann. "That is all of no consequence; that is all done with the moment you give the word. I have a dim presentiment that we two suit each other very well. Yes, unless I am very much deceived, the blood should be flowing in your veins, my ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... Some such presentiment is in the mother's mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... round with a red scarf, English riding-breeches and neat little boots, had turned his back to him, so that he could not see his face, and his hair was completely hidden under the rose-and-yellow striped turban. But the blissful presentiment which told him who was concealed beneath the charming disguise could not deceive him. A few rapid steps and he was by the side of the delicate-limbed Indian youth. Overpowered by a storm of passionate emotions, he forgot ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... fact, we have no evidence at all, merely a sort of 'hunch', or presentiment, of a plot against the peace and welfare of the Federated Planets. There may be nothing wrong at all, but we don't like to take chances. With your ability to read minds you may be able to find out. ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... M. Joutel, "in a manner so tender, so sorrowful, that it would seem that we had a secret presentiment that we should never again see each other. Father Membre was deeply affected. He said to me that never before had he experienced a parting ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... yours. Quite different from the Chevalier, you require recognition, preference, acknowledgment, even sacrifices. The Countess sees all these pretensions at a glance, or at least, if in the cloud which still envelops them, she does not distinguish them clearly, nature gives her a presentiment of what the cost will be if she allows you the least opportunity to instruct her in a passion which she doubtless already shares. Women rarely inquire into the reasons which impel them to give themselves up or to resist; they do not even amuse themselves by trying to understand or explain them, but ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... knew you would be. I wonder if you would think me a very bold girl if I told you something? It's this; I've never forgotten you since those days in Paris. You were different, somehow, from other men I had seen. I thought about you. I had a presentiment that we should meet again. My mother dreamed of numbers to play at roulette. I dreamed of—but oh, I am saying things I ought not to say! Please don't blame me. When you've starved for two days, and not known what to ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... afternoon came a ring at the front door bell of Mr. Simon Rattar's commodious villa. Mary MacLean declared afterwards that she had a presentiment when she heard it, but then the poor girl had been rather troubled with presentiments lately. When she opened the front door she saw a particularly polite and agreeable looking gentleman adorned with ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... "A presentiment that this would be the ending has been upon me for some time," broke in the gentle voice of Constance. "In my own mind I have kept laying out plans for us all. You see, it is not as though we should enjoy the full income ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps, be sorry. But I've done, 'Your most obedient humble, sir!'" And the stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy, vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather froze, across him the recollection of his brother's emphatic but disbelieved assurances—of Catherine's obstinate assertion of her son's alleged rights—rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf, had not compromised;—a fresh lawsuit ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... should be set at liberty. But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty showed displeasure at being reminded of it. At length Frances was informed that in a fortnight her attendance should cease. "I heard this," she says, "with a fearful presentiment I should surely never go through another fortnight in so weak and languishing and painful a state of health.... As the time of separation approached, the Queen's cordiality rather diminished, and traces of internal displeasure appeared sometimes, arising from an opinion I ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... possibly have had something to do with Drake's sudden resolution to leave during the early afternoon. He said nothing, however, at the moment, but continued to stare at the Easterner as long as he could see him clearly, in order to impress the man's appearance and features indelibly on his memory. For a presentiment had just seized him that this man was in some strange way bound up with his own fate, and that they were destined to meet again under far different circumstances from those under which they had come together, shortly before, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... back against the chimney-piece, and Maggie was seated opposite the light. He noticed that she was tremulous, and he had a presentiment of the subject she was going to speak about. The presentiment made his voice colder and harder as he said, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... becoming depressed by a presentiment of the dull, stagnant days to come. Scoville had been lost in the great outside, unknown world completely. She was suffering from reaction after the strong excitements and fatigues of her experience. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... and when the mists had risen above the meadows, Robbie saw before him, nigh at hand, the ancient city of Carlisle. A presentiment that he came too late took the joy out of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... refractory by all the forms of the most lively interest. "Your opposition," he said to them, "astonishes and grieves me: would you pass for an incendiary, and incur the penalty of being exiled? Let us go on our own way, I conjure you: I will answer for the future.".... An internal presentiment warned the hearers, that this future would be far from answering the expectations of M. Fouche: but his political life, his great talents, his connexions with the foreign ministers, the attention paid him in 1814 by the Emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia, gave such weight, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... depart without having the courage to address to her another word. That man so brave, who knew no fear, recoiled from no danger, wept like a child. A sad presentiment told him that it was his last meeting with Madaléna, though her concluding promise tended in some degree ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... enlisted in a white regiment, there being no trace of color about him and no objection being made. He claimed to have a presentiment that he would fall in battle at an early day. Whether it was a presentiment or a mere fancy, it was his fate. He now ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... down his tools and guns on the table at Scarecrow Charlie's, where the woman was employed, had he in his heart some foreshadowing presentiment of the peril he was in, of the sharp destroying fire of a resolute woman's eyes, which he was subjecting himself to, in including her in his universal caress? Who knows? Perhaps his flute had whispered tidings to him. He was, said Papa Isbister, immensely ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... suggested to his mind that it would be a very useful fabric if it could be made uniformly so thin, and could be so prepared as to prevent its melting and sticking together in a solid mass." Often afterward he had a vivid presentiment that he was destined by Providence ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... took my arm and led me through the gallery, I had an odd presentiment of going towards a doom. While I followed her up a winding stair, the misgiving increased. Did venerable lemurs inhabit the Basque mountains? Could so magnificent; an old age be of this earth? An ancestral shudder from the Steppes came over me. It was her ruddy train rustling ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... and went out, shutting the door after him. Not one word of punishment; but he left Roxy trembling with a strange terror. She shook with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think our girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... life save only to rise with him; and he knows he is rising when he finds himself drawing near to his ancient image of good. But all things transform themselves more freely in his thoughts; and he can descend with impunity, for he has the presentiment that numbers of successive valleys will lead him to the plateau that he expects. And, while he thus seeks for conviction, while his researches even conduct him to the very reverse of that which he loves, he directs his conduct by the most humanly ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... have a presentiment, good people, that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation—I shall return to Europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable powder; ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their dissimilar persons, eyes, faces, there was expressed a common trouble, doubt, and commiseration. This expression seemed to go out to meet us sadly, like a bearer of ill-news. And, as if at the sight of a downcast messenger, I experienced the clear presentiment ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... whose solemn purpose that day was to keep beside the prince throughout the course of the battle, and shield him from harm even at the cost of his own life. Some strange foreboding had fallen upon Paul, and he scarce expected to see the light of another day; but this presentiment of coming ill he bravely hid from his companion, and the two rode into the ranks with smiling faces, and looked across at the opposing lines of the enemy with a steadfast and lofty courage. Then the prince turned to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... have been to shut themselves up for months, and the Queen said later, "she never could have existed under the uncertainty of a concealed attack. She would much rather run the immediate risk at any time than have the presentiment of danger constantly hovering over her." But the brave, generous woman, a true queen in facing the dastardly foe, was careful to save others from unnecessary exposure. The Annual Register of the year mentions that she did not permit her female attendants to accompany ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... him the papers themselves, and three days after the ratification of the marriage contract he sent them back to Paris. "I confess," he wrote to the Duke of Cadore, in his despatch of February 28, 1810, "that in returning these papers so speedily to Paris, I had a presentiment of the discussion which they might cause among the foreign ecclesiastics. Everything was settled, the Emperor of Austria was satisfied, the marriage contract was ratified, the ratification of the marriage had been exchanged ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... this intelligent and attentive spectator witnessed in 1800 the discovery of the galvanic battery by Volta. He might from that moment have felt a presentiment that a prodigious transformation was about to occur in our mode of regarding electrical phenomena. Brought up in the ideas of Coulomb and Franklin, he might till then have imagined that electricity had unveiled ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... but it is not an impious supposition. For God, having made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon all that he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or less luminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of a Creator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy of the name. It is a species of Pantheism, that is to say, a confused "visibility," a physical working together into indissoluble ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... that place in one of the Chinese boats, twenty of them agreed to go there immediately, in hopes of getting a passage from thence to England. Mr Taylor, one of the mates of the Success, was of the number: But before the boat set sail, he had some presentiment of danger, and chose rather to lose his money, by waiting for another opportunity. He had reason to be satisfied with himself for this conduct; as he soon learnt that the boat tad been taken by a pirate, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... had kept his eyes fixed on De Wardes, and shuddered at the bitter manner in which the young man smiled. Something like a presentiment flashed across his mind; he knew that the time had passed away for grands coups entre gentilshommes; but that the feeling of hatred treasured up in the mind, instead of being diffused abroad, was still hatred all the same; that ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... presentiment that I should one day be poor, and have to rely for subsistence on my own labour. With this persuasion, I frequently busied my thoughts in imagining the most lucrative and decent means of employing my ingenuity, and directed my inquiries to many things of little or no use but on ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... himself which he thinks he can safely cast away. The recollections are of a great wrong done him in early life, and of all the sorrow consequent upon it; and the ghost he holds nightly conference with, is the darker presentiment of himself embodied in those bitter recollections. This part is finely managed. Out of heaped-up images of gloomy and wintry fancies, the supernatural takes a shape which is not forced or violent; and the dialogue which ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short. 'I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first, that that audacious young savage would ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... masculine reason, nor manhood even to prize the quality in others. "I am afraid the mother has not always treated the daughter well," he continued, "feeling a little jealous of her growth, perhaps; for, though we hope England has not yet begun to descend on the evil side, we have a presentiment that she has got to ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... them now a full day and a half, and many a change might take place—many a danger might arise in that time. In fact, he began to blame himself for having left them alone. It would have been better to have let his cattle perish. So thought he now. A presentiment that all was not right was gradually forming in his mind; and he grew more anxious to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... started. An overpowering, yet unutterable awe crept over him—a fearful but undefined sensation—a presentiment that something terrible was about to happen. He strove to shake it off, but could not—like an icy thrill it ran, slow and curdling, through his veins. A low rustling, as of silken drapery, struck upon his ear. He turned to know the cause, and leaned eagerly forward. A ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... impressively the hand which bore her diamond engagement ring; "that is the place, Pierre. (I was christened Peter, but Miss Sophronia never looked encouragingly upon me until a friend nicknamed me Pierre.) I have a presentiment that our home will be at Villa Valley. How melodious—how absolutely enchanting it sounds. There is always a lake or a brook in a ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... gauntlet. Luckily I had profited by the discussion in the servants' quarters and was not wearing a three days' growth of beard. Moreover, I had taken considerable pains in dressing that morning. Evidently a presentiment. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... under the tide "Heimkehr;" and he frequently refers to her or quotes her in a way that indicates how he valued her influence. According to his friend F. von Hohenhausen, the opinions concerning Heine's talent were very various among his Berlin friends, and it was only a small minority that had any presentiment of his future fame. In this minority was Elise von Hohenhausen, who proclaimed Heine as the Byron of Germany; but her opinion was met with much head-shaking and opposition. We can imagine how precious was such a recognition as hers to the young poet, then only two or three and twenty, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... to think it a presentiment; perhaps he was never to return from that voyage; some unseen danger awaited him in that distant land, and he should die there, far from the sound of every voice, the touch of every hand that ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... master, who appeared to be unusually grave (as if in sad presentiment of evil). "I've watched him often.—But it's ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... year in your company, and it is impossible for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. I would have postponed this avowal till I was able to resume my position in society, by the means which industry might have afforded me; but my departure upon this business, and the kind of presentiment which I have, that I may not see you again, has forced it from me. In a few days I leave you—be gentle with me for my involuntary offence—pity me while you condemn, and I ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... this story; but if Byron did not hold intercourse with unearthly beings, he has, by his writings and speech, left room for simple-minded people who have read his works and history, to suppose that he did. His belief in presentiment was very strong, as also visionary warnings of imminent ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... but not so white as that which Mr. Oakhurst bent over him,—a face so ghastly, with haunting doubts, and a hopeless presentiment of coming evil,—a face so piteous in its infinite weariness and envy of death, that the dying man was touched, even in the languor of dissolution, with a pang of compassion; and the cynical ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... board the vessel. "We might abandon the vessel and so escape any risk," observed the merchant—not in a tone as if he intended to do so. "You, at all events, Mr Braithwaite, can be landed, and you can easily get back to Batavia." Against this proposal of course my manhood rebelled, though I had a presentiment, if I may use the expression, that we should be attacked. "No, no! I will stay by you and share your fate, whatever that may be," I replied. Night came on, and darkness hid ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... pursuing Fate seemed to him the most mythical of myths. His child-like self-confidence was pathetic. The laws that govern human affairs had little interest for the man who was always a law unto himself. Yet by some extraordinary prescience, some inexplicable presentiment, the approaching catastrophe cast its shadow over his mind and he felt vaguely that the life-journey of genius would be incomplete and farcical without the final tragedy: whoever lives for ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... now sitting in the very charming library of the house of his Bishop, where he was spending a few days, and was busy inditing a few lines to his wife to ask her if the latest news from Culversham was true. He was warned by a curious presentiment that the information which he had received was in accordance with facts, and, being always ready with a word of counsel, Canon Wrottesley was writing to his wife to warn her that until the whole thing blew over it would be wiser for her not to see ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... knows, by news come in overnight. And six days hence (September 21st), Finck and Wunsch together will do their "ACTION OF KORBITZ," and be sending Haddick a bad road! These things Zweibruck knows only in part; but past experience gives him ominous presentiment, as it may well do; and he thinks decidedly: "Excellenz, more Austrian troops are indispensable there; in fact, your Excellenz's self, were that possible; which one feels it is not, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief;—but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... tell you? I have a presentiment—the spirit of prophecy is upon me. She is going to appoint him, and we are to go there and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... should be formulated clearly enough to be understood. Why let the personal reaction of the individual's feeling suffice? Our youth need to be told that the guess is immoral, that hypothesis is the servant of research, that the private impression instructs nobody, that presentiment is usually wrong, that science is the best antidote to the fear of ghosts, and that the reply "I guess so" betrays itself, whether it arise from bravado, from cowardice, or from literary finesse! I think that the great need of our life is honesty, that the bulwark of honesty in ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... become of Mr. Thorn?" said Constance. "I have a presentiment that you will find him cracking nuts sociably with Mr. Rossitur, or drinking one of aunt Lucy's excellent cups of coffee, in comfortable expectation ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fright. "I have a presentiment," he declared emphatically. "It may be that what I am talking about will not occur this morning. It may be put off until tonight but I will be hanged. Everyone will get excited. I will be hanged to a ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... eighty-six and the other eighty-eight years of age, by whom the author was told the tale in 1498, both affirming that they had been in the church when Joan of Arc spoke of her betrayal. There can be but little doubt that Joan had had for some time before she went to Compiegne a presentiment of her soon falling into her enemies' power. On the eve of the King's coronation at Rheims she said to her friends that what she alone feared was treason—a foreboding too soon, alas! to come true. She never, however, seems to have fixed on any particular ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... semi-deities. And third, intangible objects, such as the sky, the stars, the sun, the dawn, the moon; in these are to be seen the germs of deities. At each of these stages man is seeking not for something finite but for the infinite; from the first he has a presentiment of something far beyond; he grasps successive objects of worship not for themselves but for what they seem to tell of, though it is not there, and this sense of the infinite, even in poor and inadequate ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Maddy felt for a moment as if she were dying. Never until then had she realized how, all the while, she had been clinging to an indefinable hope, a presentiment that something might yet occur to spare her from a long lifetime of pain, such as lay before her if Guy were really lost; but the bubble had burst, leaving her nothing to hope, nothing to cling to, nothing but black ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... finely built and intelligent young man, and it was with feelings of great regret that we bade him farewell and watched his departure over the great waves, with the rather mournful presentiment that we were being parted ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... farewell to her who had shared with me the first part of the long watch of the death-chamber. Enva and her companions had gathered, not from words, that this journey was more than an ordinary absence. Some instinct or presentiment suggested to them that it might, possibly at least, be a final parting; and I was touched as much as surprised by the tears and broken words with which they assured me that, greatly as they had vexed my home life, conscious as they were ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... hear me speak so confidently? Well, I can only speak as I feel. I have had, for some days past, a presentiment—you will think me, doubtless, weak for yielding to it. I am ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... said to have had a presentiment of his approaching fate. On the day preceding his death, a council of officers was convoked, in consequence of the continued absence of General Hand, and their entire ignorance of his [155] force or movements, to consult and determine on what would be the course for them to pursue under existing ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Mrs. Weldon; "but I have, as it were, a presentiment that the tempest is going down or is going ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... me very stupid," resumed the old lady after a slight pause, her face grown grave again, "but for weeks past, even before this happened, I've had such an odd sense of insecurity, a presentiment of trouble. I'm not given to feelings of that kind, which makes this one more noticeable. I can't explain it, but there it is—a kind of foreboding that I can't ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... she had in leaving Italy! So full she was of sad presentiment! Do you know she gave a Bible as a parting gift from her child to ours, writing in it 'In memory of Angelo Eugene Ossoli'—a strange, prophetical expression? That last evening a prophecy was talked ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... go to Wales before she goes to Folkestone, or maybe she'll take Wales on her way home; but she'll want a house at Folkestone for the season, notwithstanding. I may be mistaken—I hope for your sake that I am—but I feel a presentiment that I'm not." ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... watched the big handsome mis-presentiment of himself disappear into the hallway with ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... Charles), wife of the preceding, born Bettina Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild, indulged daughter of a banker in Frankfort-on-the-Main. She became blind soon after her elder daughter, Bettina-Caroline's troubles and early death, and had a presentiment of the romance connected with her younger daughter, Marie-Modeste, who became Madame Ernest de la Bastie-La Briere. Towards the close of the Restoration, Madame Charles Mignon, as the result of an operation by Desplein, recovered her sight ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Kitty to herself. "You wanted an excuse to run away. All my conjectures are true. I believe I have you, Mr. Thomas, right in the hollow of my hand." To Thomas, however, she was a presentiment of ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... physically and mentally after breathing the exhausted air of the Rotunda for five hours, my mind suddenly delivered up its original impression, vivid and clear-cut; no proof accompanied the revelation; it was mere presentiment, but convincing. Frances was disturbed in her mind, her orderly, sensible, housekeeping mind; she was uneasy, even perhaps afraid; something in the house distressed her, and she had need of me. Unless I went ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... was declining, and Ernst and Elise sate in one of the parlour windows. Mutual communications received with mutual sympathy, had made them have joy in each other—had let them feel at peace with life. They were now silent; but a presentiment that for the future they should be ever happier with each other, like a harmonious tone, responded in their hearts, and brightened their countenances. In the mean time, the shadows of evening began to grow broader, and a soft rain pattered on the window. The sonorous voice of the Candidate, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Presentiment.—We walk in the midst of secrets—we are encompassed with mysteries. We know not what takes place in the atmosphere that surrounds us—we know not what relations it has with our minds. But one thing is sure, that, under certain conditions, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... lodged in his bones he knew there was something in the wind and that a red flag was flying over the immediate future. Some delicate instrument in his being, more subtle than the senses, more accurate than mere presentiment, had seen the red flag and interpreted ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... that when I took it away I set you free.' His widow commemorated his death annually at the Studion, and on the last occasion surprised the abbot by making a double offering, saying, 'I may not live another year,' a presentiment which proved true. According to her dying request, Aecatherina was buried in the cemetery of the Studion, 'as a simple nun, without any sign to indicate that she was born a Bulgarian princess and had been a ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... it is not so. The joy is, I suppose, something like our joy at the long pleasant summer days—it has the presentiment of the dark days coming. And it is this presentiment that casts its shadows over the joy of men, just as the driving clouds cast their shadow over the fjords. It lies there so bright and blue—and ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... to be. In the drawing-room Mrs. Rastall-Retford came out of her trance and called imperiously for the cards. Peter, when he saw his hand after the first deal, had a presentiment that if all his hands were to be as good as this, the evening was going to be a trying one. On the other occasions when they had played he had found it an extremely difficult task, even with moderate cards, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... of congratulation he had begun to write, as in duty bound but without pleasure. He took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote: "This is my last will and testament." And, looking at these words, he gave himself up to unpleasant reflection; a presentiment that he would never see the scenes of his childhood overcame Captain D'Hubert. He jumped up, pushing his chair back, yawned leisurely, which demonstrated to himself that he didn't care anything for ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of the townsmen went back to their own firesides and sat talking with their wives and children about the calamities of the times. Others who were younger and less prudent remained in the streets, for there seems to have been a presentiment that some strange event was on the eve of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... more like herself, she rages in the moment of his mad jealousy and her unquenchable anger. To-morrow he would submit to the final arbitrament of arms the cause for which he had lived, and for which the presentiment was upon him that he would die, and the quarrel begun between him and MacKay fifteen years ago, between the sides they represent centuries ago, would be settled. If the years had been given back ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... break its wings." And then sharply a thought struck me like a pang. Can I perhaps see you better with my soul's eyes, Allison, if you are never mine? Would I break your wings in touching you? Are you something too fine and fair for human experience? It came like a presentiment then that you would never be mine in the dear common human way. Can it be so, dear love? No, no; I would have you when the hour comes. Despite the angel in your eyes, you were made to make fair a home, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... swayed by this specious reasoning, and believing that there was more merit in going to the more dangerous post, he persisted in his intention of going to Italy, in spite of the objections of my mother, who had a secret presentiment which made her wish for my father to go to the Rhine. This presentiment was not false. She never saw her ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine's mind that calm evening hour. Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow. Her soul was happy and untroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field. Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... her I'd had a presentiment Hugo was ill. She believed me, I think. If not, she's ...
— The Spinster - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... head bent as if he were pondering a pain. At moments he felt as if he must return at once, and refuse to leave the castle for any reason. But he could not see that it was the will of God he should do so. A presentiment is not a command. A prophecy may fail of the least indication of duty. Hamlet defying augury is the consistent religious man Shakspere takes pains to show him. A presentiment may be true, may be from God himself, yet involve no reason ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... But even this presentiment did not prepare him for the astonishing sight which met his eyes when he entered the drawing-room. There the three ladies were all assembled, regarding with different developments of interest the new-comer, who had thrown himself, half-reclining, on a ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... talk to Alan about many matters, however little he might answer her. Indeed it seemed almost as though she feared to let him leave her side; as though some presentiment of loss oppressed her. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... streams of Switzerland, reappeared in the suburbs of that city. When Napoleon heard of it he grew furious, and gave orders to seize her as an intriguer, and to send her back to Geneva, by force if necessary. It was done, but an awful presentiment took possession of the Emperor that she had appeared like a crow foreboding a coming tempest. As if to compensate France for the loss of the exile's literary powers and those of her friends, many means were devised and tried for the encouragement ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... afterwards that he could not see the nod; but I showed him that I fully understood by bearing off to the left, crawling steadily and softly, and feeling Denham's hand come tap, tap regularly upon my heel. All the time I had a presentiment that the Boers must be lying around by ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... I congratulated him on his seeming better condition of health, he told me of the cause for anxiety which he had in the state of his heart. Indeed, I cannot help feeling that he had a kind of presentiment that his end was approaching. When I left him, he insisted on conducting me to the door, and there was that in his tone and manner which seemed to convey to me the sad intelligence that it was not merely a temporary farewell, though he himself was ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... poor creature here was painful to behold. I spoke soothingly and encouragingly, but with a presentiment that she must be disappointed. While I was speaking the supper-bell rang, and I proposed to get her a ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope it isn't a presentiment." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... prayerful heart, and a watchful eye on Wilson. From Wilson's actions Ben was sure something was going to occur which would nearly concern him, and having been hunted like a beast he had become suspicious and on his guard all the time. Having a feeling of presentiment, he was uneasy, and, as was usual with him, he kneeled down and asked God to protect him from the machinations of his enemies, and give him heart, courage, and strength to overcome the evil intended him. While praying he was startled by the snort ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... tossed it in the air, and at another plunged it into the profound abyss. The waves, raised by a stormy north-west breeze, came dashing in a horrible manner against the sides of our ship. I know not whether it was a presentiment of the misfortune which menaced us that had made me pass the preceding night in the most cruel inquietude. In my agitation, I sprang upon deck, and contemplated with horror the frigate winging its way upon the waters. The winds pressed against the sails with great violence, strained and ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... to prove my theories, and too strongly under the presentiment that my hour of destiny had come, to rest, and so gladly welcomed the tinkle of ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... some presentiment of the end had led the country druggist to do all that in him lay to give his boy and girl a good education; the family had been living up to the income brought in by the business; and now when they were left almost destitute, it was an aggravation of their ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... his ideas here bear the impress of the age in which he lived. Aristotle, however, distinguished this science from all others and from domestic economy, which is so akin to it. Doubtless, he did not found the modern study of Political Economy, but his powerful intellect gave him a presentiment of it. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... harmony, refrains, random notions, uproar, triumphs, glories, murmurs, breathless victories, and dance-tunes that will last to all eternity; and who, after burying Lulli, the Florentine, will be himself buried by the Italian virtuosi,—a fate that he had a presentiment of, which made him gloomy and chagrined; for nobody is in such ill-humour, not even a pretty woman who awakes with a pimple on her nose, as an author threatened ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley |
