"Omen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right for my father to send me a black messenger on my birthday—it is not a good omen. And it was the same last year when we were in Paris; the concierge told me. Birthday gifts should come with a white fairy, you know, Anneli—all ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... maladies, saved the hare in the chase, and sold his mantle to redeem a lamb from the butcher. He taught the people not to be afraid of the strange, ugly creatures which the light of the moving torches drew from their hiding-places, nor think it a bad omen that approached. He tamed a veritable wolf to keep him company like a dog. It was the first of many ambiguous circumstances about him, from which, in the minds of an increasing number of people, a deep suspicion and hatred ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... himself, who found, on his return, that the company were the better for the pastor's absence, though unable to recover the mirth which he had put to flight. Erica had been shedding a few tears, in spite of strong efforts to restrain them. Here was a bad omen already,—on the very day of her betrothment; and she saw that Hund thought so; for there was a gloomy satisfaction in his eye, as he sat silently watching all ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... fairly commenced. One of the shot of the first broadsides of the Kearsarge carried away the spanker-gaff of the enemy, and caused his ensign to come down by the run. This incident was received as a favorable omen by the fortunate crew, who cheered vociferously and went with increased confidence to their work. Wild and rapid was the firing of the Alabama, that of the Kearsarge being deliberate, precise, and almost from the commencement productive ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... sure (and Captain Cai might with better command on his nerves have hailed the omen) Nature could hardly have dressed shore and harbour of Troy in weather more auspicious. The smoke of chimneys arose straight on the "cessile air," making a soft dun-coloured haze through which the light of the declining day was filtered in streams of yellow—pale lemon-yellow, golden-yellow, orange, ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, when God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid. She will shed over your enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... stopped at Lizzy's door; and Lizzy, as she sat on the window-sill with her bright rosy face laughing through the casement, has seen her and disappeared. She is coming. No! The key is turning in the door, and sounds of evil omen issue through the keyhole—sturdy 'let me outs,' and 'I will goes,' mixed with shrill cries on May and on me from Lizzy, piercing through a low continuous harangue, of which the prominent parts are apologies, chilblains, sliding, broken bones, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... turrets and mullions, whilst outside beyond the keep and raised drawbridge the beacons and camp fires stained the frost-laden air with vivid streaks of red and yellow—colours which formed the background of the Ffraddle coat of arms, thus presenting an omen to the startled inhabitants which history relates they were not ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... barn as boy could well be—the human father of him would all day be sitting in a certain dark court, as hard at work as an aching head and a bloodless system would afford. The said court was off the narrowest part of a long, poverty-stricken street, bearing a name of evil omen, for it was called the Widdiehill—the place of the gallows. It was entered by a low archway in the middle of an old house, around which yet clung a musty fame of departed grandeur and ancient note. In the court, against a wing of the same ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... over! For the winds and the waters surcease; Ah! few were the days of the rover That smiled in the beauty of peace! And distant and dim was the omen That hinted redress or release. From the ravage of life, and its riot What marvel I yearn for the quiet Which bides in the harbor at last? For the lights with their welcoming quiver That through the ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various
... a thrill of satisfaction, lay back on his blanket. The idea that they should observe Sunday, that it would be a good omen and beginning, had taken hold of him with singular power. His character was devout and a life in the wilderness among its mighty manifestations deepened its quality. Like the Indian he wanted the spirits of earth and ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... come on deck. I assisted her up. Scarcely had she appeared, when there came a break in the clouds to the eastward, and the sun shone forth. "A good omen!" she exclaimed. ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... be a hard blow," Carlyon said. "The tribesmen are very confident. Last night they watched a messenger ride eastwards on a white horse. It was an omen foretold by the Heaven-sent when he left them to carry the message through the ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... omen, and Dale looked very hard, and then Melchior once more went down on his knees and peered into the stream, to measure it ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... hour for the march, and almost came too late through suddenly receiving orders to take a circuitous route through the city. On former occasions they had marched out by the Via di Borgo Santi Apostoli, and the campaign had been unsuccessful. It was clear that there was some bad omen connected with the exit through this street against Pisa, and consequently the army was now led out by the Porta Rossa. But as the tents stretched out there to dry had not been taken away, the flags—another bad omen—had to be lowered. The influence ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... innocence should be good omen; the gods grant it!" said Nicanor. He pushed onward through the press to get a nearer view of the Saxons; and heard as he came a great voice shouting ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Truth!" To himself he thought: "How the most ignorant are usually the most impudent and the most ready to rush into print!" He had a faint prevision of how his name—should it really leak out, despite all his precautions—would come to stand for atheism and immorality, a catchword of ill-omen for a century or two; but he smiled on, relying upon the inherent reasonableness and rightness of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... through a sea of gray-black clouds, and shone brilliantly just before night's coming, it seemed an omen of good to the little party in the wilderness, for at almost the same moment, Ree, running on a head a little way, cried: ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... worthy, soaring ambitions, such as the work upward to success in school, or in trade, and so on. When a child is born, little kites are sent up by modest households to announce the arrival. Kites are also flown to celebrate birthdays. To lose a kite is considered an omen of ill-luck." ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... the whole court, I began to talk with such volubility that nobody could keep pace with me. First I scolded the nurse, then abused the fairies, and finally took my parents to task roundly for attempting to stop me. The courtiers tried to persuade them that this was only an omen of my precocious genius, and that, beyond all doubt, I should one day become the wisest, most eloquent princess in the world. But they remembered the threat of the malicious old fairy, and became exceeding sorrowful. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... promise, had taken the veil at the convent of Santa Maria delta Croce, and deserted the court and its follies and passions, just as the prophets of old, turning their back on some accursed city, would shake the dust from off their sandals and depart. Sandra's retreat was a sad omen, and soon the family dissensions, long with difficulty suppressed, sprang forth to open view; the storm that had been threatening from afar broke suddenly over the town, and the thunderbolt was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... during the civil wars, were such as to oblige him to sell a great portion of his lands, and to part with the ancient Barony of Erskine, the first possession of the family. This necessity may almost be considered as an ill omen for the future welfare of a family; which never seems to be so utterly brought low by fortune, as when compelled to consign to strangers that from which the first sense of importance ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... girls did not want to go to the other baklad or weir. They preferred to go back home happy, for the day had commenced with a bad omen and they feared that ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... quite inscrutable to the late John Marshall, who attended him, and to all of us, this old idea seized upon his brain; so much so, indeed, that Marshall hailed it as a good omen, and advised us to foster it, which we did with excellent results, as will be seen by referring to the very last entry in his mother’s touching diary as lately printed by Mr. W. M. Rossetti: “March 28, Tuesday. Mr. Watts came ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... blew from the west it was wafted across the Nile to Thebes, and this was regarded as an evil omen, for from the south-west comes the wind that enfeebles the energy of men—the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a superstitious soul. She did not even believe that the near-by screech of an owl was an omen of death. However, she did have some fearful ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the English—who could not be so numerous as the French forces in the town—had been suffered to make these great works unmolested, he could only reply with a shake of the head, and with words of evil omen. ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... studied, that same morning, the envelope of Gordon's letter to Felix Brand. Why should such a letter always herald Brand's return from these unaccountable absences, which grew ever longer and of darker omen? What had Hugh Gordon meant by those two or three curt, unconsidered sentences that seemed to hint at some uncanny fate toward which Brand was hastening? And what would be the architect's demeanor now? Would it be such that she could not stay longer in his employ? With all the financial risk ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be "taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah spoilt me; I ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... they did at the burning-grounds. It's a horrid shame to treat you so. The Chota Rani has got rid of all her fears by dint of the Englishwoman's teaching, but as for me, I had to send for the priest to avert the omen before I could get any peace of mind. For my sake, dear, do get away to Calcutta. I tremble to think what they may do, if ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... foretold the advent of a far different state of things after the Union. Then, pointing to the divergence of British and Irish policy at the time of the Regency crisis he pronounced it a dangerous omen, and declared the Union to be necessary to the peace and stability of the Empire. The House agreed with him and negatived the amendment without ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... {diaphthereei se}. It is impossible to reproduce the double meaning of {diaphtheirein}, "to destroy," and "to corrupt with bribes." The child was apparently alarmed by the vehement gestures of Aristagoras and supposed that he was going to kill her father. Cleomenes accepts the omen.] ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... god sends this, I will rejoice in it," he declared lightly. "A fair omen for to-morrow, and it will shine rarely on Hermione's arm." The mention of that lady called forth new protests from Cimon, but he in turn was interrupted, for a half-grown boy had entered the tent and stood ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... for it—ever so small—had flickered in her face, but had vanished before the omen of tears, a little less uncertain, had shown themselves in his own. His eyes filled—but that made her continue. She continued gently. "I think that what it really is must be that you're afraid. I mean," she explained, "that you're ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... and the queenly Wiwst stood Alone in the moon-lit solitude, And she was silent and he was grave. "And fears not my daughter the evil spirit? The strongest warriors and bravest fear it The burning spears are an evil omen; They threaten the wrath of a wicked woman, Or a treacherous foe; but my warriors brave, When danger nears, or the foe appears, Are a cloud of arrows,—a ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... is a good omen. I have not seen a dead man for twenty years, save those that died of sickness and old age. When shall we have the good old times when men killed each other with swords? I feel that it is coming. When shall we fall upon the four kingdoms, and tear ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but what he had told already seemed of very great importance, confirming strongly, as it did, the description given me by Jacob Rigg. And even the butler's concluding words—that I seemed born to hear it all—comforted me like some good omen, and cheered me forward to make them true. Not that I could, in my sad and dangerous enterprise, always be confident. Some little spirit I must have had, and some resolve to be faithful, according to the power of a very common mind, admiring but never claiming courage. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... most happy omen, The goddess of love Wished that a new sacrifice Should consecrate to her our bright days. Already the fagots are lighted, The altar glows, the incense fumes, The victim is adorned— By love itself it is ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... appearing to be a person of some figure and consequence, but in private she grumbled at his personal extravagance. At both these changes Susannah smiled, but to her heart, ever weighing the chances in favour of Ephraim's constancy, they seemed an ill omen. It was because she was absorbed in the personal application of all things to her own secret case that she paid less attention to ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... But Diomede has more courage, and finally Agamemnon begins to call to the host to fight, but breaks down, weeps, and prays to Zeus "that we ourselves at least flee and escape;" he is not an encouraging commander-in-chief! Zeus, in pity, sends a favourable omen; Aias fights well; night falls, and the Trojans camp ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro—those birds of infinite ill omen—she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly—her eyes questioning my face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was gray because the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... tied up in bundles, is an omen of tears. If you see it growing in your dreams, it is ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... sight. But then there was no Ananias, no confirming revelation to another. This it was that justified St. Paul as a wise man in regarding the incident as supernatural, or as more than a providential omen. N. B. Not every revelation requires a sensible miracle as the credential; but every revelation of a new series of 'credenda'. The prophets appealed to records of acknowledged authority, and to their obvious sense literally interpreted. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... landed his machine had burst into flames, as the escaping petrol caught fire. Jack considered that a good omen ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... occasion when General Walker was attacking the Costa-Ricans in Rivas, the dog entered the plaza ahead of the rest, and, finding there one of his own species, he forthwith seized him, and shook him, and put him to flight howling,—giving an omen so favorable, that the greasers were driven out of the town with ease by the others. Even his every-day life was sublime, and elevated above the habit of vulgar dogs. He allowed no man to think himself his master, or attach him individually ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... can divine the future by the past, the Fifth Column, that shadowy group of secret agents now entrenched in every important country throughout the world, is an omen of what is to come. Before Germany marched into Austria, that unhappy country witnessed a large influx of Fifth Column members. In Czechoslovakia, especially in those months before the Republic's heart was handed to Hitler on a platter, there was a tremendous ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... returned to his house, well contented with the King. Next morning, the King repaired as usual to his council-chamber, and the amirs and viziers and chamberlains took their places round him. Now he had among his viziers one who was forbidding of aspect, sordid, avaricious and envious: a man of ill omen, naturally inclined to malevolence: and when he saw the esteem in which the King held Douban and the favours he bestowed on him, he envied him and plotted evil against him; for, as says the byword, "Nobody is free from ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... Soon they had reached the highest point of the roof, and here Balbi contrived to lose his hat, which rolled down the roof, failed to lodge in the gutter, and fell into the canal below. The poor fellow grew desperate, and said it was a bad omen. Casanova soothed him, and left him seated where he was, while he himself went to investigate, his faithful ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... or Carthage, a name that, in the Phoenician and Hebrew tongues, (which have a great affinity,) signifies the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... blow. As soon as the head was cut off there was a rush on the part of the sacrificers to see in which direction the head faced. If the head faced towards the north or west, it was considered an evil omen; if it faced towards the south or east, a good omen. The east is a lucky quarter amongst the Assamese also. The people ended up the proceedings by giving a long-drawn-out, deep-toned chant, or kynhoi. Immediately after the ceremony was concluded hundreds ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... omen into your mouth, miyan!* Yet little comes to the woman who neglects to plan for it. Give me the poison. ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."—But those are words of bad omen.—"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped" (Epictetus, ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... benignant as ever, but he handed me over to an attractive war worker with a detached air that showed he was quite unconscious of ever having seen me before. For an instant I was chilled, and then I realised the happiness of the omen. If my beard alone so changed me, there would be no fear of recognition when art ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... Was it an omen of success that she should cross his path almost the first thing, grown into a slim, handsome girl, with glorious eyes and a rose red mouth that he would have liked to kiss there in the public street? How proud and dignified she had been, how piquant and daring and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I can no longer give my testimony without shame for not having given it ere the innocent man suffered, thou wilt forget my claim; and, indeed, thy present hesitation is a bad omen of thy future gratitude.' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and for evil. In England here—they have been as yet, as far as I can see, nothing but blessings: but I have my very serious doubts whether they are likely to be blessings to the whole human race, for many an age to come. I can conceive them—may God avert the omen!—the instruments of a more crushing executive centralisation, of a more utter oppression of the bodies and souls of men, than the world has yet seen. I can conceive—may God avert the omen!—centuries hence, some future world-ruler sitting at the junction ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius saw by the roadside a lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and skill of the noted stranger, that ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... or lively. He was always gentle, peaceful, taciturn, never saying a word, and never playing at any of those little pastimes that we call children's games. It was found most difficult to teach him to read, and he was nine years old before he knew his letters. A good omen, I used to say to myself; trees slow of growth bear the best fruit. We engrave on marble with much more difficulty than on sand, but the result is more lasting; and that dulness of apprehension, that heaviness of imagination, is a mark of a sound judgment ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... Suetonius—that he once remained seated to receive the whole body of Conscript fathers, that he had a gilded chair in the Senate house, and appointed magistrates at his own pleasure to hold office for terms of years, that he laughed at an unfavourable omen and made himself dictator for life; and such things, says the historian, 'are of so much more importance than all his good qualities that he is considered to have abused his power and to have been justly assassinated.' But it is the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... And Kirkwood, his eyes like his spirit elevated, saw that the clouds of night were breaking, the skies clearing, that the East pulsed ever more strongly with the dim golden promise of the day to come. And this he chose to take for an omen—prematurely, it ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... hundred years on Mount Ceelius, lying always hitherto on their right sides; but that, in the very moment of his laughter, they had turned themselves over to their left sides, in which posture they should continue asleep for other seventy-four years, being a dire omen of future misery to mankind. For all those things which our Saviour had foretold to his disciples, that were to be fulfilled about the end of the world, should come to pass within those seventy-four ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... at the moment when Jacob reached the territory belonging to Haran was an auspicious omen. To meet young maidens on first entering a city is a sure sign that fortune is favorable to one's undertakings. Experience proves this through Eliezer, Jacob, Moses, and Saul. They all encountered maidens when they approached ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... that he accepted her invitation at all, she considered a proof of the falsehood of the report about his intended marriage, and a good omen for herself. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... amongst it in the darkness with both hands, he found a long waterproof overcoat, and after more search a sealskin shooting cap; appropriating both of these he strode to the rear of the house, opened the door by which his father had entered on that night of evil omen, and walked out ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... Such an omen forboded no good. Nevertheless, the judge, in order to set things to rights, took the chief of police's place, and, sweeping all the snuff from his upper lip with his nose, pushed Ivan Ivanovitch in the opposite direction. In Mirgorod this is the usual manner of effecting a reconciliation: it ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 12th of May, some ptarmigans were seen. These were hailed as a sure omen of returning summer. Several of the men went out on shooting excursions; and, being exposed, for several hours, to the glare of the sun and snow, became affected with that painful inflammation in the eyes, called "snow-blindness." As a preventive of this complaint, a piece of black crape ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Diamond Jubilee man—that's a good omen," rejoined Nalini, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice. "What were ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... pay absorbin' heed. If some gent with whom I chooses to differ touchin' some matter that's a heap relevant at the time, ups an' reaches for his gun abrupt, it fills me full of preemonitions that the near future is mighty liable to become loaded with lead an' interest for me. Now thar's an omen I don't discount. But after all I ain't consentin' to call them apprehensions of mine the froot of no sooperstition, neither. I'm ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... scatter'd, gath'ring to that place Assembled; for its strength was great, enclos'd On all parts by the fen. On those dead bones They rear'd themselves a city, for her sake, Calling it Mantua, who first chose the spot, Nor ask'd another omen for the name, Wherein more numerous the people dwelt, Ere Casalodi's madness by deceit Was wrong'd of Pinamonte. If thou hear Henceforth another origin assign'd Of that my country, I forewarn thee now, That falsehood none beguile thee of the truth." I answer'd: "Teacher, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... comes over us as a warning? Some people will tell you so. A vision of the future seemed to rest on Maude Kirton as she sat there; and for the first time all the injustice of the approaching act rose in her mind as a solemn omen. The true facts were terribly distinct. Her own dislike (it was indeed no less than dislike) of the living lord, her lasting love for the dead one. All the miserable stratagems they had been guilty of to win him; the dishonest plotting and planning. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... which took us rapidly down the channel, and our prospects appeared to be as cheering as the day, for just as we were about to push from the shore, a seal rose close to the boat, which we all regarded as a favourable omen. We were, however, shortly stopped by shoals; it was in vain that we beat across the channel from one side to the other; it was a continued shoal, and the deepest water appeared to be under the left bank. The tide, however, had fallen, and exposed broad flats, over which it was hopeless, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... was found in other newspapers, and indeed it went about Great Britain later and found its way to the Colonies. "An Oriental Omen" it was headed, and Madame's only regret appeared to be that it could not be held to be distinguished by the quality of absolute truth. But there it stood in print, and there was the name of Hilbert and ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... a scrich-owle sing. The screech of the owl was supposed to be an omen of death to the hearer. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... natives supposed it, occurred. Among the presents offered by the king was ajar of honey; this one of the servants upset without breaking the pot. Had it been broken, the omen would have been unfortunate; as it was, the governor was highly pleased, and ordered the poor to be called in to lick up the honey. They rushed in, squabbling among themselves. One old man, having a long beard, came off with a double ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... making the Eastern sign to scare away evil spirits. "The omen!" she whispered. "The omen! A broken string ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... them. I leave you to judge the constraint I live in, what alarms my thoughts give me, and yet how unconcerned this company requires I should be; they will have me at my part in a play, "The Lost Lady" it is, and I am she. Pray God it be not an ill omen! ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... mantle to redeem a lamb from the butcher: He taught the people not to be [63] afraid of the strange, ugly creatures which the light of the moving torches drew from their hiding-places, nor think it a bad omen that they approached. He tamed a veritable wolf to keep him company like a dog. It was the first of many ambiguous circumstances about him, from which, in the minds of an increasing number of people, a deep suspicion ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... fire into their ranks, when, a spark accidentally communicating with the magazine of powder, the whole blew up with a tremendous explosion. The Spaniards were filled with consternation; but Gonsalvo, converting the misfortune into a lucky omen, called out, "Courage, soldiers, these are the beacon lights of victory! We have no need of our ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... however, a disgrace to the country that men should be found in it capable of putting ideas so insolent upon paper. So, then, a young man arm-in-arm with a rosy-cheeked girl must be a spectacle of evil omen! What! and do they imagine that you are thus to be extinguished, because some of you are now (without any fault of yours) unable to find work? As far as you were wanted to labour, to fight, or to pay taxes, you were welcome, and they boasted of your numbers; but now that your country has been ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... bells! peal forth From south to north, No longer let your iron tongues be dumb: Up to the rafters swing, Make all the country ring An omen of a Happy ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... we give the following explanation: The sun is certainly a much more astonishing thing than a comet, but because we see the sun continually and the comet rarely we are so much astonished at the comet that it even seems an omen, while we are not at all astonished at the sun. If, however, we should imagine the sun appearing at rare intervals, and at rare intervals setting, in the first instance suddenly lighting up all things, and in the second casting everything into shade, we should see great ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... to expect it, Carew," he said. "I am not a bird of ill-omen, but, by Heaven! the redskins are determined to hang on ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... "a young friend [Harland of course], a Kensington neighbour and an ardent man of letters," with "a young friend of his own," in whom there is no mistaking Beardsley, "to bespeak my interest for a periodical about to take birth in his hands, on the most original 'lines' and with the happiest omen." But there was youth in this readiness for hero-worship—youth in this tribute to the older men whose years could not dim the brilliance nor lessen the power of their work in the eyes of the new generation—the fragrance of youth exudes from the pages of the Yellow Book as I turn them ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... everything as an omen. He was delighted with the sun—it rose out of a sack and grew brighter and brighter in the course of the day. It was never lucky for the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ill omen, why croak you forth such dire intelligence?" I asked, as he threw off his snow-covered coat, and prepared to join me in my meal with a look which made me fear there were not many more such in ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the moment, lifted the salt-cellar to sprinkle her salad,—but she was so astonished at the boldness of this speech, that she dropped it from her hand, and the salt was spilt on the floor,—an evil omen which all ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... soldiers near him happened to sneeze.[41] Immediately the whole army around shouted with one accord the accustomed invocation to Zeus the Preserver; and Xenophon, taking up the accident, continued—"Since, fellow-soldiers, this omen from Zeus the Preserver has appeared at the instant when we were talking about preservation, let us here vow to offer the preserving sacrifice to that god, and at the same time to sacrifice to the remaining gods as well as we can, in the first ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... company you could look at no one else," the charm of her manner exceeded even the graces of her person, but her education was defective, and she was amusingly superstitious. She could be heard saying at every turn: "This is a good omen; that a bad one; oh, shocking! the spoons ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... dead!—sinister omen!" said Vance, discomposed. "I have no faith in artists who count on being talked of after they are dead. Never knew a dauber who did not! But stand back: time flies; tie up your hair; put on your bonnet, Titania. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer. Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... "It is a bad omen," said Eric the Red, when his horse slipped and fell on the way to his ship, moored on the coast of Greenland, in readiness for a voyage of discovery. "Ill-fortune would be mine should I dare venture ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... say they will," said the boy, his eyes snapping. "Here's something for you to take with you, Mr. King. It's my lucky stone. It always gives good luck. Of course, you must promise to bring it back to me. It's an omen." ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to speak but could not find his voice, and was chagrined at his failure, which Elodie preferred to the most eloquent greeting. She noticed also and looked upon it as a good omen, that he had tied his cravat with more ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... communities; he builds a few deep cells or sacks in which he stores a little honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker in wax he is of the most primitive and awkward. The Indian regarded the honey-bee as an ill-omen. She was the white man's fly. In fact she was the epitome of the white man himself. She has the white man's craftiness, his industry, his architectural skill, his neatness and love of system, his foresight; and above all his eager, miserly habits. The honeybee's great ambition ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... me, perhaps there is yet time to escape the mischief! The air of Berlin is very bad, and I vex myself too much here. As we drove up to the castle when we came from Koenigsberg, one of our carriage horses stumbled and fell. That was an ill omen, and we should have heeded it and turned about immediately. Perhaps there may yet be time to flee from the threatened evil, if we go back to Koenigsberg! If I only knew what kind of gloves the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... weeks these cells begin to elaborate the thin, watery fluid called colostrum. Contrary to popular belief, the quantity of colostrum is not prophetic of the character of the milk; there is no ill-omen, to be sure, in a plentiful secretion, but a meager one is quite as likely to be followed by successful lactation. At present we are unable to predict by any means either the quantity or the quality of the milk which a ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... the inharmonious interior matter but little. Toward the foe, whose sail might have arisen on the horizon at any moment, the protecting church presented the heavy rounded walls and safely narrowed windows of its three apses, and behind them the military omen of the severe, rectangular tower. High in every one of its four sides, seaward and landward, was a window, from which many a watcher must have looked and strained anxious eyes. This is the significance of the little sea-side Cathedral, this the ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... was a good omen, and drew much comfort from it. She tried to lie awake to nurse her joy, but her eyes were so heavy that she fell asleep in the midst of ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... chroniclers' stories. One story is, that when William was born, his first exploit was to grasp a handful of straw, and to hold it so tenaciously in his little fist that the nurse could scarcely take it away. The nurse was greatly delighted with this infantile prowess; she considered it an omen, and predicted that the babe would some day signalize himself by seizing and holding great possessions. The prediction would have been forgotten if William had not become the conqueror of England at a future day. As it was, it was remembered and recorded; and it suggests to our imagination ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... me," said she, "a good omen that the enchanter has to-day received a message which caused him to leave so early and in such haste that he did not securely close the cage, and that you returned so early to-day from the garden. This day is my birthday, the only day that I can be delivered ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... April, and bad news had just arrived. Glendower had commenced the campaign with great vigour, as the appearance of a comet had been interpreted, by the bards, as an omen most favourable to him, and his force had greatly increased during the winter. He had destroyed the houses and strong places of all Welshmen who had not taken up arms at his orders, and had closely blockaded Carnarvon. He marched to Bangor, levelled the cathedral, ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... whole neighbourhood. She was always due at the house of affliction and, with her kindly heart and a certain skill in nursing, she proved a sort of melancholy blessing. Her predilection for disaster caused her to be regarded as a bird of ill-omen, for where Mrs. Fraser was, there would calamities be gathered together, and to see her issue from the big gate on the brow of the south hill with her ominous-looking black bag was sufficient to raise apprehension in every heart. Indeed, Mrs. Duffy, who lived nearly opposite ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... are to me a good omen of deliverance, for it was once prophesied to me that, through storks, a great piece of good fortune is to ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... substituting ******* **** for Ben, and the Honble United Company of Merch'ts trading to the East Indies for the Master of the misused Team, it might seem by no far fetched analogy to point its dim warnings hitherward—but I reject the omen—especially as its import seems to have been diverted to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a bird that came flapping its wings against the window of the room in which lay a sick person, and this visit was considered a certain omen of that person's death. The bird not only fluttered about the lighted window, but also made a screeching noise whilst there, and also as it flew away. The bird, singled out for the dismal honour of being a death prognosticator, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... the passion to win them. The two renewed their tickets of admission and passed on into the famous atrium, stared a while at the news bulletin, whereon all the important events of the day are briefly set forth, and gazed musingly at the bats darting across the ceiling, real bats, a sinister omen such as one sees in imaginative paintings of the Door of Hades. At nine they joined the never-ending procession which passes in and out of the swinging doors day ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... letter to-day, and was so glad thereof. It was of good omen to me also. I worked from ten to one (my classes are suspended now for Xmas holidays), and wrote four or five Portfolio pages of my Buckinghamshire affair. Then I went to Duddingston and skated all afternoon. If you had seen the moon rising, a perfect sphere of smoky ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with them at the Union League Club, and stating that, in common with all true Republicans, they rejoiced at the happy issue of the earnest struggle in the Chicago convention. They hailed the general approval of its work as an auspicious omen, and looked forward confidently to the labors of the canvass. They felt an especial and personal gratification in the fact that the ticket selected at Chicago bore his name. His faithfulness in public duties, his firmness ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... meditatively at his waterpipe. He thereupon inquired if Matthews were acquainted with another friend of the prince among the merchants of Shuster, himself a Firengi by birth, though recently persuaded of the truths of Islam; and not like this visitor of good omen, in the bloom of youth, but bearded and hardened in battles, bearing the scars ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Mr. Speaker, the land in whose representative chair you sit; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish to the German sea east and west, emptied and embowelled (may God avert the omen of our crimes!) by so accomplished a desolation. Extend your imagination a little further, and then suppose your ministers taking a survey of this scene of waste and desolation; what would be your thoughts if you should be informed, that they were computing how much had been the amount of the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the scene. The whole is a dramatic lyric that moves from broader tune to a reiterated note of sad desire, driven to a splendid height of crowned bliss. The turbulence of early love is there; pure ardor in flaming tongues of ecstasy; the quick turn of mood and the note of omen of the original poem: the violence of early love and the fate that ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... wind instrument, while the priest offered the sacrifice, and the incense was burning, to procure the favour of the gods; the waits, or spondaulae, continuing their music, to prevent the priest from hearing sounds of ill omen, which might disturb the ceremony, or divert his attention. It has been suggested, in this view of the origin of the waits, which many writers consider to be the real source of the custom, that they are altogether anti-christian, and of heathen and idolatrous foundation, and of consequence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... "Omen? omen?—the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.—Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... almost certainly end in a formal call upon the family. He might perhaps send Bubble over with an invitation to go fishing. No, that was too risky. Esther might refuse to go fishing and that would be a bad omen. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... dashes by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... a kettle and a tripod,' asked the old w omen, and the emperor ordered them to be brought instantly. The old woman picked them up, and tucking them under her arm went on her way, keeping at a little distance behind the royal huntsmen, who in their ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... in the harbor, and thus produce a collision, until they had been actually attacked, or until I had certain evidence that they were about to be attacked. This paper I received most cordially, and considered it as a happy omen that peace might still be preserved, and that time might thus be gained for reflection. This is the whole ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... said the happy lover, "the day is done; your old life is finished; it has been a happy time, and it sets in glory and splendor. The red light in the west is a happy omen of the day ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... out of the window, and feel how deliciously fresh and cool it is!" commanded Winona. "Look at that bright planet! I think it must be Jupiter. I take it as a good omen for to-morrow. The storm will have cleared your brain, and your star's in the ascendant. Here's ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... before when the word got out in Cottonville that we had some scheme to make the niggers white, the niggers there took up with the idea that the doctor was mebby the feller the bishop had been prophesying about, and for a sign and a omen and a miracle of his grace and powers was going out to Big Bethel to turn 'em white. Poor devils, they didn't see but what being turned white orter be a part of what they was to get from the coming ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... Gore—now 42 Hyde Park Gate. There his second son, James Fitzjames, was born on March 3, 1829. James was the name upon which my grandfather insisted because it was his own. My father, because the name was his own, objected as long as he could, but at last compounded, and averted the evil omen, by adding Fitzjames. Two other children, Leslie and Caroline Emelia, were born in 1832 and 1834 at the same house. The Kensington of those days was still distinctly separate from London. A high wall divided Kensington ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... that chamber of death and informed Scott of our discovery. Most of the plainsmen are very superstitious, and we were no exception to the general rule. We surely thought that this incident was an evil omen, and that we would be killed if we ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... April 13th, 1841.—. . . . Here I am in a polar Paradise! I know not how to interpret this aspect of nature,—whether it be of good or evil omen to our enterprise. But I reflect that the Plymouth pilgrims arrived in the midst of storm, and stepped ashore upon mountain snowdrifts; and, nevertheless, they prospered, and became a great people,—and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Captain; no one had expected that he would. 'I didn't notice at first, but of course I hope you're a good omen. It's needed. And this,' he pointed to the learned gentleman, 'your ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... ensnare the mother bird with her young during incubation, and to employ them for the purpose of securing fruitfulness and good luck in bringing up children: also because it was held to be a good omen to find the mother sitting on ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... complicated affair. For Talmudic traditions of death by sneezing see Lane (M. E. chaps. viii). Amongst Hindus sneezing and yawning are caused by evil spirits whom they drive away by snapping thumb and forefinger as loudly as possible. The pagan Arabs held sneezing a bad omen, which often stopped their journeys. Moslems believe that when Allah placed the Soul (life ?) in Adam, the dry clay became flesh and bone and the First Man, waking to life, sneezed and ejaculated "Alhamdolillah;" whereto ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... this may not be an omen, and that I may not be compelled to eat my bread with tears, and to weep through nights of affliction! But if it must be, O God, give me strength to bear my misfortunes uncomplainingly, and to be a comfort to my husband, a mother ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... his blanket over his face, in expectation of the fatal shot, the Chief stepped forward and presented some water to him, as a token of pardon, when he was permitted again to join the party. They consider it also as a very bad omen in common with the Tartars, to cut a stick that has been burnt by fire, and with them they consign every thing to destruction, though it be their canoe, as polluted, if it be sprinkled with the water of animals. ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... "Their enemies," he said, "outnumbered them eight to one; but that was only an incitement to glorious exertion. He had dreamt on the past night," he told them, "that a furious animal had rushed into his tent, which, after a long struggle, he had slain. With such an omen," he exclaimed, "success is certain to those who fight under the protection of his great arm, who raiseth the weak to glory, and casteth down the proudest oppressors." If his troops were encouraged by this speech, they were still more so by his example. After his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... family; to those who are, the event which has happened will only serve as the corroboration of an old tradition that long has been related of the apartment in which you slept. You have seen the Radiant Boy; and it is an omen of prosperous fortunes;—I would rather that this subject should no more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... two hours after Velasquez had left our camp to visit Narvaez, the drum beat to arms, and our little army set forwards on our march for Chempoalla. We killed two wild hogs on our way, which our soldiers considered as a good omen of our ultimate success. We halted for the night on the side of a rivulet, having the ground for a bed, stones for our pillows, and heaven for our canopy, and arrived next day at the place where the city of Vera Cruz is now built, which was then an Indian village in a grove ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... chamber, he observed on his dressing-table a small packet addressed to his name, and in an unknown handwriting. Opening it, he found a pretty racing-jacket embroidered with his colours of pink and white. This was a perplexing circumstance, but he fancied it on the whole a happy omen. And who was the donor? Certainly not the Princess Lucretia, for he had observed her fashioning some maroon ribbons, which were the colours of Sidonia. It could scarcely be from Mrs. Guy Flouncey. Perhaps Madame Colonna ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... company, preferring to spend the night devouring some books lately come from Venice. He had striven to tell me of a mysterious experience. A stone bearing the image of Apollo had fallen before him as he read, and he had accepted it as a propitious omen. I laughed rudely and he ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... wreathe with ivy-spray Your budding poet, so that Codrus burst With envy: if he praise beyond my due, Then bind my brow with foxglove, lest his tongue With evil omen ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... he) It is a planet, now I see And, if I err not, by his proper Figure, that's like tobacco-stopper, It should be Saturn. Yes, 'tis clear 455 'Tis Saturn; but what makes him there? He's got between the Dragon's Tail And farther Leg behind o' th' Whale. Pray heav'n divert the fatal omen, For 'tis a prodigy not common; 460 And can no less than the world's end, Or ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... of it was steeling him against the canker of Joan's untimely disappearance. "I don't look much like a Greek," he said to himself; "but the 'Alexandre' sounds well as an omen. I'm not so sorry now. This business ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the deck; on which one of the young mates, emphatically regarding it for a moment, cried out with the emotion so natural to a sailor under such circumstances, "What! is the Kent's compass really gone?" leaving the bystanders to form, from that omen, their own conclusions. One promising young officer of the troops was seen thoughtfully removing from his writing-case a lock of hair, which he composedly deposited in his bosom; and another officer procuring paper and pens, ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... but reasonable, and I had to assent, though to turn back seemed an evil omen, and to carry me away from Bessie. The horses were stabled, and I meanwhile paced the broad open sweep in front of the tavern, across which the lights were shining. Hiram improved the opportunity to eat a hearty supper, urging me to partake. But as I declined, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various |
