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More "Inauspicious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face, sharp-featured, sun-burnt, and freckled, had a sinister expression of violence, impudence, and cunning, each of which seemed alternately to predominate over the others. Sandy-coloured hair, and reddish eyebrows, from under which looked forth his sharp grey eyes, completed the inauspicious outline of the horseman's physiognomy. He had pistols in his holsters, and another pair peeped from his belt, though he had taken some pains to conceal them by buttoning his doublet. He wore a rusted steel head piece; a buff jacket of rather an antique cast; gloves, of which that for the right ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... placed the question of unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her child, was ready to give it up sooner than see ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... to be impatient, and hinted that she and he might be acting the part of dupes, and was for pursuing his inauspicious cross-examination in spite of his blundering, and the 'Where am I now?' which pulled him up. My father, either talking to my aunt Dorothy, to Janet, or to me, on ephemeral topics, scarcely noticed him, except when he was questioned, and looked ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... odd way that gives them their onomatopoetic Arabic name of Lak-Lak. It sounded like the rattle of machine-guns; so much so that on entering the village, for the first second I thought that the Turks were opening up on us. No native will molest a stork; to do so is considered to the last degree inauspicious. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... rewards of valor, some honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... however, the dying Prince was not left alone with his last disappointment. Cardinal Beatoun, whose influence had been so inauspicious in his life, pressed forward, "seeing him begin to fail of his strength and natural speech," and thrust upon him a paper for his signature, "wherein the Cardinal had writ what he pleased for his own particular weill," evidently with some directions about ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... to both in his refusal; and that, too, while professing to be imbued with the very faith out of which the homage in question sprang. Thus, it is no wonder that Adrian should view such an inconsistency as most inauspicious for the liberties of the church,—with which those of society were then so closely bound up,—and should, therefore, feel it imperative to pursue a line of conduct, which at first glance may appear so arrogantly exacting; but which, found, ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... she said with the freedom of a friend. "I have really no place to ask anybody in to. What I meant was that the place you chose was so horrid—I suppose I ought not to say horrid—I mean gloomy and inauspicious in its associations... But isn't it funny to begin like this, when I don't know you yet?" She looked him up and down curiously, though Jude did not look ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... own age. Mr. Payne attaches much importance to the discrepancy of titles, which appears to me a minor detail. The change of names is easily explained. Amongst the Arabs, as amongst the wild Irish, there is divinity (the proverb says luck) in odd numbers and consequently the others are inauspicious. Hence as Sir Wm. Ouseley says (Travels ii. 21), the number Thousand and One is a favourite in the East (Olivier, Voyages vi. 385, Paris 1807), and quotes the Cistern of the "Thousand and One Columns" at Constantinople. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... omen, and all felt it. Nothing could have been more inauspicious or unlucky. But the Celtic wit and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... knowledge: and, to this moment, it has been pursued with an eagerness and almost epidemic enthusiasm which, scarcely less than its political revolutions, characterise the spirit of the age. Many and inauspicious have been the invasions and inroads of this new conqueror into the rightful territories of other sciences; and strange alterations have been made in less harmless points than those of terminology, in homage to an art unsettled, in the very ferment of ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unhappily his father had also come to the end of his resources. Injudicious speculation and the mismanagement of an agent, combined with the necessity of placing a large quantity of real estate in the market at an inauspicious time, were the causes which led to the bankruptcy of the elder Gourlay, who was stripped of his great possessions and left with a bare subsistence. The son's prospects of inheriting a fortune were thus at an end, and at thirty-seven years of age ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... unpleasant. Many render [Greek: duocheres] 'inauspicious', 'ill- omened'; but as we do not know exactly what was in Demosthenes' mind, it is better not to give the word a meaning which it does not bear elsewhere. It may, however, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... all times excessive, and on this occasion his love and his pride would equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. Anne, too, a vain, ambitious, and light-minded woman, was probably greedy of this kind of homage from her princely lover; and the very consciousness of the dubious, inauspicious, or disgraceful circumstances attending their union, might secretly augment the anxiety of the royal pair to dazzle and impose by the magnificence of their public appearance. Only once before, since the Norman conquest, had a king of England stooped from his dignity to elevate a private ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... skill would hardly give more satisfaction to the reader than the skill of the photographer does to the anxious mother desirous to possess an absolute duplicate of her beloved child. The likeness is indeed true; but it is a dull, dead, unfeeling, inauspicious likeness. The face is indeed there, and those looking at it will know at once whose image it is; but the owner of the face will not be proud of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair and symmetrical in person, and the special ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... have you?" I have so much faith in my old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein returning upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious inland landing. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... we shall not, however, on the conclusion of peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is force that should achieve the result that the population, ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... to Hamilton quickly enough, and he had sent Bones post-haste to await the advent of any unfortunate youngster who was tactless enough to put in an appearance at such an inauspicious moment as would fulfil ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... they find him in less than his usual health they will get their dinners for themselves in the larder and dine and afterwards sleep. But after that; master, after that, should anything inauspicious have befallen mine host, they will seek out and ask many questions concerning all travellers, too many ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and imbitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Roderic. His mother—attend, oh Edwin, for whatever the incredulous may pretend, the tales related by the bards in their immortal songs, of ghosts, and fairies, and dire enchantment, are not vain and fabulous.—You have heard of the inauspicious fame and the bad eminence of Rodogune. She withdrew from the fields of Clwyd within the memory of the elder of shepherds. Various were the conjectures occasioned by her disappearance. Some imagined, that for the haughtiness of her humour, and the malignity of her disposition, characters ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... centralized as the Papacy gainedground. The strong Christian, the independent ruler or warrior or builder saint, was tolerated only if he conformed to its precepts; and the inauspicious rise of subservient ascetic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans, who quickly invaded the fair regions of the south, gave an ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... such things to understand that if he walked upon this injured joint, he would not only make the pain worse, but the consequences might be serious. He was very much annoyed, not only that this thing had happened to him, but that it had happened at such an inauspicious moment. Of course, he could not now go on to the woods, and he must get somebody to help him to the house. Looking about, he saw, at a distance, Uncle Isham, and he called loudly to him. As soon as Lawrence was ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... chair. But without deigning to answer, Big Lena turned heavily into the kitchen, and closed the door with a bang that impoverished invective—for volumes may be spoken—in the banging of a door. The moment was inauspicious for the entrance of Harriet Penny. At best, Chloe merely endured the little spinster, with her whining, hysterical outbursts, and abject, unreasoning fear of God, man, the devil, and everything else. "Oh, my dear, I am so ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese prophet, by a premature attack on the army under Gen. Harrison, at an inauspicious moment, precipitated him into a war ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... nothing of the matter, was up first on that inauspicious day, and took the journal to an arbour in the garden. He found his father's manifesto in one column; and in another a leading article. "No one that we are aware of," ran the article, "had consulted Mr. Naseby ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anger seizing him. Already super-excited by the labors of the day and by the nervous strain of having recovered the sunken biplane, all this talk of Kamrou, all this persistent opposition just at the most inauspicious moment worked powerfully ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... neatingebla. Inaccurate neakurata. Inaction senokupo. Inactive senokupa. Inadvertence malatenteco. Inane malplena. Inanimate senviva. Inappreciable netaksebla. Inappropriate nedeca. In as much as tial ke. Inattention neatenteco. Inaudible neauxdebla. Inauspicious nefavora. Incalculable nekalkulebla. Incapable nekapabla. Incapacity nekapableco. Incarnate korpigi. Incarnation korpigxo. Incendiary brulkrimulo. Incense bonodorfumo. Incense furiozigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... for a thousand generations, in some dark cave of the hills was he whelped, but in a narrow iron cage littered with straw. Two brothers and a sister made at the same time a like inauspicious entrance upon an alien and fettered existence. And because their silent, untamable mother loved too savagely the hereditary freedom of her race to endure the thought of bearing her young into a life of bondage, she would have killed them mercifully, even while their blind baby mouths ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... "President," at the very mouth of the New York Harbor, was certainly a most inauspicious opening for the naval operations of 1815. The people of New York and Philadelphia, to whom had come neither the news of peace nor of the glorious success of the American arms at New Orleans, were plunged into despondency. "Now that Great Britain is at peace ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... though conscious, of looking her best in her bright muslin dress and her gayly feathered new hat, was at this inauspicious moment Miss Milroy under a cloud. Although Allan's note had assured her, in Allan's strongest language, that the one great object of reconciling the governess's arrival with the celebration of the picnic was an object achieved, the doubt still remained ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... he threw himself under a tree to think and dream and look at the glory of the foliage. He had brought a new copy of The Arabian Nights for Rebecca, wishing to replace the well-worn old one that had been the delight of her girlhood; but meeting her at such an inauspicious time, he had absently carried it away with him. He turned the pages idly until he came to the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and presently, in spite of his thirty-four years, the old tale held him spellbound as it did in the days when he first ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Kunti's son, Yudhishthira, (seeing) and reflecting on dreadful ill omens, became alarmed. Terrified by the blaze of the points of the horizon, jackals stationing themselves on the right of that hermitage, set up frightful and inauspicious yells. And ugly Vartikas as of dreadful sight, having one wing, one eye, and one leg, were seen to vomit blood, facing the sun. And the wind began to blow dryly, and violently, attracting grits. And to the right all the beasts ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their tails Inverted; high on their bent backs erect Their pointed bristles stare, or 'mong the tufts Of ranker weeds, each stomach-healing plant Curious they crop, sick, spiritless, forlorn. These inauspicious days, on other cares 380 Employ thy precious hours; the improving friend With open arms embrace, and from his lips Glean science, seasoned with good-natured wit. But if the inclement skies and angry Jove Forbid the pleasing intercourse, thy books Invite thy ready hand, each ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... his book and commenced the marriage ceremony, under circumstances so novel and so inauspicious. The responses of the bride were only expressed by inclinations of the head and body; while those of the bridegroom were spoken boldly and distinctly, with a tone resembling levity, if not scorn. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... types shall be—Abstinence from evil words at sacrifices. When a son or brother blasphemes at a sacrifice there is a sound of ill-omen heard in the family; and many a chorus stands by the altar uttering inauspicious words, and he is crowned victor who excites the hearers most with lamentations. Such lamentations should be reserved for evil days, and should be uttered only by hired mourners; and let the singers not wear circlets or ornaments of gold. To avoid every evil word, then, shall be our first type. ...
— Laws • Plato
... Wynne, though somewhat alarmed and puzzled by Miss Turnbull's behaviour, summoned all the resolution which benevolence could inspire, and resolved at once to come to the point with our heroine. She flattered herself that all in Miss Turnbull that appeared inauspicious to her hopes was only her manner, that sort of manner which people, who live much in high life, catch and practise, without meaning to give themselves airs, or to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... clearly. A little story may help. The story of the worthy old woman of Goshen, a very moral old woman, who wouldn't let her shoats eat fattening apples in fall, for fear the fruit might ferment upon their brains, and so make them swinish. Now, during a green Christmas, inauspicious to the old, this worthy old woman fell into a moping decline, took to her bed, no appetite, and refused to see her best friends. In much concern her good man sent for the doctor, who, after seeing the patient and putting a question or two, beckoned the husband out, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... is, like Portia, a wealthy heiress, surrounded by suitors, and "queen o'er herself:" the character is constructed upon the same principles, as great intellectual power, magnanimity of temper, and feminine tenderness; but not only do pain and disquiet, and the change induced by unkind and inauspicious influences, enter into this sweet picture to mar and cloud its happy beauty,—but the portrait itself may be pronounced out of drawing;—for Massinger apparently had not sufficient delicacy of sentiment to work out his own conception ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... a termination to so inauspicious a beginning, I looked forward to the evening's entertainment with bright and elastic spirits. Once, as my eye rested on the fragments of pearl, I sighed to think how easily the pearls of sensibility, as well as all the frail and delicate ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... interred, Demosthenes was the man they chose to make the funeral oration. The speech, therefore, was spoken by Demosthenes. But the subsequent decrees he would not allow to be passed in his own name, but made use of those of his friends, one after another, looking upon his own as unfortunate and inauspicious; till at length he took courage again after the death of Philip, who did not long outlive his victory at Chaeronea. And this, it seems, was that which was foretold in the last ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Miss Pellissier," he said. "He and I don't seem to get on at all with our fellow-guests, as Mrs. White calls them. You really ought not to stay here and talk to us. It is a most inauspicious start for you." ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... brazier, and, as soon as Crassus arrived, he threw incense and poured libations upon it, and, at the same time, he denounced against Crassus curses, in themselves dreadful and terrific, and, in addition thereto, he uttered the names of certain awful and inauspicious deities. The Romans say that these mysterious and ancient curses have great efficacy, that no man can escape upon whom they are laid, and that he who utters them also has an unlucky end, and, accordingly, they are not denounced either on ordinary occasions, or by many persons. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... square-built man, of large size, but was now so overgrown, from overfeeding, perhaps, and want of exercise, as to bear the same resemblance to his former self which a stall-fed ox still retains to a wild bull. The look of no man is so inauspicious as a fat man, upon whose features ill-nature has marked an habitual stamp. He seems to have reversed the old proverb of "laugh and be fat," and to have thriven under the influence of the worst affections of the mind. Passionate we can allow a jolly mortal to be; ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Hilda, fearing some inauspicious act or word, bustled forward her bevy of young folks to offer their babel of congratulations. As she presented them one by one, Ruth mustered a wan smile, let them take her cold, limp hand. But her mind was not on them. All the while she was thinking: "This is my HUSBAND.... I belong to this man.... ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... for her. I am too old, and too poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her loss—drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in Charon's boat for good!—Really, if I had the industry I could write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!... Ah, well;—in this way I affect levity over my troubles; but in plain truth my life will not be ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of the drums was heard through the damp air, and there was something inauspicious and ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... of water. They all very soon knocked up. Grey swam across an inlet to try and signal the schooner, and nearly lost his life doing so. Fortunately, the the flashes of their guns, with which they kept firing distress signals, were noticed on board, and a boat came to their rescue. This was an inauspicious beginning. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... The poignant torments of despairing love, The impatient wish that never feels repose, Desire that with perpetual current flows, The fluctuating pangs of hope and fear, Joy distant still, and sorrow ever near. Thus, while the pangs of thought severer grew, The western breezes inauspicious blew, Hastening the moment of our last adieu. The vessel parted on the falling tide, 490 Yet time one sacred hour to love supplied: The night was silent, and advancing fast, The moon o'er Thames her silver mantle cast; Impatient hope the midnight path explored, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... meet Mary Burton under the most inauspicious circumstances, and she would always remember that he had first seen her with tear-stained eyes at a moment of humiliation and defeat. It was too much to expect that a woman could forget this, and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... unproductive parts. While they were performing this fundamental duty, whilst they were celebrating these mysteries of justice and humanity, they would have told the corps of fictitious creditors, whose crimes were their claims, that they must keep an awful distance,—that they must silence their inauspicious tongues,—that they must hold off their profane, unhallowed paws from this holy work; they would have proclaimed, with a voice that should make itself heard, that on every country the first creditor is the plough,—that this original, indefeasible ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is above or superior to the recognized powers of nature; the preternatural (preter, beyond) is aside from or beyond the recognized results or operations of natural law, often in the sense of inauspicious; as, a preternatural gloom. Miraculous is more emphatic and specific than supernatural, as referring to the direct personal intervention of divine power. Some hold that a miracle, as the raising of the dead, is a direct suspension and even violation ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... advocate of this measure, you are not competent to decide this question: your habits of thought, your ignorance of our true relations to the colored population, prevent you from making a full and candid examination of its merits, and, above all, the temper of the public mind is inauspicious, even for its consideration. If your humanity demands this particular sphere for its action, and if, to use your own language, prejudice would brand them at your northern schools, establish institutions in the free States, dispense your money there abundantly as your charity will supply, draw to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... oxen which draw it are, in reality, ordinary persons cunningly concealed within masks of cardboard. In this thoughtful manner the actual labours of the sublime Emperor are greatly lessened, while no chance is afforded for an inauspicious omen to be created by the rebellious behaviour of a maliciously-inclined ox, or by any other event of an unforeseen nature. All the other persons, however, are required to make themselves proficient in the art of ploughing, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Strengberg, but could not help continuing to express our surprise and admiration of the fruit trees (the pear and plum) which lined each side of the road. We had determined upon dining at Moelk the next day. The early morning was somewhat inauspicious; but as the day advanced, it grew bright and cheerful. Some delightful glimpses of the Danube, to the left, from the more elevated parts of the road, accompanied us the whole way; till we caught the first ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... quaver in the voice—the throaty, stagey sweetness of it. What was to be expected of a yokel of genius who had been rushed through a hundred towns or so in everlasting association with De Vavasours and Montmorencys—rushed through London and through Paris under much the same inauspicious petticoat influences, and had hardly ever met a real live lady in his life on terms of intimacy until now? And Madame la Baronne de Wyeth had told him enough and had shown him enough in the way of correspondence with distinguished ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... when measured by the standard of grace and dignity, but the troubles of the times militated in a high degree against that encouragement so necessary to the perfection of the art. In spite of these inauspicious circumstances, the genius of Rembrandt has produced works fraught with the highest principles of colour and pictorial effect, and to his want of encouragement in the department of mere common portraiture, we are indebted for many of the most pictorial and splendid specimens of strong individual ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... little Mrs. Nutter got fairly under the chill and shadow of this inauspicious presence, her giggle subsided, and she began to think of the dreadful story she had heard of her having showed Mrs. Flemming through a glass of fair water, the apparition of her husband with his face half masked with blood, the day before his murder by the watchmen in ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lady. 'To praise children is inauspicious, or I could listen to this talk. But the back of the house is unguarded, and even in this soft air men think themselves to be men, and women we know ... The child's father is away too, and I must be chowkedar [watchman] in my old age. Up! Up! ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... friendly advice, and "put in" with all his might; but the more he "put in," the more he put out—from the shore, whither the inauspicious eddies were sweeping him. If Tom had not been born in Pinchbrook, and had a home by the sea, where boating is an appreciated accomplishment, he would probably have been borne into the arms of the expectant rebel, or ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... branches and dropping down to decay, with a mournful sound of owls, and in fearsome loneliness, there trudged in broken boots and in wet and windy rags an old man, stooping low under a sack of emeralds. It were easy to see had you been travelling late on that inauspicious night, that the burden of the sack was far too great for the poor old man that bore it. And had you flashed a lantern in his face there was a look there of hopelessness and fatigue that would ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... was fought at Molwitz; and never did the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able general; but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote, that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,—yet with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of recitative to some tune with which all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and wellbalanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer. This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Still continuing no less attached to union than enamored ...
— The Federalist Papers
... modern philosophers on this point, is in many ways imbecil and unsound. It is inauspicious to their creed, that the reflex act of the mind is purely the affair of experience. Why did the liberal-minded man perform his first act of benevolence? The answer of these persons ought to be, because the recollection of a generous deed is a source of the truest delight. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... majesty of successive kings; he takes the responsibility of heroes and lovers on himself; the mantle of genius and nature falls on his shoulders; we 'pile millions' of associations on him, under which he should be 'buried quick,' and not perk out an inauspicious face upon us, with a plain-cut coat, to say, 'What fools you all were!—I am not ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and empire, lest, by endeavoring to promote peace by a condemnation of the divine Word, they might rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the noble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he could not neglect to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... "but at the present stage of the world, such things cannot be done. Haven't you heard the saying of a man of old to the effect that great men take action suitable to the times. 'He who presses,' he adds, 'towards what is auspicious and avoids what is inauspicious is a perfect man.' From what your worship says, not only you couldn't, by any display of zeal, repay your obligation to His Majesty, but, what is more, your own life you will find it difficult to preserve. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... rapid progress. There were indeed many difficulties to be surmounted and many hardships to be endured. The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June, the feast of Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same inauspicious place which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the rain fell in torrents. The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on which the harvest was green. The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to the Meuse. All the roads became swamps. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 1094, and not only his dynasty but his system ended with that century. Edgar, Alexander I., and David I., all sons of Malcolm III., were educated in England among the victorious Normans, and in the first third of the twelfth century, devoted themselves with the inauspicious aid of Norman allies, to the introduction of Saxon settlers and the feudal system, first into the lowlands, and subsequently into Moray-shire. This innovation on their ancient system, and confiscation of their lands, was stoutly resisted by the Scottish Gael. In Somerled, lord of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... piercing eye This crisis caught of destiny - The British host had stood That morn 'gainst charge of sword and lance As their own ocean-rocks hold stance, But when thy voice had said, "Advance!" They were their ocean's flood. - O Thou, whose inauspicious aim Hath wrought thy host this hour of shame, Think'st thou thy broken bands will bide The terrors of yon rushing tide? Or will thy chosen brook to feel The British shock of levelled steel, Or dost thou turn thine eye Where coming squadrons gleam ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... that inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday, smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he is posted, for he was the ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... say!" exclaimed Brown, in consternation. "More coffee, Brown," demanded the ladies simultaneously, at that inauspicious moment. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... little silver coffee spoon dropped from the Lady Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings, mingled with ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... which, she told me, would cure all fractures, and internal complaints. She further directed me to leave the house with my face towards the door, by way of propitiating a happy return from a journey undertaken under such inauspicious circumstances. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... sleeping-place; when going to bed he addresses it, saying that he wants a dream favourable to any business he may have in hand. If such a dream comes to him, the thing becomes SIAP; but if his dreams are inauspicious, the object is rejected. Since no one can come in contact with another man's SIAP without risk of injury, the inconvenience occasioned by multiplication of SIAP bundles puts a limit to their number. Nevertheless a man who possesses private SIAP will carry it with him attached to the sheath of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... It was at this inauspicious moment that the Danes charged the palisades again with deadly fury, while the attention of all was drawn to the flames; so fierce was the attack, that it was necessary once more to concentrate all the strength ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the inauspicious beginnings of the pursuit; and the middle part and the ending varied only in degree. All the way up to midnight, at which hour a station of a bigness to supply a standard brass was reached, the tinkered journal-bearing gave trouble and killed speed. Set ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... concern, that Mr. Ludgate's affairs were in a bad way, and that now or never must be the word with his creditors. The next morning bills came showering in upon Leonard whilst he was at breakfast, and amongst them came sundry bills of Mrs. Ludgate's. They could not possibly have come at a more inauspicious moment. People bespeak goods with one species of enthusiasm, and look over their bills with another. We should rather have said people spend with one enthusiasm, and pay with another; but this observation would not apply to our present purpose, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... made light of the assemblage of evil spirits at Boolabong which had seemed so important to Jacko, he by no means did regard the news as unessential. Of Nokes's villany he was convinced. Of Boscobel he had imprudently made a second enemy at a most inauspicious time. Georgie Brownbie had long been his bitter foe. He had prosecuted and, perhaps, persecuted Georgie for various offenses; but as Georgie was supposed to be as much at war with his own brethren as with the rest of the world at large, Heathcote had not thought much of that miscreant ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... the music-hall. There were just four of them—he, Francis, and two companions—and he played the role of sour gooseberry to his cousin, who, with the utmost gaiety, had proved himself completely equal to the inauspicious occasion, and had drank indiscriminately out of both the girls' glasses, and lit cigarettes for them; and, after seeing them both home, had looked in on Michael, and gone into fits of laughter ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... explains all, for quite half-an-hour they remain alone, and then George, thinking they have been long enough together (he having come in and retired again unobserved in a very inauspicious moment) opens the door, at the same time giving vent to a very ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos[Fr], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient &c. 647. unpunctual &c. (late) 133; too late for; premature &c. (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... two more small sails were run up at the extremities of the masts. Unfortunately, it was the time of the finest and longest days of the year, and the moon, in all her brilliancy, succeeded to this inauspicious daylight. The balancelle, which was pursuing the little bark before the wind, had then still half an hour of twilight, and a whole night ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... would seem an inauspicious hour to begin a search which might lead him on in poverty for years and end nowhere. But, having seen the need for perfect rubber, the thought had come to him, with the force of a religious conviction, that "an object so desirable ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... designations of others are apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagmar, a tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, and so on. They employ a Brahman to calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their wedding, but if he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely obtain the permission of the caste panchayat and celebrate it on a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real Brahmans, but merely priests of their own caste whom they call Balahi Brahmans. These Brahmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya Narayan ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... the transactions which he had conducted—with reference to the thanksgiving of the Christians for the safety of the Emperor after the fire, had been one of the most esteemed friends of Titianus and Julia. The prefect discussed with the Patriarch the inauspicious effects that the death of the young fellow might be expected to have on the Emperor, and as a result, on the government, although the favorite had had no qualities of mind ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Ibsen rapped out the conviction that what Italy needed was to be invaded and conquered once and for all by Austria, I feared that an explosion was inevitable. But hardly had my translation of the inauspicious sentiment been uttered when the plum-pudding was borne into the room, flaming on its dish. I clapped my hands wildly at sight of it, in the English fashion, and was intensely relieved when the yet more resonant applause ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Under these inauspicious circumstances the primary elections for members of the legislative assembly were held in most, if not all, of the precincts at the time and the places and by the persons designated and appointed by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... saying, Alcibiades, was a person of this sort. And even now-a-days you will find many who (have offered inauspicious prayers), although, unlike him, they were not in anger nor thought that they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... inauspicious commencement of our acquaintance with the natives of Otaheite. Their determined hostility and perseverance in an unequal combat could only have arisen from one of two motives—either from an opinion that a ship of such magnitude, as they had never before beheld, could only be come to their coast ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... every assurance of fidelity to my purpose, I would start off on a new term of endurance. I seemed to myself to have borne the penance for hours, to have made myself a shining example of what a resolute will can do under circumstances the most inauspicious. At length, when certain that the time must have much more than expired, and with no little elation over the happy result of the experiment, I looked up to the clock and found it to be just three minutes past one! Little as the mind ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... whilom lov'd and lost, Not dreading loss, do sing again of love; And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd, Try if my stars still inauspicious prove: Not to make good that poets never can Long time without a chosen mistress be, Do I sing thus; or my affections ran Within the maze of mutability; What last I lov'd was beauty of the mind, And that lodg'd in a temple truly fair, Which ruin'd now by death, if I can find The ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper, pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed that the smoking ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... then approved of)—"Placuit." This is placed at the end, in consequence of the inauspicious reception which had been given to it on the two first representations. See the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... means this (for what with my own observation, and what Aunty has told me, Lucy's portrait is easy to paint) The child is the daughter of a man who died from a lingering illness caused by an accident. She entered the family at a most inauspicious moment, two days after this accident. From the outset she comprehended the situation and took the ground that a character of irreproachable dignity and propriety became an infant coming at such a time. She never cried, never put improper objects into her mouth, never bumped her head, ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... my faithful harp, no longer mourn Thy drooping master's inauspicious hand: Now brighter skies and fresher gales return, Now fairer maids thy melody demand. Daughters of Albion, listen to my lyre! O Phoebus, guardian of the Aonian choir, Why sounds not mine harmonious as thy own, When all the virgin deities above With ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... which was quickly as white as the pure element could make it. So heavy was the fall of snow, that it was soon impossible to see a dozen yards, and of course the whole of the plain of the island was concealed. At this most inauspicious moment, our adventurers undertook ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Vlierbeck appeared to encourage the young man's love, it was not alone in consequence of his sympathy with his feelings. No: the denouement of his painful trial was to be developed within a defined period; and, if it proved inauspicious, there was nothing but dishonor and moral death for himself and child! Destiny was about to decide forever whether he was to come out victorious from this ten years' conflict with poverty, or whether he was to fall into the abyss of public ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... went like a child. And you would be astonished if I were to tell you all the grave and learned heads who have confessed to me that, when on walking tours, they sang—and sang very ill—and had a pair of red ears when, as described above, the inauspicious peasant plumped into their arms from round a corner. And here, lest you should think I am exaggerating, is Hazlitt's own confession, from his essay "On Going a Journey," which is so good that there should be a tax levied on all who ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was carried on until four in the morning, when in the chill grey light the company were ranged in rows, and photographed, apparently to provide a demonstration of how elderly and plain even the youngest of the number could look under such inauspicious circumstances. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... undertakes reforms. The men of this regiment, recruited principally in Sumner and Smith counties of Middle Tennessee, were capable, as the result showed, of being made excellent soldiers, but their training had commenced under the most inauspicious circumstances. They were collected together (as has been previously related) in August, 1862, in a camp at Hartsville, and their organization was partially effected in the neighborhood of a strong enemy, while they were entirely ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the hands which followed cemented the firmest friendship of Jack North's life, an acquaintance which, notwithstanding its inauspicious beginning, was destined to ripen ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... At that inauspicious moment a spark fell from the pipe! Next moment the door was burst open, the window blown out, Hockins was laid fiat on his back, while Ebony went head-over-heels ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... then walked off with his legal advisers, and wrote to Mary at Falkland. {214a} If Arran went mad, he went mad "with advice of counsel." There had come the chance of "a new day," which the extremists desired, but its dawn was inauspicious. ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... grave it in your brain! Till good Sylvester, pious father, sheds Heaven's holy consecration on your heads, As brother and as sister chaste remain! Oh, may ye not, with inauspicious haste, The fruit forbidden prematurely taste! Know, if ye rashly venture ere the time, That Oberon, in vengeance of your crime, Leaves you, without a friend, on life's deserted ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... religion's pole-star for his guide, Serenely voyaged life's tempestuous tide. Yet in Ernestus' mind his skilful sense Observ'd no dawn of future excellence; He found no early graces to adorn Of springing life the inauspicious morn; No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow; But virtue's native influence was in him, A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim. Yet Harfagar with kind attention ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... received the "matchlessly brilliant polish of Warren's inestimable Jet blacking." Not like many others in London, who will run you down and leave you to your fate, the heir of his fader's whimsicalities stopped short in the inauspicious set-out of his rapid career; and "dirty end," he exclaimed, "to the scavenger that didn't think of the gentleman's boots!" And at the same time the mother of this hopeful representative of the Mac Dermott family, made ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... days everyone had been complaisant to Casanova. Gladly opening her heart to him, the girl told him that she was not well off; that she was in love with an usher who was likewise poor; that his father and her own mother were both unwilling to give their consent to so inauspicious a union. Casanova promptly declared himself ready to help matters on. He sought an introduction to Amalia's mother, a good-looking widow of thirty-six who was still quite worthy of being courted. Ere long Casanova was on such intimate ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism) does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is still much greater ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... is supposed to be avoided by choosing a different day for beginning an enterprise in the next. Mohamad left Uvira on the third day of a new moon, and several fires happened in his camp; he now considers a third day inauspicious. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... that he had come at an inauspicious moment, and the first words of Sir Philip, though kind and friendly, were not at all harmonious with the feeling of love in his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... quite a novelty here, so I had to take it to bits and show how it worked, or rather, I began to show how it worked, did something wrong, and had to take it all to bits on this inauspicious occasion. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the golden treasure burns, And Love and Glory guide the prow by turns. But, when Thessalia's inauspicious plain Received the matron-heroine from the main; 145 While horns of triumph sound, and altars burn, And shouting nations hail their Chief's return: Aghaft, She saw new-deck'd the nuptial bed, And proud CREUSA to the temple led; Saw her in JASON'S mercenary arms 150 Deride her virtues, and insult ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... [1849] there appears upon the scene that vigorous and masterful spirit, whose arrival to take up the government of India had been greeted by events so inauspicious. No doubt from the beginning the Governor-General was desirous to let it be understood that although new to India he was, and meant to be, master;... Lord Dalhousie was by no means averse to frank dissent, provided in the manner it was never forgotten ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... husband or wife is then made and worn as an amulet on the arm or round the neck. A bachelor who wishes to marry a widow must first go through a mock ceremony with an akra or swallow-wort plant, as the widow-marriage is not considered a real one, and it is inauspicious for any one to die without having been properly married once. A similar ceremony must be gone through when a man is married for the third time, as it is held that if he marries a woman for the third time he will quickly die. The akra or swallow-wort (Calotropis ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... seizes me, physic soothes, I catch sight of thee, and it returns with full force. Tamar, with ringlets adorned, greets early the sun, Who quickly hides, ashamed of his bald pate. Beria! were I to meet thee on New Year's Day in the morning, An omen 'twere of an inauspicious year. Tamar smiles, and heals the heart's bleeding wounds; She raises her head, the stars slink out of sight. Beria it were well to transport to heaven, Then surely heaven would take refuge on earth. Tamar resembles the moon in all respects but one— Her resplendent ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... left me. I expect to have my old housekeeper home again in a week or two. She has mended most rapidly. My health too has been better since you took away that Montero cap. I have left off cayenned eggs and such bolsters to discomfort. There was death in that cap. I mischievously wished that by some inauspicious jolt the whole contents might be shaken, and the coach set on fire. For you said they had that property. How the old Gentleman, who joined you at Grantham, would have clappt his hands to his knees, and not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... their hold one by one from branches and dropping down to decay, with a mournful sound of owls, and in fearsome loneliness, there trudged in broken boots and in wet and windy rags an old man, stooping low under a sack of emeralds. It were easy to see had you been travelling late on that inauspicious night, that the burden of the sack was far too great for the poor old man that bore it. And had you flashed a lantern in his face there was a look there of hopelessness and fatigue that would have told you it was no wish of his that kept him ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... to have occurred. By some mistake of General Mack's, in directing the operations of a feigned fight, it so happened that his own troops were completely surrounded by those of the enemy; when Lord Nelson, vexed at the unfortunate and inauspicious blunder, immediately exclaimed, to his surrounding friends—"This fellow does not ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... her further. She is right! I am not the man for her. I am too old, and too poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her loss—drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in Charon's boat for good!—Really, if I had the industry I could write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!... Ah, well;—in this way I affect levity over my troubles; but in plain truth my life will not be the brightest ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues, would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... would cure all fractures, and internal complaints. She further directed me to leave the house with my face towards the door, by way of propitiating a happy return from a journey undertaken under such inauspicious circumstances. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... mais.... I ended my letter yesterday by telling you that I was about to embark for Singapore amid torrents of rain and growlings of thunder; but I little thought what was to follow on this inauspicious embarkation. We got on board the Peninsular and Oriental steamer 'Malabar' with some difficulty, there was so much sea where the vessel was lying; and I was rather disgusted to find, when I mounted the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... at Molwitz; and never did the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able general; but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which he commanded in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fellow-sufferers whom the conventionalities of the country deter from rushing into matrimony. In this region, circumcision is performed on the adult at the time of his candidacy for matrimonial bliss. A more inauspicious occasion could not possibly have been chosen, unless as in another Mohammedan tribe, who circumcise the bridegroom on the day after his marriage and sprinkle the blood that falls from the cut onto the veil of the bride. The bride is present, and the victim is handed over to ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... not to be impatient, and hinted that she and he might be acting the part of dupes, and was for pursuing his inauspicious cross-examination in spite of his blundering, and the 'Where am I now?' which pulled him up. My father, either talking to my aunt Dorothy, to Janet, or to me, on ephemeral topics, scarcely noticed him, except when he was questioned, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no such ugly missive passes between the house of Silius on the Caelian Hill and that of Marcius on the Aventine, the wedding takes place in due course. It will not be in May nor in early March or June, nor on certain other dates which, for reasons mostly long forgotten, were regarded as inauspicious. It is a social ceremony, and neither state nor priest will have anything to do with sanctioning or blessing it. The pillars at the sides of the vestibules of both houses are wreathed with leaves and boughs, and the friends and clients ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... above or superior to the recognized powers of nature; the preternatural (preter, beyond) is aside from or beyond the recognized results or operations of natural law, often in the sense of inauspicious; as, a preternatural gloom. Miraculous is more emphatic and specific than supernatural, as referring to the direct personal intervention of divine power. Some hold that a miracle, as the raising of the dead, is a direct ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Roumania saw herself bereft of what would have been her right wing and cover, and her military men, the most influential of whom had been against intervention from the first, now declared the moment inauspicious on strategical grounds. Thereupon the oratorical representatives of the Roumanian people consoled themselves with the formula that Roumanian blood would be shed only for Roumanian interests, and that when a fresh turn of Fortune's ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... home of the apple, is unknown. If tradition is to be believed, it was the inauspicious fruit to which may be traced all the miseries of mankind. In pictures of the temptation in the garden of Eden, our mother Eve is generally represented as holding an apple in ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... I was saying, Alcibiades, was a person of this sort. And even now-a-days you will find many who (have offered inauspicious prayers), although, unlike him, they were not in anger nor thought that they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... from one place to another, and dropping a little lower at each remove. Abraham Lincoln was born into a family who were not only poor, but shiftless, and his early days were days of ignorance, and poverty, and hard work. Out of such inauspicious surroundings, he slowly and painfully lifted himself. He gave himself an education, he took part in an Indian war, he worked in the fields, he kept a country store, he read and studied, and, at last, he became a lawyer. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... pride would equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. Anne, too, a vain, ambitious, and light-minded woman, was probably greedy of this kind of homage from her princely lover; and the very consciousness of the dubious, inauspicious, or disgraceful circumstances attending their union, might secretly augment the anxiety of the royal pair to dazzle and impose by the magnificence of their public appearance. Only once before, since the Norman conquest, had a king of England stooped from his dignity ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... followed the career—whose lesson is that of the meanness which lurks in noble things, the nobility which lurks in mean ones—of this woman from her inauspicious wedding-day to the placid day of her death, to us Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, will remain, for all blame we may give her and her times, a figure to remember and reflect upon, principally because ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... enough, and he had sent Bones post-haste to await the advent of any unfortunate youngster who was tactless enough to put in an appearance at such an inauspicious moment as would ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... ominous conjunction to my own affairs, and those of my father, could scarce have been formed. I remembered Morris's false accusation against me, which he might be as easily induced to renew as he had been intimidated to withdraw; I recollected the inauspicious influence of MacVittie over my father's affairs, testified by the imprisonment of Owen;—and I now saw both these men combined with one, whose talent for mischief I deemed little inferior to those of the great author of all ill, and ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... perform it. By the first calpa it was found that the succession of Ninan Cuyoche would not be auspicious. Then they opened another lamb and took out the lungs, examining certain veins. The result was that the signs respecting Huascar were also inauspicious. Returning to the Inca, that he might name some one else, they found that he was dead. While the orejones stood in suspense about the succession, Cusi Tupac Yupanqui said: "Take care of the body, for I go to Tumipampa to give the fringe to ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... man that whilom lov'd and lost, Not dreading loss, do sing again of love; And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd, Try if my stars still inauspicious prove: Not to make good that poets never can Long time without a chosen mistress be, Do I sing thus; or my affections ran Within the maze of mutability; What last I lov'd was beauty of the mind, And that lodg'd in a temple truly fair, Which ruin'd now ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... altogether, how the walls were discolored, sometimes by cascades of damp, and sometimes by the outlines of picture-frames since removed, how the paper flapped loose at the corners, and a great flake of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The room itself was a cheerless one to return to at this inauspicious hour. A flattened sofa would, later in the evening, become a bed; one of the tables concealed a washing apparatus; his clothes and boots were disagreeably mixed with books which bore the gilt of college arms; and, for decoration, there hung upon the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political turbulence ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... is of evil portent to themselves. Perchance some social calamity they have just been visited with, is attributed in their superstitious minds to the fell influence of the foreign devil, who has so suddenly bobbed up in their midst just at this unhappy, inauspicious moment. Perad-venture some stray and highly exaggerated bit of news in regard to Fankwae aggression in Tonquin (the French Tonquin expedition) has happened to reach the little interior village this very day, and the excited people see in me ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... married, you must know enough of her pride to be assured that I can retain no place in her affections. What has chanced was not our crime. Perhaps Heaven designed to save not only us, but herself, from the certain misery of nuptials so inauspicious!" ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like the rattle of machine-guns; so much so that on entering the village, for the first second I thought that the Turks were opening up on us. No native will molest a stork; to do so is considered to the last degree inauspicious. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... weakening the Austrian force on the Rhine were, for the moment, on that scene of the contest, inauspicious. The French, in two separate bodies, forced the passage of the Rhine—under Jourdan and Moreau; before whom the imperial generals, Wartensleben and the Archduke Charles, were compelled to retire. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the hour—though she was glad that he should enjoy this good fortune to the utmost—made her look beyond the present into the future. She had seen with her own eyes the tumult that was rife in Alexandria, and felt that they had arrived at an inauspicious moment. If it should come to a struggle between the Christians and the Heathen, Karnis, finding that his old friend Olympius was the head of his party, would infallibly seize the sword, and if, then, the victory remained with the Christians no mercy would be shown to those ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not that power be, at such a time as this, most unwisely and indiscreetly exercised. That is the point. Of all the times when an attempt was ever made to carry this measure, is not this the most inauspicious? Is it not a time when the measure is most likely to produce danger and mischief to the Country at large? So it ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... It was an inauspicious beginning for us. Two of our electrical ships, with their entire crews, had been wiped out of existence, and this appalling blow had been dealt by a few stranded and disabled enemies ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... advice, and "put in" with all his might; but the more he "put in," the more he put out—from the shore, whither the inauspicious eddies were sweeping him. If Tom had not been born in Pinchbrook, and had a home by the sea, where boating is an appreciated accomplishment, he would probably have been borne into the arms of the expectant rebel, or received in his vitals the ounce of cold lead which that ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... importance to the discrepancy of titles, which appears to me a minor detail. The change of names is easily explained. Amongst the Arabs, as amongst the wild Irish, there is divinity (the proverb says luck) in odd numbers and consequently the others are inauspicious. Hence as Sir Wm. Ouseley says (Travels ii. 21), the number Thousand and One is a favourite in the East (Olivier, Voyages vi. 385, Paris 1807), and quotes the Cistern of the "Thousand and One Columns" at Constantinople. Kaempfer (Amoen, Exot. p. 38) notes of the Takiyahs ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... added. The new condition of affairs had been fully canvassed and the women had determined on making the best of their first opportunity and winning a decisive victory if possible. The night of the meeting proved inauspicious, but notwithstanding the severe storm of snow and sleet that was falling the newly constituted citizens were out in force. At the hour of opening the meeting the City Hall was packed to suffocation, 500 of the audience, at least, being ladies. The first ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Such was the inauspicious commencement of our acquaintance with the natives of Otaheite. Their determined hostility and perseverance in an unequal combat could only have arisen from one of two motives—either from an opinion that ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... render the heights of office barren heights, which command, indeed, a vast and extensive prospect, but attract so many clouds and vapors, that most often all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. Pitt's situation, however inauspicious for his real being, was favorable to his fame. He heaped period on period; persuaded himself and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences was eloquence; and that eloquence implied wisdom. His father's struggles for freedom, and his own attempts, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and hell! I had that which could have procured him freedom. 135 No! Since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me To serve the Emperor at the empire's cost, I have been taught far other trains of thinking Of the empire, and the diet of the empire. From the Emperor, doubtless, I received this staff, 140 But now I hold it as the empire's general— For the common ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... have their meanings for the Chinese. Anything inauspicious happening on New Year's day is indicative of calamity. Mr. Chen, a friend of mine, had become a Christian contrary to his mother's wishes. When his first child was born it was a girl, born on New Year's day. His mother shook her head, looked distressed, and said ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... with thirst for water, Arjuna, being requested, had pierced the ground and allayed his thirst, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When Bayu together with Indra and Suryya united as allies for the success of the sons of Kunti, and the beasts of prey (by their inauspicious presence) were putting us in fear, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When the wonderful warrior Drona, displaying various modes of fight in the field, did not slay any of the superior Pandavas, then, O Sanjaya, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... has ceased to be any peril of so inauspicious and yet outwardly attractive an amalgamation. But as an individual, the American is often conscious of the deep-rooted sympathies that belong more fitly to times gone by, and feels a blind pathetic tendency to wander back again, which makes itself evident in such wild dreams as I have alluded to ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thought inauspicious for the doctor's hopes, but it did not prove so. The triumph ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... fourteen brothers rushed into the dreadful fray, Fatal was the luckless moment, inauspicious was ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... the future admiral and peer first went afloat in a ship bound to the West Indies. The time was inauspicious for one making the navy his profession. The war of the Austrian succession had just been brought to an end by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the monotonous discomfort of hard cruising, unrelieved by the excitements of battle or ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... deposited the Golden Rose at Nuremberg, and came into his own country with a resolution to be conciliatory. The friends whom he saw on his way informed Luther, and urged him to meet his countryman in the same spirit. Miltitz saw Tetzel and silenced him; and the inauspicious preacher did not long survive his disgrace. Having given this proof that he entertained no adverse prejudice, that on the immediate problem they were in sympathy, Miltitz had a conference ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... needs no comments; it breathes the fears and precautions of a creditor, striving to make the most of a failing debtor, and therefore I considered this letter as inauspicious. I returned a verbal answer, that an examination of these accounts must precede a settlement of them, and that as to a speedy payment of the balance due to him, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair and symmetrical in person, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... historic truths, we shall not, however, on the conclusion of peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is force that should achieve ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... sailors and Englishmen of the lower orders, had attached a great degree of importance to it; many circumstances which had hitherto been unexplained to me now flashed upon my mind; poor Mr. Smith had been very ill at the time Mr. Walker had related this inauspicious dream, and at that period an extraordinary degree of despondency had crept over him, so much so that some of the men imagined he had become deranged. When also we were working our way down the eastern coast ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... standard of crimson and white was raised by Tullibardine on August 19th in the vale of Glenfinnan, in the presence of Keppoch and Lochiel, Macdonald of Glencoe, Stuart of Appin, and Stuart of Ardshiel, and their clansmen. No such inauspicious omen occurred as that which shook the nerves of the superstitious when James Stuart gave his banner to the winds of Braemar a generation earlier. Indeed, an invading prince could hardly wish for happier conditions under which to begin ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... its inauspicious beginning, we spent an enjoyable afternoon. By common consent New College was ruled out of our itinerary, but Oxford cannot be viewed in a day, and we found much to delight our senses south of the High Street. Finally, a languorous journey by ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... had heard nothing of the matter, was up first on that inauspicious day, and took the journal to an arbour in the garden. He found his father's manifesto in one column; and in another a leading article. 'No one that we are aware of,' ran the article, 'had consulted Mr. Naseby on the subject, but if he had been appealed to by the whole body of electors, his letter ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ribs sadly bruised and was unable to stir for some days. Tucker had a dreadful passage of sixteen days with perpetual storms. I wish these little contretemps may not sour their tempers and be inauspicious to our proceedings." ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... Caen has been somewhat inauspicious: we had scarcely made the few necessary arrangements at the hotel, and seated ourselves quietly before the caffe au lait, when two gens-d'armes, in military costume, stalked without ceremony into the room, and, taking chairs at the table, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door,—we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "if they find him in less than his usual health they will get their dinners for themselves in the larder and dine and afterwards sleep. But after that; master, after that, should anything inauspicious have befallen mine host, they will seek out and ask many questions concerning all travellers, too many ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... dereliction of the reins. The constitution would never have been adopted, but from a knowledge that you had once sanctioned it, and an expectation that you would execute it. It is in a state of probation. The most inauspicious struggles are past, but the public deliberations need stability. You alone can give them stability. You suffered yourself to yield when the voice of your country summoned you to the administration. Should ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... conditions. Under some conditions it may be sown in the early autumn. It may be thus sown in the Southern States and with much likelihood that a stand will be secured, yet in some instances an inauspicious winter proves disastrous to the plants: all things considered, it is probably safer to sow clover in the South at that season than the spring, when vegetation is beginning to start. It may also succeed in some instances ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... she knew—married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she was joyless, no less was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite facade of the London Safe Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the stone steps into the ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... rooks tear the new nest to pieces as often as it is put together. Thus, either the memory of aged individual rooks or an authenticated tradition in their society has preserved the idea that the old grove is forbidden and inauspicious ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... They appeared to be of a loving disposition, and lay huddled together, fast asleep, like so many pigs; but even pigs would have been ashamed of their dirt, and of the foul smell which came from them. Each herd was watched by the patient but inauspicious eyes of the turkey-buzzard. This disgusting bird, with its bald scarlet head, formed to wallow in putridity, is very common on the west coast, and their attendance on the seals shows on what they rely for ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... These were the inauspicious beginnings of the pursuit; and the middle part and the ending varied only in degree. All the way up to midnight, at which hour a station of a bigness to supply a standard brass was reached, the tinkered journal-bearing gave trouble ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... elapsed, on the 7th of April they assembled for the conclave. At that instant (inauspicious omen!) a terrible flash of lightning, followed by a stunning peal of thunder, struck through the hall, burning and splitting some of the furniture. The hall of conclave was crowded by a fierce rabble, who refused to retire. After about an hour's strife, the Bishop ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the minster about this employment; who going along the cieling in the body of the church, and treading unwarily on some rotten boards, fell down from thence, upon the loft where the organ now stands, having his pockets filled with those inauspicious birds, and with the fall from so great a height, was slain outright and never ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... with a clean cloth, in the doorway, and set upon it bread and cheese for Yule. It is common also to have a table covered in the house from morning till night with bread and drink upon it, that every one who calls may take a portion, and it is considered particularly inauspicious if any one comes into a house and leaves it without doing so. However many be the callers during the day, all must ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... of, August 1557, an inauspicious day in the history of France, the roar of cannon was still heard at six in the evening in the plains of St. Quentin; where the French army had just been destroyed by the united troops of England and Spain, commanded by the famous Captain Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy. An utterly ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... some sages particularly honoured with the confidence of heaven. He commanded them to consult the stars, and to report their answer. "Tremble," said the sages; "thou unfortunate father, tremble! Never before have the skies presented such inauspicious omens. Let him fly; let this son, too dear to you, fly; let him avoid, if possible, the meeting with any savage beasts. His seventh year is the fatal one; and if he should happen then, to escape the misfortune that hangs over him, ah! do not wish ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... at eleven o'clock set in from the north-ward in heavy gusts, and the snow changed into rain. In the afternoon, when the sky brightened, the rain had washed all the snow from the bottoms; but the neighboring mountains, from summit to foot, were luminously white—an inauspicious commencement of the autumn, of which this was the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... total disfigurement of his Boots, which had that morning received the "matchlessly brilliant polish of Warren's inestimable Jet blacking." Not like many others in London, who will run you down and leave you to your fate, the heir of his fader's whimsicalities stopped short in the inauspicious set-out of his rapid career; and "dirty end," he exclaimed, "to the scavenger that didn't think of the gentleman's boots!" And at the same time the mother of this hopeful representative of the Mac Dermott family, made her appearance with the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that she had helped to bring him to this greater dimension. There was a thrill in the thought. There would have been a positive and enduring joy, had he not gone from her to another. Truly, that was an inauspicious beginning for Illumination—but miracles happened. This thought fascinated her now: Had she seen clearly and made the great sacrifice of withholding herself—that he might rise to prophecy—there would ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... have arrived at a very auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. The one who is on the point of departure is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... painter's conception of the goddess of love. Around her were numerous evidences of a woman's delicate tastes, of tastes too in advance of her day. The harp, which Edwy had given her the day of their inauspicious union, stood in one corner of the apartment; richly ornamented manuscripts lay scattered about—not, as usual, legends of the saints, and breviaries, but the writings of the heathen poets, especially those who sang most of love: for she was learned ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... suffrages among His vassals Hailed me their lord and king, and many still Are mine, and many more, perchance shall be. Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, 135 I left His seat of empire, from mine eye Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven, Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong, And imprecating on His prostrate slaves 140 Rapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed Over the mighty fabric of the world,— A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands, A lynx crouched watchfully among ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to reflect upon the events that had passed; they were numerous and inauspicious. It was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, and yet this morning had already brought him into disgrace with M. de Treville, who could not fail to think the manner in which d'Artagnan had left ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... white as the pure element could make it. So heavy was the fall of snow, that it was soon impossible to see a dozen yards, and of course the whole of the plain of the island was concealed. At this most inauspicious moment, our ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... only the Old Man would have had the daring to begin the third stage of the greatest Bill of modern times at an hour so inauspicious—noon on a Wednesday sitting. Everybody knows that among all the dead hours of the House of Commons, there is no hour so utterly dead as that. Indeed, very often such is the disinclination of the natural man for unreasonable and unseasonable hours—it ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... goodish many years have gone on since that tragedy of poor Katherine's death, and this is the second appointed Vicar since that inauspicious time. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... the tin labels stuck in the kosher meat, and there was Gideon, the fat, genial butcher, flourishing his great carving-knife as of yore, though without that ancient smile of brotherly recognition. Gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was an inauspicious omen, a ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... innocent, they are to blame. Alas! says he, crying, how pleasantly did we pass our time! those blind calenders are the cause of this misfortune; there is no town in the world but goes to ruin, wherever these inauspicious fellows come. Madam, I beg you not to destroy the innocent with the guilty, and consider that it is more glorious to pardon such a wretch as I, who have no way to help myself, than to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of inconsistency, very hard at the first sight to be solved by any European. Plainly Mataafa does not act at random. Plainly, in the depths of his Samoan mind, he regards his attitude as regular and constitutional. It may be unexpected, it may be inauspicious, it may be undesirable; but he thinks it—and perhaps it is—in full accordance with those "laws and customs of Samoa" ignorantly invoked by the draughtsmen of the Berlin Act. The point is worth an effort of comprehension; a man's life may yet depend upon it. Let us conceive, in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was now so overgrown, from overfeeding, perhaps, and want of exercise, as to bear the same resemblance to his former self which a stall-fed ox still retains to a wild bull. The look of no man is so inauspicious as a fat man, upon whose features ill-nature has marked an habitual stamp. He seems to have reversed the old proverb of "laugh and be fat," and to have thriven under the influence of the worst affections of the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... fright, a cold sweat all over her body. Having awakened her husband, she told him what she had dreamed. At that moment she was seized with the pains of childbirth. Li Ching withdrew to an adjoining room, uneasy at what seemed to be inauspicious omens. A little later two servants ran to him, crying out: "Your wife has given birth to a ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... this fundamental duty, whilst they were celebrating these mysteries of justice and humanity, they would have told the corps of fictitious creditors, whose crimes were their claims, that they must keep an awful distance,—that they must silence their inauspicious tongues,—that they must hold off their profane, unhallowed paws from this holy work; they would have proclaimed, with a voice that should make itself heard, that on every country the first creditor is the plough,—that this original, indefeasible claim ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... first the voyage was inauspicious. The ships had scarcely entered the straits before a great storm broke upon them. Land and sea were blotted out in driving snow. The open water into which they had sailed was soon {19} filled with great masses of ice which the tempest cast ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... all the preparations were complete, and on a Friday (not inauspicious in this case), the 3rd of August, 1492, after they had all confessed and received the sacrament, they set sail from the Bar of Saltes, making for the Canary Islands. One can fancy how the men and the women of Palos watched the ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... followed this inauspicious ceremony, Philip's proscription against the Prince of Orange put forth its first fruits. The latter gave a grand dinner in the chateau of Antwerp, which he occupied, on the 18th of March, the birthday of the duke of Anjou; and, as he was quitting the dining-room, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Casanova. Gladly opening her heart to him, the girl told him that she was not well off; that she was in love with an usher who was likewise poor; that his father and her own mother were both unwilling to give their consent to so inauspicious a union. Casanova promptly declared himself ready to help matters on. He sought an introduction to Amalia's mother, a good-looking widow of thirty-six who was still quite worthy of being courted. Ere long Casanova ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... day, on an inauspicious [13] Thursday afternoon, I sallied forth from my room at the call of these same sounds. There was a man on guard in the passage. I walked on without so much as glancing at him, but as I approached the door he put himself in my way saying: ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... of the eighteenth century says that "instead of carrying the corpse out by the door they make an opening in the wall by which they pass it out in a seated posture, and the hole is closed up after the ceremony."[733] Among various Hindoo castes it is still customary, when a death has occurred on an inauspicious day, to remove the corpse from the house not through the door, but through a temporary hole made in the wall.[734] Old German law required that the corpses of criminals and suicides should be carried out through a hole under the threshold.[735] In the Highlands of Scotland the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... inactive) 683; let slip through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos[Fr], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient &c. 647. unpunctual &c. (late) 133; too late for; premature &c. (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty- twenty hindsight. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... character, when measured by the standard of grace and dignity, but the troubles of the times militated in a high degree against that encouragement so necessary to the perfection of the art. In spite of these inauspicious circumstances, the genius of Rembrandt has produced works fraught with the highest principles of colour and pictorial effect, and to his want of encouragement in the department of mere common portraiture, we are indebted for many of the most pictorial ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... his desk, savagely out of humor with Benson and with himself, and raging inwardly at the mysterious thieves who were looting the company as boldly as an invading army might. At this, the most inauspicious moment possible, his eye fell upon the calendar memorandum, "See Hallock about B/L.," and his finger was on the chief clerk's bell-push before he remembered that it was late, and that there had been no light in Hallock's room when he had come down the corridor ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... of the disbelief in the mouth of a villain; though he makes the honest Kent, on the other hand, declare that "it is the stars ... that govern our conditions;"[174] and though he had previously made Romeo speak of "the yoke of inauspicious stars," and the Duke describe mankind as "servile to all the skiey influences," and was later to make Prospero, in the TEMPEST[175] express his belief in "a most auspicious star." In the case of Montaigne, who goes on yet again to contradict ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... was at this inauspicious juncture, only a few hours after independence had been proclaimed in the ranks of his opponents, that the bearer of the pacific commission, Lord Howe, arrived off Sandy Hook. He had cause to regret most bitterly both the delay of his ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... who can distinguish the false from the real? who can penetrate under this lying mask, to say, this smile conceals a black despair? no one, happily, no one! Stay, yes, love could never be mistaken; no, its instinct would enlighten it. But I hear my wife—my wife! Come to your post, inauspicious buffoon." ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... me to more cold than riding in my wet habit and cloak, and so indeed it might have been, but along with my convictions upon the subject there was mingled a spice of reluctance that our friends at the fort should have an opportunity, as they certainly would have done, of laughing at our inauspicious commencement. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... certainly such things there are. I heartily wish to see the Church secure in such possessions as will not only enable her ministers to preach the Gospel with ease, but of such a kind as will enable them to preach it with its full effect, so that the pastor shall not have the inauspicious appearance of a tax-gatherer,—such a maintenance as is compatible with the civil prosperity and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... human happiness in Italy since the success of that remarkable movement. When Ibsen rapped out the conviction that what Italy needed was to be invaded and conquered once and for all by Austria, I feared that an explosion was inevitable. But hardly had my translation of the inauspicious sentiment been uttered when the plum-pudding was borne into the room, flaming on its dish. I clapped my hands wildly at sight of it, in the English fashion, and was intensely relieved when the yet more resonant applause of Robert Browning followed mine. Disaster ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... leaving, and from time to time he threw himself under a tree to think and dream and look at the glory of the foliage. He had brought a new copy of The Arabian Nights for Rebecca, wishing to replace the well-worn old one that had been the delight of her girlhood; but meeting her at such an inauspicious time, he had absently carried it away with him. He turned the pages idly until he came to the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and presently, in spite of his thirty-four years, the old tale held him spellbound as it did in the days when he first read it as a boy. But ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of wealth, and in the beginnings of social distinction, which lent colour to the feeling that the advantages of the match would be mainly on one side, Pierston was a sculptor who might rise to fame; so that potentially their marriage could not be considered inauspicious for a woman who, beyond being the probable heiress to a considerable fortune, had no ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... British squadron under Sir Sidney Smith, who, in the first instance, captured a convoy of guns and stores forwarded from Egypt, and then employed them against him, by erecting batteries on shore. Notwithstanding these inauspicious circumstances, Napoleon opened his trenches on the 18th of March, in the firm conviction that the Turkish garrison could not long resist the fury of his onset and the skill of his engineers. "On that little town," said he, to one of his generals, as they were standing ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... part of the ship in sight, on the contrary, two more small sails were run up at the extremities of the masts. Unfortunately, it was the time of the finest and longest days of the year, and the moon, in all her brilliancy, succeeded to this inauspicious daylight. The balancelle, which was pursuing the little bark before the wind, had then still half an hour of twilight, and a whole night almost as ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... sarcastically, "but at the present stage of the world, such things cannot be done. Haven't you heard the saying of a man of old to the effect that great men take action suitable to the times. 'He who presses,' he adds, 'towards what is auspicious and avoids what is inauspicious is a perfect man.' From what your worship says, not only you couldn't, by any display of zeal, repay your obligation to His Majesty, but, what is more, your own life you will find it difficult to preserve. There are still three more considerations ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that before this time there had been a school; but the name of college was not assumed until the above date. The teacher of this school was Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, who has left an unenviable reputation, and made an inauspicious beginning of that institution which was to attain to such distinction. He finally got into serious trouble, in consequence of his brutal conduct and for one act in particular, which led to his leaving the school and town. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... War. Strong Nature's bent, continual increase, Still counteracts Humanity's fond wish, The perpetuity of Peace, and Love; Alas! progressive Increase cannot last. Soon mourns the encumber'd land it's human load: Too soon arrives the inauspicious hour; The Natal Hour of the unhappy Man, Who all his life goes mourning up and down That there is neither bough, nor mud, nor straw That he may take to make himself a hut; No, not in all his native ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... view of demonstrating the stability and unchangeableness of those laws that the composition of this treatise has been undertaken; in order to excite in its regard such a degree of attention as will tend to awaken it from the state of inauspicious somnolency in which it has for some years lain prostrate. But, strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the subject, and fully alive to the difficulty of treating it, the writer cannot help being crossed ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... decrees, with perhaps the Floridas thrown into the bargain. Should a change in the aspect of affairs in Europe produce this disposition in both powers, our peace and prosperity may be revived and long continue. Otherwise, we must again take the tented field, as we did in 1776 under more inauspicious circumstances. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... grim ancestors for a thousand generations, in some dark cave of the hills was he whelped, but in a narrow iron cage littered with straw. Two brothers and a sister made at the same time a like inauspicious entrance upon an alien and fettered existence. And because their silent, untamable mother loved too savagely the hereditary freedom of her race to endure the thought of bearing her young into a life of bondage, she would have killed them mercifully, even ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... report that these adventurous partisans of science, nothing discouraged by the catastrophe which has occurred have resolved to renew the experiment under, as may he hoped, less inauspicious circumstances; and we trust that on the next occasion they will not disdain to avail themselves of the co-operation and presence of some one of those persons, who having hitherto practiced aerial navigation ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... could she do? Confusion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her. She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, that were growing bolder and more tender in their gaze. "I—I—" she began, and just at this very inauspicious moment, while she sat there, flushed, by the stranger's side, the clatter of swiftly-approaching wheels sounded, and a carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann. ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples. To have stopped that marriage—chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village—seen himself surrounded again by long, sulky visages,—I verily ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... him, and been flattered by him; but, after all, she seemed to shrink from the idea of being so soon united: she wished the ceremony to be delayed some months, at least; and I wished it too. It seemed a horrible thing to hurry on the inauspicious match, and not to give the poor creature time to think and reason on the irrevocable step she was about to take. I made no pretension to 'a mother's watchful, anxious care,' but I was amazed and horrified ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... herself, though conscious, of looking her best in her bright muslin dress and her gayly feathered new hat, was at this inauspicious moment Miss Milroy under a cloud. Although Allan's note had assured her, in Allan's strongest language, that the one great object of reconciling the governess's arrival with the celebration of the picnic was an object achieved, the doubt still remained whether the plan proposed—whatever ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... considered as of far more importance than the condition of the giver of the wise exhortations. The latter is all right, he doesn't need such admonitions; the other does. The important question, therefore, should be: "Is he ready to receive them?" If not, if the time is unpropitious, the mental condition inauspicious, better do, say, nothing, than make matters worse. But, unfortunately, it generally happens that at such times the critic is far more concerned at unbosoming himself of his just and wise admonitions than he is as to whether the time is ripe, the conditions the best possible, for the word to ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... the constellations in their conjunctions and configurations, were believed to reveal to those who could understand the significance of their aspects, the destiny of individuals and the occurrence of future events. The inauspicious influences of the heavenly bodies are described by Milton as contributing to the general disarrangement of the happy condition of things ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... at this inauspicious moment that Mr. Kelly (who, as I have said before, is always everywhere) chooses to rush up to Brian Desmond and address him ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... flung herself into a chair. But without deigning to answer, Big Lena turned heavily into the kitchen, and closed the door with a bang that impoverished invective—for volumes may be spoken—in the banging of a door. The moment was inauspicious for the entrance of Harriet Penny. At best, Chloe merely endured the little spinster, with her whining, hysterical outbursts, and abject, unreasoning fear of God, man, the devil, and everything else. "Oh, my dear, I am so glad!" piped the little ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the two was Sir Giles Mompesson, and his usually stern and sinister features had acquired a yet more inauspicious cast, from the deathlike paleness that bespread them, as well as from the fillet bound round his injured brow. The other was an antiquated coxcomb, aping the airs and graces of a youthful gallant, attired in silks and velvets fashioned ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... "The son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his looks that cast of inauspicious melancholy by which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish those who were predestined to a violent and unhappy ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had time enough to observe all these particulars, for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present master of the mansion at length made his appearance. Prepared as he was to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person, the ugliness of Anthony Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had anticipated. He was of middle stature, built strongly, but so clumsily as to border on deformity, and to give all his ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the "hsi-lien" (wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed. Vanderhausen at length relieved the painter of Leyden of his inauspicious presence; and with no small gratification the little party heard the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... be, whose bold disdain I 2 Walks in a round of vapourings vain And violent acts, regarding not The Rule of Right, but with proud thought Scorning the place where Gods have set their seat, —Made captive by an Evil Doom, Shorn of that inauspicious bloom, Let him be shown the path of lawful gain And taught in holier ways to guide his feet, Nor with mad folly strain His passionate arms to clasp things impious to retain. Who in such courses shall defend his soul From storms of thundrous wrath that o'er him roll? If honour to such ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... of the Parisian guard, preceded by military music, came to present to the young Dauphin, as a New Year's gift, a box of dominoes, made of some of the stone and marble of which that state prison was built. The Queen gave me this inauspicious curiosity, desiring me to preserve it, as it would be a curious illustration of the history of the Revolution. Upon the lid were engraved some bad verses, the purport of which was as follows: "Stones from those walls, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... caving in at the center, was now everywhere crumbling at the edges. Only the most unblushing personal interest could advise, and the most inconsistent folly consider, the retaining of a crown which, under circumstances even less inauspicious, he had only a short time before wisely ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... And, with religion's pole-star for his guide, Serenely voyaged life's tempestuous tide. Yet in Ernestus' mind his skilful sense Observ'd no dawn of future excellence; He found no early graces to adorn Of springing life the inauspicious morn; No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow; But virtue's native influence was in him, A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim. Yet Harfagar with kind attention tried To rouse the ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... entirely frustrated. He had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese prophet, by a premature attack on the army under Gen. Harrison, at an inauspicious moment, precipitated him into a ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... and somewhat inauspicious meeting with him in childhood, Helen had never, close at hand, seen Richard Calmady walk thus far. She stared, fascinated by that cruel spectacle. For the instant transformation of the apparently ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... up the receiver with a few crisp remarks addressed to space, and absorbed in awestruck silence by a young woman at the other end of the room who eased her type-writing labor by pausing to hear them fully. It was at this inauspicious moment that the card of Mr. Bart Harrington was brought in by an office boy. Maxwell ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... of violence; in which he had like to have succeeded. The landlord had no other shift, at last, but to send privately for two officers, and have him carried to the guard-house; and the hilarity and joy of the party of young gentlemen, for the evening, was quite spoiled by the inauspicious termination ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... others. Hindu astrologers teach that there is an unlucky hour every day in the month, i.e. during the period of the moon's abode in every nakshatra, or lunar mansion, throughout the lunation. This inauspicious period is called Tyajya, 'rejected.' Its mean length is one hour and thirty-six minutes, European time. The precise moment when this period commences differs in each nakshatra, or (which comes ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... was, although I believed he had only fainted, and long tried every ineffectual method to restore departed life. Thus was I deprived of the noblest officer and kindest friend that ever deserved the attachment of a soldier. Twenty years have now rolled over me since that inauspicious day, yet it lives for ever in my remembrance, and never shall be blotted from my soul. (The Highlander then turned away to hide a tear, which did not misbecome his manly countenance; the company seemed all to share his griefs, but Miss ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... October, 1844, we left Bath determined to examine the once far-famed Abbey of Fonthill, and to see if its scenery was really as fine as report had represented. The morning was cold and inauspicious, but when we reached Warminster the sun burst out through the mists that had obscured him, and the remainder of the day was as genial and mild as if had been May. We procured the aid of a clownish bumpkin ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... preamble before mentioned for not accepting the act of June, are very important and amply sufficient. Indeed, it has ever appeared to us, that the changes proposed to be introduced into the charter by the acts in question, would have proved highly inauspicious to the welfare of this institution, and ultimately injurious to the interests of literature ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... 13: It was then approved of)—"Placuit." This is placed at the end, in consequence of the inauspicious reception which had been given to it on the two first representations. See the account given in ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the bride's ladies, and in my opinion they are right: for the husband and wife at the beginning of their intercourse to be separated, and for the bride alone to be feasted like an ordinary guest, appears to be an inauspicious opening. I have thus pointed out two ill-omened customs which ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
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