"Unpropitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I selected the longest, wishing to see the harbor, down which a steamer takes passengers as far as Amboy; but the Powers of the Air were unpropitious again: it never ceased blowing, from the moment we went on board a very unpleasant substitute for the regular passage-boat, till we landed on the railway pier. My first experience of American travel ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... in his crude but vehement way, was living through a boy's own high tragedy of love for a woman older than he and beyond his reach, and Piney knew for himself that Steering, in the most perfect flower of his capacity, had attained his destiny as a perfect lover, under circumstances most unpropitious. The fact that the woman who was the object of the boy's enraptured fancy had levied royal tribute upon the man's love in the same purple-mannered fashion brought boy and man close. Tacitly they recognised ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... the Mgussa's familiar motioned the Kamraviona and several officers to draw around him, when, in a very low tone, he gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away. His revelations seemed unpropitious, for we immediately repaired to our boats and returned to our quarters. Here we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... their arrangement. Blank odes have been known in this country about as long as English sapphics and dactylics; and both have been considered, we believe, as a species of monsters, or exotics, that were not very likely to propagate, or thrive, in so unpropitious a climate. Mr. Southey, however, has made a vigorous effort for their naturalisation, and generously endangered his own reputation in their behalf. The melancholy fate of his English sapphics, we believe, is but too generally known; and we can ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman. And all communication between the parts of the long- extended territory might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable quebradas,—those hideous rents in the mountain chain, whose depths ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... of 1614 the "Restless" was launched. Immediately Captain Block entered upon an exploring tour through what is now called the East River. He gave the whole river the name of the Hellegat, from a branch of the river Scheldt in East Flanders. The unpropitious name still adheres to the tumultuous point of whirling eddies where the waters of the sound unite with ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... of Thoresby became archbishop. The times were unpropitious for building. Yorkshire was suffering much from the black death, there was great poverty among the peasantry, and the diocese was in great need of discipline and reform. Thoresby gave himself up for nine years to this work, and in 1361 he thought the time had come for the rebuilding of the choir. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... westward, shed its last red rays upon the ocean, reflected its dying brilliancy upon the fleecy clouds above, and soon left nothing but a fading twilight to show men their way about the world. To a man seeking unknown objects in a hitherto unexplored vicinity this condition of affairs is unpropitious; but Dudley, having tied his hired steed to a neighboring fence, concluded nevertheless not to be daunted, and proceeded on foot in search of the "new-fangled, sorter yaller-and-red, p'inted-roofed house," where the village postmaster had told him the lady whom ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... countries; and can truly say, that, with a very few exceptions, he has found them candid and liberal; prompt to discover merit, and just in applauding it. If there have been exceptions, he has also generally been able to trace their cause to the unpropitious coincidence of narrow circumstances, a defective education, and poverty of intellect. Is it then surprising, that in the hands of such a triumvirate the art should be degraded to an imposture, to the trick of a ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... at an unpropitious moment, for the colonel was in a cold fury, and the object of his wrath was Crewe, who sat with folded arms and tense face, looking ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... rebounds from grief as swiftly as the arrow from the bow. Robin looked upon her with doubting, but with strong affection. He knew, though he struggled with hope against the conviction, that Dalton's friendship would hardly induce him to bestow his daughter upon such an unpropitious personage as himself; and he felt assured—or, at least, believed, in his more gloomy moments, that so it must be—no woman could, by any possibility, feel affection for him. He was also, at times, under the full assurance that Barbara only laughed at his addresses; and ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... happens when everything unpropitious is guarded against, nothing unpropitious occurs. It would have been a wonderful chance, indeed, if, supplied only for one day, a fine, clear day had come. But supplied against bad weather for two or three weeks, it was no wonder at all that the very first day should have presented ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... them in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept by the golden torrent of Tasso's impassioned verses, that were intended to urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade. Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis, that hot-bed of infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in the hands of the Christians; and the fleets of the Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John of Austria ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... letters is dictated either by honest sympathy, the warm, uncritical recognition of youth (which I don't suppose any author would diminish, if he could), or the craving for encouragement, under unpropitious circumstances of growth. But how was I, in the beginning, to guess at the motives of the writers? They offered sugar-plums, which I swallowed without a suspicion of the drastic ingredients so many of them contained. Good Mrs. Sigourney kept a journal of her experiences in this line. I wish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... and all the gentlemen did not cease drawing for a single moment, but coolly continued their occupation; so I was left to play to the chairs and tables, and the walls. My patience gave way under such unpropitious circumstances. I therefore began the Fischer variations, and after playing one half of them I rose. Then came eulogiums without end. I, however, said all that could be said—which was, that I could do myself no justice on such a piano, but I should be very glad to ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our northeastern and northwestern boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners under the seventh article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation, ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... an unpropitious circumstance, but Mr. Morrell thought that he could easily recover them; and to accomplish this, he took six of his men, well armed, and marched directly to the village where the king lived. This was a lovely place, formed in a ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... carved above the word, but this was all the comfort the unhappy father and grandfather could find. He of course hastened back to the fleet, determined instantly to go to Croatan, but a combination of unpropitious events defeated his anxious wishes; storms and a deficiency of food forced the vessels to run for the West Indies for the purpose of refitting, wintering and returning; but even in this plan White was disappointed and found himself reluctantly ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... considers improvement in music of sufficient consequence to encourage your visits to that dangerous woman," answered Philothea: "It was an unpropitious day for Athens when she came here to invest vice with all the ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... like an angry spirit, Commissioned from above to chastise men, Where'er she moved was death. There was a flash Of scorn that lighted up her fiery eye, A glance of wrath upon her countenance— There was a terror in her frenzied arm That struck dismay into the boldest heart. Alas for her, Fortune was unpropitious! Her fearless valor found an overmatch In the experienced prudence of Aurelian; And scarcely could the desert's hardy sons Cope with the practiced legions of the empire. The battle gained, Palmyra taken, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... miles, and by husbanding his food, he succeeded by the night of the fourth day in accomplishing forty more. Footsore and weary, he lay in a thicket of the thorny melaleuca, and felt at last that he was beyond pursuit. The next day he advanced more slowly. The bush was unpropitious. Dense scrub and savage jungle impeded his path; barren and stony mountain ranges arose before him. He was lost in gullies, entangled in thickets, bewildered in morasses. The sea that had hitherto gleamed, salt, glittering, and hungry upon his right hand, now shifted to his left. He had mistaken ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... of this race, it is supposed, was in the high table-lands of Central Asia, in or near Bactria, east of the Caspian Sea, and north and west of the Himalaya Mountains. This country was so cold and sterile and unpropitious that winter predominated, and it was difficult to support life. But the people, inured to hardship and privation, were bold, hardy, adventurous, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... The boiler tubes are giving way at the rate of from ten to twenty daily, the fracture in the shaft is extending, and so, partially maimed, the old ship drags her 320 feet of length slowly along. The captain is continually in the engine-room, and we know when things are looking more unpropitious than usual by his coming up puffing his cigar with unusual strength of determination. It has been so far a very pleasant voyage. The moral, mental, and social qualities of my fellow-passengers are of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... treat the savages, and heathen people, in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of God."[D] This expedition left the shores of England, December 19, 1606, and, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by unpropitious winds, which kept them in sight of home for more than "six weeks," reached the capes of Virginia. The southern cape was christened "Henry," and the northern, "Charles," after the King's sons. This was on ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... afternoon the ship was brought into such a position as to command the site of the proposed camp, and as there was to be an eclipse of one of Jupiter's satellites, Cook and Green stayed ashore to get an observation, but the weather was unpropitious. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the use of barbed hooks is misleading. In sheer desperation, when the supply of pearl-shell hooks was exhausted, they were wont to attach bait to their harpoon-points, and they used such unpropitious means successfully, and occasionally made a miniature hook by tying a sharp spur to a thin, straight stick. Recent proof has been obtained of the use of the lorum of one of the creeping palms, from which all the spurs save three at the thicker end were ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... The times were unpropitious to the buttered-toast question, and it had quite slipped out of my mind. I have never traced the string of associations which reminded me of it, on one certain morning. Once more I made bold to ask if I could have buttered toast. "Impossible," said the waiter, curtly. I was piqued. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... Sunday. They had all a special connection with Bray. Things had happened there before, and it was a party of healed memories that was to gather there. If, after all, the weather turned out to be hopelessly unpropitious, they could all sit in a ring round the fire, holding each other's hands. She felt sure they would like to do that. Probably there would be a great many tete-a-tetes in various corners, or, if it were warm, in various punts. But she felt ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... a very unpropitious morning for a journey—muggy, damp, and drizzly. The horses in the stages that were going out, and had come through the city, were smoking so, that the outside passengers were invisible. The newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelled mouldy; the wet ran off the hats of the orange-vendors ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... hotel, where a company of persons were trying, with that too formal cordiality peculiar to English people, who are accidentally thrown together in the course of a holiday, to get rid of the depression which results upon dishearteningly unpropitious weather. Music, as usual, was the gracious angel employed to banish the fiend of ennui, but among those who took no part either in the singing or playing, other than that of an enforced auditor, was the elderly gentleman, my quondam acquaintance of the porch, who stood ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... a kind of domestic luxury, akin to the keeping of any other pets, such as lap-dogs and canaries. It is a species of self-indulgence which those who can afford it give themselves when fortune has proved unpropitious, an artificial method of counteracting the inequalities of fate. That such is the plain unglamoured view of the procedure is shown by the age at which the object is adopted. Usually the future son or daughter enters the adoptive household as an infant, intentionally so on the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... many years. But him the Goddess answer'd azure-eyed, Telemachus! Thou wilt, in part, thyself Fit speech devise, and heav'n will give the rest; For thou wast neither born, nor hast been train'd To manhood, under unpropitious Pow'rs. So saying, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps attending, soon arrived Among the multitude. There Nestor sat, And Nestor's sons, while, busily the feast 40 Tending, his num'rous followers roasted, some, The viands, some, transfix'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... breezes serve to drive back its noxious emanations; and the harbor, even now so shallow that vessels are obliged to anchor a mile from shore, is gradually silting up with sediment from the Yuna River. The story goes that the selection of this unpropitious spot for the terminus of the railroad was due to the passion of a moment. A tract of land at Point Santa Capuza, five miles down the bay, where a level coast plain and deep water up to the very shore invited the establishment ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... plumage." "Wherefore {give} me," he retorted, "a beauty that is dumb, if I am surpassed in voice?" "By the will of the Fates," {said she}, "have your respective qualities been assigned; beauty to you, strength to the Eagle, melody to the Nightingale, to the Raven presages, unpropitious omens to the Crow; all of {these} are ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... pointed out the defective patience of those, who, though submissive and composed under corrections, which proceeded immediately from the hand of God; such as sickness, loss of friends by death, or any misfortunes arising from unpropitious seasons, or other accidents; are querulous and rebellious, when the same Sovereign Disposer of events corrects them through the intervention of their enemies. Pride, envy, hatred, ingratitude, selfishness, and treachery, are evils permitted against others; as well as plagues ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... choral dances, which he himself organised and arranged, he awed, interested, and softened the manners of the Romans, artfully beguiling them out of their warlike ferocity. Sometimes he spoke of supernatural terrors, evil omens, and unpropitious voices, so as to influence them by means of superstition. These measures proved his wisdom, and showed him a true disciple of Pythagoras, for the worship of the gods was an important part of his state policy, as it is of Pythagoras's system of philosophy. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... strong, quite outnumbered the army of Gustavus, and the officers of Wallenstein unanimously advised to give battle. Wallenstein was a superstitious man and deeply devoted to astrological science. He consulted his astrologers, and they declared the stars to be unpropitious to Gustavus. This at once decided him. He resolved, however, to act on the defensive, and through the night employed the energies of his army in throwing up intrenchments. In the earliest dawn of the morning mass was celebrated throughout the whole camp, and Wallenstein on horseback rode ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... feelings by his own desires. But yet, The stolen glance with half-averted eye, The hesitating gait, the quick rebuke Addressed to her companion, who would fain Have stayed her counterfeit departure; these Are signs not unpropitious to my suit. So eagerly the lover feeds his hopes, Claiming each trivial ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... year what month, what day, and what hour is auspicious, that I may order the preparations for the prince's marriage?" They perceiving what were [the king's real wishes], made their calculations, and said, "Mighty sire, the whole of this year is unpropitious; no day in any of the lunar months appears happy; if this whole year pass in safety, then the next is most propitious for ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... long, shimmering lances of light, in which the mighty stream, gray, mysterious, tempest-tossed, is seen to be surging onward with majestic sweep. Upon its bosom we are to be borne for a thousand miles. Our introduction has been unpropitious; it is to be hoped that on further acquaintance we may be better pleased with La ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... confounded, fears for the future struggling with mortification for the past, the Landgrave was sitting, late at night, in the long gallery where he usually held his councils. He was reflecting with anxiety on the peculiarly unpropitious moment at which his new enemy had come upon the stage; the very crisis of the struggle between the Swedish and imperial interest in Klosterheim, which would ultimately determine his own place and value in the estimate of his new ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... husband at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently, notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly, as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... harbor, tide and tide. On thorns and scratches, till that moment Unnoticed, you begin to comment; You never felt such bitter brambles, Such heavy soil, in all your rambles! You never felt your fleas so vicious! Till, sick of life so unpropitious, You wish at last, to end the passage, That you were ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, School ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... replied, "but we'll be whipped in this wordy battle. And even a small defeat were an unpropitious sign ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... not inspired himself from a cause superior to human interests, where then would he have drawn the constancy and the strength of soul to support what he was obliged to the end to endure and to submit to; that is to say, the unpropitious advice of the learned people, the repulses of princes, the tempests of the furious ocean, the continual watches, during which he more than once risked losing ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... against the bears and boars in the forest, with a couple of hundred peasants as beaters, had been arranged by the Natchalnik for his guest's amusement; but their plans were frustrated by the unpropitious state of the weather; and as soon as it became favourable, we find Mr Paton again in motion, ascending the eastern branch of the Morava to Alexinate, the quarantine station on the Bulgarian frontier, where the British govermnent has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... prices remunerative, and visions of untold wealth were looming up before the minds of thousands. Prospecting was extending far and near. Every stream and ravine that deflected toward the Alleghany or Oil Creek was leased, and in very many unpropitious ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... the savages of Caffraria, wrought reputed miracles in Brazil, and gathered the tribes of Paraguay beneath their paternal sway. And now, with the aid of the Virgin and her votary at court, they would build another empire among the tribes of New France. The omens were sinister and the outset was unpropitious. The Society was destined to reap few laurels from the brief apostleship of Biard ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave labor; whilst the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interest, by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... could he endure it? How, indeed. I fell asleep, and the next minute, which was six hours later, I awoke, and stumbled with a dusty mouth into the remaining night, not yet become dawn. Such an hour seemed unpropitious. My bones ached; I lamented my ancient hardness in the time when a board or a sheet of stringy bark was soft; I felt a touch of fever, my throat was dry, a hard hot day of discomfort was before me. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... that no good reason exists for its change, and that an honest adherence to its wise provisions is our surest guarantee for real or supposed grievances, and that the present of all times is the most unpropitious moment to attempt any change or modification. Party politics in all their embittered madness rule the hour, but calm times and cool heads will be required whenever the American people desire to enter upon so hazardous an experiment. Let the Constitution ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... slept at Perigny, about a league from the capital of Burgundy, so as to make the last stage of his journey thither in leisurely state. Unpropitious weather on Saturday, January 22d, the appointed day, made postponement of the ducal parade necessary, out of consideration for the precious hangings and costly ecclesiastical robes that were to grace the ceremonies of reception and investiture. Fortunately, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... by its members. To the original cantons they appeared closer; to the cities, especially Zurich, less restrictive. This conflict of opinion had contributed not a little to the duration and violence of the old Zurich War, in the preceding century. Now it revived again, and that at a most unpropitious moment. In the Buergerrecht, stipulations were certainly made in regard to the Emperor and Empire, as well as the Confederates, so that the obligations under which the two cities had come toward them, seemed to be ratified on the face of it; but this same Buergerrecht spoke ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... suffice to consider (1) some signs of decadence or defects; (2) some hopeful signs. The facts touching these matters are to be gathered not only from secular history but from the life and work of Jesus as they are seen at work either for or against the progress of his work. (1) Unpropitious conditions. Among the signs of decadence or errors that needed correction should be noted: (a) There was a defective view of God. They regarded God as too far away; (b) They laid too much stress upon outward obedience and, thereby, left ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... situation, in fact, had become so critical, and the bank manager's demeanour so unpropitious, that in the previous year more than once the dawn had found her trying to decide between the Scylla of the thankless post of lady companion to some wealthy parvenu on the Riviera, and the Charybdis of raising money enough to allow her to harbour paying guests ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... drew near to the southern extremity of the American continent, however, we met with heavy weather and foul winds. We were now in the month that corresponds to November in the northern hemisphere, and had to double The Horn at that unpropitious season of the year, going westward. There is no part of the world of which navigators have given accounts so conflicting, as of this celebrated passage. Each man appears to have described it as he found it, himself, while no two seem to have found it exactly alike. I do not remember to have ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... putting the Southern States wholly and the General Government partially into the hands of negroes is proposed at a time peculiarly unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil war. Industry must be reorganized, justice reestablished, public credit maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these ends would require ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... are worse than the men. The moment is unpropitious, but it doesn't matter! Let us try the power of a speech; an eloquent speech is never out of place. Listen, Gwynplaine, to my attractive exordium. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a bear. I take off my head to address you. I humbly appeal to you for silence." ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... position, and the general slight flurry of the misadventure, intercepted recognition until she heard his voice when he addressed Charley. Or had she known her lover at once, and rapidly decided that the moment was an unpropitious one for a first meeting after absence, and that she would pass on to Kings Port unrevealed, but then had found this plan become impossible through the collision between Charley and John? It was ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the documented facts. It is clear that, within a generation after Shakespeare's death, common opinion both in Stratford and London recognized that in the actor and dramatist a great man had passed away, that he had been in a worldly sense highly successful, though starting from unpropitious beginnings, that he wrote with great swiftness and ease, and that in his personal relations he was gentle, kindly, genial, and witty. That the bailiff's son who returned to his native town as a prosperous gentleman, is to be identified ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... were killed that the hyaenas from the whole country round collected to the feast, and were unable to finish the putrid masses. A large old alligator, which had never been known to commit any depredations, was found left high and dry in the mud among the victims. The fourth year was equally unpropitious, the fall of rain being insufficient to bring the grain to maturity. Nothing could be more trying. We dug down in the bed of the river deeper and deeper as the water receded, striving to get a little to keep the fruit-trees alive for better times, but in vain. Needles lying out of doors for ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... his reputation, by publishing a collection of them. He transmitted the manuscript to Mr. Strahan, the printer, who after keeping it for some time, wrote a letter to him, discouraging the publication[285]. Such at first was the unpropitious state of one of the most successful theological books that has ever appeared. Mr. Strahan, however, had sent one of the sermons to Dr. Johnson for his opinion; and after his unfavourable letter to Dr. Blair had been sent off, he received from Johnson ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... destitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened household, in bare and fireless garrets, with the noise of squalid children, in the turbulence of domestic contentions, and in the deep gloom of uncheered despair. This is its most frequent birthplace, and amid scenes like these unpropitious, repulsive, wretched surroundings, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they have at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shining lights of their times; have become the companions of kings, the guides and teachers of their kind, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... out of all patience, and vexed to the soul at the society of the parrot. Bewailing his misfortune, he was railing at the revolutions of the skies; and, wringing the hands of chagrin, was lamenting his condition, and saying: "What an unpropitious fate is this; what ill-luck, and untoward fortune! Could they any way suit the dignity of me, who would in my day strut with my fellow-crows along the wall of a garden:—It were durance sufficient for a good and holy man that he should be made the companion ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... had not the least hope of seeing New York and a Cunarder; not with such an unpropitious start as that. With an exit like Euston one never doubts sure direction, and arrival at the precise spot at the exact moment. You feel there it was arranged for in Genesis. The officials cannot alter affairs. They are priests administering inviolate rites, advancing matters fore-ordained ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... was haunted by strange and fearsome insects, too, and the moving of the classes above sent showers of dust down between the cracks in the worn floor. But those boys were satisfied that they were having a perfectly blissful time, and were serenely happy in defiance of unpropitious surroundings. They were 'playing the wag,' and to be playing the wag under any circumstances is a guarantee of pure felicity to ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... do that he used to be a thoroughly insufficient, uncapacious man (though I wouldn't let anybody else say it!), putterin' over a mess of pictures that wouldn't sell for a nickel. An' that he used to run from anything an' everything that was unpropitious an' disagreeable, like he was bein' chased. Well, then you was took blind. An' ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... from the Orient. Even as they approached the Piraeus, and beat slowly and carefully up the bay, the desolate mist continued, settling down over the long anticipated coast-line, and putting an end to all the colour and light of Greece. But afterwards Horace realised that the unpropitious arrival had but served as a background for the later revelation. The sungod did grant him a glorious epiphany on that first day, springing, as it were, full panoplied out of a gulf of darkness. His friend Pompeius, ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... large woman, of middle age, with a high forehead unruffled by thought, and a clear skin unmarred by wrinkles. She had a cheerfulness that obtruded itself, like a creditor, at unpropitious moments; and her voice, though not displeasing, gave the impression that it might become volcanic at any moment. She also possessed a considerable theatrical instinct, with which she would frequently ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... associations. It is quite possible that these particular salmon when on their way to the purlieus of marine fashion were somewhat discouraged at the jar and shock incident to their transit over the Falls. They may have concluded that the locality was unpropitious for the return trip, and then, consulting with salmon whose lines had been cast in more pleasant places, they may have ascended rivers of more conspicuous natural attractions and more agreeable to fish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... their destinations in the U. S. S. Swatara, Captain Ralph Chandler, U. S. N., commanding. In astronomical observations all work is at the mercy of the elements. Clear weather was, of course, a necessity to success at any station. In the present case the weather was on the whole unpropitious. While there was not a complete failure at any one station, the number or value of the observations was more or less impaired at all. Where the sky was nearly cloudless, the air was thick and hazy. This was especially the case at Nagasaki ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... underlined on the first page. It is a great trial of patience, but be patient, that is, wise. One must never allow the toilsome labor of years of quiet reflection and of utmost exertion for the attainment of one's aim to be destroyed by an unpropitious event. It is most probable, and also the best for you, that the affair should not now be hurried through. Your claims are stronger every quarter, and will certainly become more so in the eyes of the English through good temper and patience under trying circumstances. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the same time write concisely. I wrote two pages more in the evening. Stayed at home all day. Indeed, the weather—sleety, rainy, stormy—forms no tempting prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I made a day of work ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... known, perhaps, that balloons have actually been used in war. They were first introduced to this new field of action at Valenciennes in 1793, and the result of the experiment was a failure; not, however, owing to the fault of man, but to the unpropitious nature of the winds. The garrison, being hard pressed by the English and their allies, attached a letter, addressed to the National Assembly, to a small balloon, or parachute, and committed it to a breeze which blew in the direction of Paris. Towards ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... chain of lightning seen in the sky appeared to pass from cloud to cloud above, instead of descending to the ground. On the other hand, thunder sounding as if it came from the southward, and lightning striking down to the earth, were both unpropitious omens. As to birds, some were of good omen, as vultures, eagles and woodpeckers. Others were evil, as ravens and owls. Various inferences were drawn too from the manner in which the birds that appeared in the air, were seen to fly, and from the sound of their note at the time when ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his work prosper in a soil so unpropitious and amid such hostile circumstances might well have quickened the faith of a man much colder and more ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... been stopped, the roar of London was hushed, and every one who had the merest pretence of a fireside sought it on this memorable occasion. It was a wild night in the city, a wild night in the country, a wild night at sea, and certainly a most unpropitious night for the birth of a cat, an animal which is always associated with home and hearth. The fact remains that Peter was born on the night of one of the most terrible storms ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any given part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... return. Two or three men and several females and children spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening with us, hearing sister M. read from the books which have already been written in their language. We, however, soon found that we had arrived in a most unpropitious time; for almost every man in the vicinity was in ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... mourn the dark Winds o'er the lonely plain, And from pale noon sinks, ere the fifth cold hour, The transient light, Imagination's power, With Knowledge, and with Science in her train, Not unpropitious Hyems' icy reign Perceives; since in the deep and silent lour High themes the rapt concent'ring Thoughts explore, Freed from external Pleasure's glittering chain. Then most the understanding's culture pays Luxuriant harvest, nor ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... consisting of comparatively insignificant parts greatly exaggerated, and almost infinitely multiplied. It may be want of taste; but on the whole, I was better pleased with Chicago. The season of my visit was doubtless unpropitious. Who could admire the beauties of the noble Central Park in the dead of winter? Perhaps, too, I was not in a good humour to judge of New York, as it was there that I met with my first and only misfortune during my two years' absence from home. For ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... at that time he had the makings of a voluminous letter-writer. Yet it was only what one might expect. The whole world was unpropitious—obdurate indeed.... ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... the arrival of Theodoric's embassy at Constantinople was unpropitious, as the Emperor Zeno was already stricken by mortal illness. On the 9th of April, 491, he died, and was succeeded by the handsome but elderly life-guardsman, Anastasius, to whom Ariadne, widow of Zeno, gave her hand in marriage. ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... derives from the happiness of others, had imposed on some who should have known better. Those who thought best of him, expected a Telemachus after Fenelon's pattern. Others predicted the approach of a Medicean age,—an age propitious to learning and art, and not unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody had the least suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and political talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, and without mercy, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... death. Go-Daigo was not to be moved from his purpose. He gave Yoshisada fair words indeed: "I profoundly praise your loyal services. My wish is to pacify the country by the assistance of your family, but heaven has not yet vouchsafed its aid. Our troops are worn out and the hour is unpropitious. Therefore, I make peace for the moment and bide my time. Do you repair to Echizen and use your best endeavours to promote the cause of the restoration. Lest you be called a rebel after my return to Kyoto, I order the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to anticipate his design; she wanted to move the king to mildness. But the moment was unpropitious ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... try and return all the things, books especially, which I had been borrowing; but about my child I feel anxious lest I should not take what is necessary for his health and comfort on so long a voyage, where omissions are irreparable. The unpropitious, rainy weather delays us now from day to day, as our ship; the Elizabeth,—(look out for news of shipwreck!) cannot finish taking in her cargo till come one or two ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... anybody there one of those eternal passions which I have sometimes known, by great accident, last three months, I can tell you that without great attention, infinite politeness, and engaging air and manners, the omens will be sinister, and the goddess unpropitious. Pray tell me what are the amusements of those assemblies? Are they little commercial play, are they music, are they 'la belle conversation', or are they all three? 'Y file-t-on le parfait amour? Y ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the princes of the kingdom. These barbarians have nothing to do with our Great Flowery land. Such vassals may not interfere with our covenant. Weapons are out of place at such a meeting. As before the spirits, such conduct is unpropitious. In point of virtue, it is contrary to right. As between man and man, it is not polite.' The duke of Ch'i ordered the disturbers off, but Confucius withdrew, carrying the duke of Lu with him. The business proceeded, notwithstanding, and when the words ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... sufferer from beneath the table. It was an unlucky hour for quadrupeds; and if "every dog will have his day," he could not have selected a more unpropitious one than this. Mrs. Ogleton, too, had a pet—a favorite pug—whose squab figure, black muzzle, and tortuosity of tail, that curled like a head of celery in a salad-bowl, bespoke his Dutch extraction. Yow! yow! yow! continued the brute—a chorus in which Flo instantly ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... were unpropitious. Disaster closed the adventure. Gondomar, the Ambassador of Spain at Whitehall, too well-informed of what was afoot, had warned his master. Spanish ships waited to frustrate Sir Walter, who was under pledge to avoid all conflict with ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... friendly, and having no apparent connection with the movements of Black Hawk, although they are subject to an unpropitious influence from the Hudson's Bay Company, the agents of which allure them to carry their trade into that province. The American traders complain of this with great reason. Many of the Chippewas visit the British posts in Canada, and their old prejudices ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a degree of irritation in such troubles which adds a whole armoury of small knife-cuts to intensify the agony of the evil from which we suffer. It is more dreadful to be moaning over our own mistakes than over the inscrutable perversity of an unpropitious fate. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... tunnel. Only once he stopped to snatch a pick from the hand of an astonished Chinaman at work in a ditch, as he still kept on his way, a quarter of a mile beyond the shaft. Here he stopped before a jagged hole in the hillside. Bared to the sky and air, the very openness of its abandonment, its unpropitious position, and distance from the strike in Mulrady's shaft had no doubt preserved its ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... and put under discipline. The P. & O. Steamship Company, as well as many others, often recruit their crews here. Is it because surrounding nature is so bountiful, so lovely, so prolific in spontaneous food, that these, her children, are lazy, dirty, and heedless? Does it require a cold, unpropitious climate, a sterile soil and rude surroundings, to awaken human energy and put man at his best? There is compensation always. With luxury comes enervation, effort is superfluous; while with frugality and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... heroic sacrifice, the gods were unpropitious. They chaffed the poet in polished Yiddish throughout the first two acts. There was only a sprinkling of audience (most of it paper) in the dimly-lit hall, for the fame of the great writer had not spread from Berlin, Mogadore, Constantinople and the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... resort to the above-named house; "at which place several inquisitive gentlemen received from his own mouth the confirmation of those particulars which seemed dubious, or carried with them the air of romance." The period was certainly unpropitious for any but a writer of fiction, and Drury seems to have anticipated no higher rank for his Treatise, in point of authenticity, than that occupied by the several members of the Robinson Crusoe ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... expression by the unpropitious weather. Everything had gone so well till now! Earth and sea had seemed to be at his master's service; steamers and railways obeyed him; wind and steam united to speed his journey. Had the hour of adversity come? Passepartout was as much excited as if the twenty thousand pounds were to ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and dusk. A mist ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... curled the waters of the river, the blue sky and fair sunlight, the bright and beautiful of the scene around them, those two saw and tasted; with hopeful though very grave hearts. The other poor lady saw nothing but a dirty steamboat and a very unpropitious company. Among these however were Eleanor's fellow-voyagers, Mr. Amos and his wife; and she was introduced to them now for the first time. Various circumstances had prevented ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of women. And below the racket and its sad accompaniment was always the low indignant mutter of a triumphant people at those who had dared to set themselves above the popular clamour and ask for sanity. The intolerable longing that had become her constant companion would be fed by every device of unpropitious Circumstance. Again and again she would experience this impulse to go to him, and some night the blood would not recede from her brain ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... danseuses and thousands of coryphees of all grades congregated in the Metropolis, many of them without engagements, and reduced to giving dancing lessons to the daughters of profiteers, Crypto-Semites and other unpropitious persons. The organisation of a Russian Ballet train would therefore serve the double purpose of freeing these gifted performers from an ignoble use of their talents and at the same time initiating the provinces ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... was unpropitious for jokes. Even the East Ender, who had worked an edging of red and white wool into his pony's mane and hung rosettes of red, white, and blue at its ears, was too busy perspiring and hating his hundred thousand neighbours to smile. He was also busy ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... enter into such society as might be congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to presume this, and yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to West Roxbury on April 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving northeast snowstorm,—an unpropitious beginning, of which he has given a graphic account in ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... preceding sketch I have given Mr. Slick's account of the English climate, and his opinion of the dulness of a country house, as nearly as possible in his own words. It struck me at the time that they were exaggerated views; but if the weather were unpropitious, and the company not well selected, I can easily conceive, that the impression on his mind would be as strong and as unfavourable, as he has described ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... there was no time to lose. Yet the moment was most unpropitious, for a Seneca chief had lately been murdered by three scoundrel soldiers of the fort of Montreal; and, while they were undergoing their trial, it became known that three other Frenchmen had treacherously put to death several Iroquois of the Oneida tribe,—in ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... become —a powerful party capable of taking the government of the country, or at least of dictating the terms on which they should share it with the Whigs. This attempt was from the first chimerical: partly because the time was unpropitious, the Reform fervour being in its period of ebb, and the Tory influences powerfully rallying; but still more, because, as Austin so truly said, "the country did not contain the men." Among the Radicals ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... apathy, which belied the general expression of his dark and rugged features. He seemed a very tall man, but was scarce better clad than the younger. He had on a loose Lowland greatcoat, and ragged tartan trews or pantaloons. All around looked singularly wild and unpropitious. Beneath the brow of the incumbent rock was a charcoal fire, on which there was a still working, with bellows, pincers, hammers, a movable anvil, and other smith's tools; three guns, with two or three sacks and barrels, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... said to sacrifice their kings when the weather is unpropitious. Knox's theology was of the same kind. The preachers, says Randolph (February 28), "pray daily . . . that God will either turn the Queen's heart or grant her short life. Of what charity or spirit this proceeds, I leave to be discussed ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... he went down in the embrace of a deadlier enemy than the Bulwan horror, to which he made reference in one of the last lines he was destined to write in this world. He fell ill in that pestilent town, as all the world knows. His constitution was strong enough; he had not lived a life of unpropitious preparation for a serious illness; but his heart was a danger. Typhoid is fatal to any heart-weakness, particularly in convalescence; and he was caught suddenly as he was ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... with these commands [143] and set out against Amalek, to conquer whom required not only skillful strategy, but also adeptness in the art of magic. For Amalek was a great magician and knew that propitious and the unpropitious hour of each individual, and in this way regulated his attacks against Israel; he attacked that one at night, whose death had been predicted for a night, and him whose death had been preordained for a day did he ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... immediately acted upon; but the fates were unpropitious to Madame's anticipated visit to the lonely island. A few days before her intended departure, the Signor was taken seriously ill, and remained so for two or three weeks. He fretted and fumed, more on her ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... not till matters had grown desperate that he decided to do this. Wayland was not in the habit of getting into debt, and an insistent tailor and florist made his life miserable. With masculine obtuseness he chose the most unpropitious moment. Miss Sarah, after a hard day, had dropped into an easy-chair for a little rest after dinner. Wayland had forgotten the absence of the cook, and in the lamplight his aunt ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... Sir, that there is a report from General Scott; from General Scott, a man who has performed the most brilliant campaign on recent military record, a man who has warred against the enemy, warred against the climate, warred against a thousand unpropitious circumstances, and has carried the flag of his country to the capital of the enemy, honorably, proudly, humanely, to his own permanent honor, and the great military credit of his country,—General Scott; and where is he? At ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the son of Minerva, "Venus is unpropitious to-night. All my trouble is vain." For when the black storm broke upon the little channel islet, Alaric Hobbs saw no way of a comfortable return to the Royal Victoria at St. Heliers. "I might leave all here and claim old Fraser's hospitality ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and fascinated the readers of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and who have acquired a reputation to which poor Nash can lay no claim. His one conspicuous dramatic effort is 'Summer's Last Will and Testament.' Nash wrote for bare existence—to use his own words, 'contending with the cold, and conversing with scarcity.' Nash lived in an unpropitious age. A recent French writer has placed him in the foremost rank of English writers. Dr. Jusserand, the author referred to, in his accounts of the English novel in the time of Shakespeare, tells us Nash was the most successful exponent ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... their unpropitious journey—the exposure to cold and rain—that he had hurried on the invalids, till he had accomplished his own purposes. One had already gone; the other was fast following. Speculators have consciences and affections, and his ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... Balzac convinced me that the French language was malleable into poetry. We are behindhand here in books, and elderly ones seem young to us. For instance, we have not caught sight yet of 'Moore's Life,' the extracts from which are unpropitious, I think. I had a fancy, I cannot tell you how it grew, that Moore, though an artificial, therefore inferior, poet, was a most brilliant letter-writer. His letters are disappointing, and his mean clinging to the aristocracy ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... creature you don't care for in the least, in a situation that commands sympathy, and nine out of ten girls will fall desperately in love. Here are brave, self-sacrificing, noble men who have fought heroically for us, and have been forced to surrender by unpropitious fate, confined in a city peopled by their friends and kindred, and as totally isolated from them as though they inhabited the Dry Tortugas! Ladies are naturally hero-worshipers. We are dying to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... way of Hazebrouck and Cassel, we entered the area immediately behind the Salient and took up our quarters near the village of Arneke, for we were not yet due for our spell of duty in the line. At this time the weather was most unpropitious, and rendered training in any shape or form out of the question. The ground was covered with snow to the depth of several inches, and the roads were, for the most part, frost-bound. A Divisional Artillery Horse Show was organised, however, and great keenness was displayed by all ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... who dwelt in the south, and came hither from the south, should hear of my rapture hereupon, he would deem me very childish. Alas! what I here express I have long known while I suffered under an unpropitious heaven, and now may I joyful feel this joy as an exception, which we should enjoy everforth as an eternal necessity of ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... but returned unsuccessful, giving it, as their opinion that "blackfella bin 'perim 'longa 'crub." Peter and Barney were then despatched with orders to camp out that night and look for them all next day. A steer having been killed last night, the day was passed in jerking him. The day was very unpropitious as there had been a shower of rain in the morning, and there was no sun, so it had to be smoked with manure in one of the tents. What with the mosquitoes and sand-flies, men, horses, and cattle were kept in a continual fever. The horses would not leave the smoke of the ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... she must be associated for life. "Matches are made," say some, "in Heaven." Prudence has no concern with this matter. A young woman fixes her affections on some individual, and believes that it is decreed she should love and should marry him. If circumstances appear unpropitious to their intimacy, she is perfectly wretched. And this, not simply because she loves him so ardently, but because she believes a decree of Heaven will be violated, if their union fail of consummation. "Our presentiments," it is said ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... of a baneful or impotent saint to recommend to his "noble brother of Burgundy." Disaster to Louis had once followed supplication to Saint Hubert, and the king hoped that the worthy saint might prove equally unpropitious for Charles. Yolanda's wonderful "t" was certainly the most stupendous single letter ever quilled. Here ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... to be a place eminently adapted to study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... burghers had only five cartridges left and some had not even one. Therefore, that same night—I think it was the 21st of January although I had lost count of dates—the Government, whom I accompanied, departed and proceeded to the Kloof Oshoek, between Dullstroom and Lydenburg. The weather was very unpropitious, rain falling in torrents, and as may be understood, we were in a sad plight. We were protected by nothing except our mackintoshes, and greatly envied a member of the party who was the proud possessor of a ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with dusty snowflakes. All through ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... it is that all advantages are so seldom found combined! We are now travelling amid glorious scenery, which we hoped should recompense us for the manifold discomforts we have hitherto endured; but the weather is unpropitious. The driving snow sends us all into the cabin. The Danube is so fiercely agitated by the stormy wind, that it rises into waves like a sea. We are suffering lamentably from cold; unable to warm ourselves, we stand gazing ruefully at ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... obedience to his signals; when, as soon as the engineer could do so (for he had to cool his bearings, and this was truly an anxious moment for me), I gave her all steam, and stood for the north end of the island. As we approached it, the Fates, which had before seemed unpropitious to us, began to smile, and the rain-squall, which had come up quite unexpectedly, began to envelope us in its friendly folds, shutting in our dense clouds of black smoke, which were really the worst tell-tales we had to dread. The first half-hour's run was a very anxious one for us; but as we began ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost covered his tight ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... extremes. And now, on the eve of departure, he must needs pause to give a fete at once of farewell and in honour of his daughter's betrothal to the Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval. This very betrothal at so unpropitious a season was partly no more than contrived by the Marquis that he might mark his ignoring and his serene contempt of the upheaval and the new rule ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... back into the house for something after starting on a journey is unpropitious. To have it brought out is ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... the man who wrote "Of Genius," for he insists that each man's bent may be greatly developed by favorable circumstances and proper education, and, conversely, that it may be entirely frustrated by unpropitious circumstances or wilful neglect. But in no way can a man's inborn talent for one thing be converted to a talent ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... society is so remiss of its duties: he could not reconcile the touch of conscience in such a person, nor could he realise the impulse through which some sudden event was working a moral regeneration in his mind. There was something he struggled to keep from notice. The season had been unpropitious, bad crops had resulted; the cholera made its appearance, swept off many of the best negroes, spread consternation, nearly suspended discipline and labour. One by one his negroes fell victims to its ravages, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... to betray any agitation, she could not help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt sure that something unpropitious had happened. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and wore grey felt slippers. Her head was lowered, her closed lips quivered, her bony fingers twitched. She never addressed a word to Gordon directly; and, he decided, when she did, it would be monumental, dumbfounding. The present moment was more than usually unpropitious; and, discovering General Jackson at his heels, he picked the dog up and departed for the stable, where he saw Sim Caley putting the horse ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... more special pursuits, I had very little success upon the mountain—owing, perhaps, to the excessively unpropitious weather and the shortness of my stay. At from 7,000 to 8,000 feet elevation, I obtained one of almost lovely of the small Fruit pigeons (Ptilonopus roseicollis), whose entire head and neck are of an exquisite rosy pink colour, contrasting finely with its otherwise blue plumage; and on the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... ever heard of a teetotaler conspicuous for kindliness of heart, or intellectually distinguished in any walk of life? I should be glad to know his name. A sorry crew! Not because they drink water, but because the state of mind which makes them dread alcohol is unpropitious to the hatching of any generous idea. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I like that phrase. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I am inclined to think that the Aramaic text has not been tampered with at this point. What do you ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... these secret agents were, unknown to the king, all devoted to the parliaments, and consequently inimical to courtiers, favorites, and especially mistresses. God knows how they disposed of us! By these unpropitious channels the king had learnt all the hatred which was borne to madame de Pompadour. He was afraid of exciting the discontent of the people by announcing another mistress, and was no less intimidated at the severity of madame Louise, and the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... James's Street, saw a cart at Fox's door, with copper and an old chest of drawers, loading. His success at Faro had awakened a host of creditors; but, unless his bank had swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it could not have yielded a half-penny apiece for each. Epsom too had been unpropitious; and one creditor had actually seized and carried off Fox's goods, which did not seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after this, whom should Walpole find sauntering by his own door but Fox, who came up and talked ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... prey screams amid the stillness. Here and there we see some wretched hovels; I am told that those on the heights are dens without windows, and from which the smoke escapes through a hole in the roof. Many of the old men are blind. What an unpropitious ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... it was somewhat unpleasant and unpropitious. The morning after my arrival I was sitting at breakfast: my scout, the Arimaspian, apprehending that the singleness of his eye may impeach his character for officiousness, in order to escape the reproach of seeing half as much only as other men, is always ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... after Gwen drove away, that he had not pointed out what an unpropitious moment it was for an upsetting revelation, and suggested postponement. It was too late to do anything, by the time he thought of it. He shrugged his shoulders about it, and perceived that what was done couldn't be undone. Then he drove as fast as he could to Sir Cropton Fuller, who asked him ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... matter, my fair coz?" asked Gerald, who was standing near and heard the sigh. "Are the Fates very unpropitious?" ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... were suddenly unpropitious to the Irish national movement. The force which was intended for Ireland was suddenly ordered to form a part of the expedition which Bonaparte was leading against Egypt. Thereupon the chiefs of the United Irishmen began to see {320} that there was not much hope to be founded on any help to come ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Gordon that of old Was wont to preach, now once more preaching; I know well that all sublunary things Are still the vassals of vicissitude. The unpropitious gods demand their tribute; This long ago the ancient Pagans knew: And therefore of their own accord they offer'd To themselves injuries, so to atone The jealousy of their divinities: And human sacrifices ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... hesitated. He might have been a bedizened citizen's wife craning her neck over a gutter swollen by the rain. But the hour was not unpropitious for the indulgence of some discreditable whim. Earlier, he might have been detected; later, he might find himself cut out. Tempted by a glance which is encouraging without being inviting, to have ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... be no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union under this Constitution, that almost everything which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has been accomplished in despite of them or forced upon them, and that everything unpropitious and dishonorable, including the blunders and follies of their adversaries, may be traced to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... from a photographer in Paris, at the time of his first visit there, thinking it might be a help in the prosecution of his scheme, and now he was always trying to get some photographs of the scenes among which he camped. They were generally very poor and feeble, the weather being so often unpropitious, and the process (paper process) so imperfect and tedious. Still, it was the means of giving pleasure to our relations and friends by acquainting them with our surroundings. Here is a passage from one of my father's letters in acknowledgment of the photograph of our house: "J'ai recu avec infiniment ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... idyllic, and very German. Sophie was born in 1731, and the idyll commenced when she was nineteen, and Wieland only seventeen years old. it lasted some time, too, for a passion so very tender and tearful; but the fate;, and, more particularly, the parents, were unpropitious, and after about three years it came to an end, the heart-broken Sophie consoling herself by marrying M. de la Roche shortly afterwards. Her friendship with Wieland, however was maintained to the end of her days, he editing the first and last productions of her pen—the "History ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... young damoiseau! What, has our saint been unpropitious? Never mind, you shall have her yet. We will see her like the rest of the world, ere we have ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was, however, to take up its passengers after it had passed Duncansby Head, on the north of Scotland. But the elements on the North Sea were unpropitious. Sheerness left behind, the trio of vessels had not passed the coast of Norfolk before they were driven into Yarmouth Harbor, and there for days they lay held in by adverse winds. On July 2nd they again started northward, when they were compelled ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... very much pleased at least with her painter. How could he fail to be, indeed?—for Mr. Waring was charming. Elma wished she could have strolled off with him about the lawn alone, were it only ten paces in front of her mother. But somehow the fates that day were unpropitious. The party held together as by some magnetic bond, and Mrs. Clifford's eye never for one ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... lackey takes a healthy enough view of the matter, for all his cynicisms. You must not take it too tragically. You have passed through your heart crisis—it comes to most of us—only with you it has happened late, and under unpropitious circumstances. That has tended to make it more severe than is usually the case. But now, let it be past and over, though naturally it will take some little time for your mind to regain its normal balance. What I regret most in the affair is, that it precludes the idea of marriage for you for some ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... blows, whether favourably or not, there is something to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is getting each hour so much nearer one's destination; while, if King Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making way in ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... were clearer in his consciousness, he assumed that her enterprising, calculating mother had inspired the gift. For it seemed to be apropos of nothing in particular at this unpropitious time, although he had made Elsa little presents during the fall and early winter. It was evident that the family, after the arrival of the mirific Jim Deming, had grown somewhat accustomed to Americans and had at length ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... and the hated lawyer's office become a certainty, if he failed to make money by writing. In deadly fear of this, and with the paralysing consciousness that his present circumstances were peculiarly unpropitious as a literary education, he rebelled against the hard fate which denied him opportunity to work for fame. "Laure, Laure," he cries at this time, "my two only and immense desires—to be loved and to be celebrated—will ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... duty for him; but one day everyone seemed engaged on some pursuit or other, so with every anticipation of a dull evening he went down to hall. He began to read Shelley but the surroundings were unpropitious. All about him sat huddled fragments of humanity scratching half-baked ideas with crossed nibs into dog-eared notebooks. There was a general air of unrest. Gordon tried Sinister Street; some of the episodes in Lepard Street were more in harmony with his feelings, but there was in Compton ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... whose patentees were competitors for the forthcoming medal prizes. At that time Mr. Hussey, the American inventor of the machine called after his name, had not arrived in the country. The weather, too, was very unpropitious for the trial, notwithstanding which a very large number of gentlemen were present. The machines were tried upon a field of wheat, and the result was such as to convince all present of the superiority, in every point of view, of McCormick's machine—a conviction which was subsequently ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various |
