"Omen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very ancient custom, not yet fully explained, but which clearly had for its object the reverential burying of a rabbit or hare. It is characteristic of the totem animal that it serves as an omen to its clansmen, and we find that the hare is an omen in Britain. Boudicca is said to have drawn an augury from a hare, taken from her bosom, and which when released pursued a course that was deemed ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... deal; what Lambeth Chapel brings out with singular vividness is the strange audacity with which the Archbishop threw himself across the strongest religious sentiments of his time. Men noted as a fatal omen the accident that marked his first entry into Lambeth; the overladen ferry-boat upset in the crossing, and though horses and servants were saved the Primate's coach remained at the bottom of the Thames. But no omen brought hesitation to that bold, narrow mind. His first action, he tells ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Away with thee! May the graves open and swallow thee ten thousand fathoms deep, thou bird of ill omen! Who bade thee come here? Away, I tell thee, or I will run thee ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the faint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the Angelus. Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation. The Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some miraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange significance. With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to cool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had not had his supper. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... evil omen, traitor to Uglik, attempted slayer of Invar and me, I offer you!" cried Anak ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... replied "A poor maimed copy of Brutus!" Too much like, Indeed, to be so unlike! too unskilled At Philippi and the honest battle-pike, To be so skilful where a man is killed Near Pompey's statue, and the daggers strike At unawares i' the throat. Was thus fulfilled An omen once of Michel Angelo?— When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete, And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow Upon the marble, at Art's thunderheat, Till haply (some pre-shadow rising slow Of what his Italy would fancy meet ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... general, provisional only, and that a new order of things was at hand. The creation of a settled sanctuary was to be coincident with the establishment of an abiding kingdom, to which the grace of God was vouchsafed. It was an evil omen for Saul that the erection of a fixed sanctuary was not even mooted under him. The close of Ps. lxxviii. likewise points out the intimate connection of the kingdom and ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the day before I was married back in Iowa. Robert came up that evening, and saw me with a brown dress on and marigolds at my waist. 'Wear them to-morrow, Deborah,' says he. 'They're so bright and sunny and a good omen. You see, we're going to need sunshine on our wedding journey.' So the next day, when I was married, I wore some marigolds against my white dress. Some folks thought 'twas an awful queer thing to do. They said roses would have ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... half-supported her as she poured out her grief in words of pleading and entreaty; but Cedric was as adamant, he would not bend to offer any hope. This unbending quality she could not understand, and took it as an omen of ill. In very truth she felt she was to lose for all time her heart's idol. And when Cedric spoke to the guard and told him he was ready to go, she cried "Nay, nay, nay!" in such awful agony he came near relenting. She turned white and would have fallen, had not Cedric supported her. Janet ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... queer thing (I don't know whether a punishment or an omen of blessing) that our talk when you prophesied my repentance took place on the same road I travelled last night in a car of the same make and same power. The same moon which gazed coldly on you and me, and maybe eavesdropped, beamed ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... celebrate the union of Napoleon and Marie Louise, Prince Schwartzenberg gave a fete, at which a fire occurred, the Prince's wife and some twenty other people being burnt to death. The superstitious drew attention to the coincidence, and it is said that Napoleon looked upon it as an evil omen. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... court seemed to remain neuter, and persuaded as I was that should the society receive a severe check it would not come from the parliament, I saw in the inaction of government the ground of their confidence and the omen of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... are sick: For, as sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost, If the maggot cries click when it scratches the post; But a kettle of scalding hot-water injected Infallibly cures the timber affected; The omen is broken, the danger is over; The maggot will die, and the sick will recover. Such a worm was Will Wood, when he scratch'd at the door Of a governing statesman or favourite whore; The death of our nation he seem'd to foretell, And the sound of his brass ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... slept on deck, and when he landed, his finances consisted only of a few shillings; yet, with a cheerful heart, he walked to Philadelphia, a distance of thirty-three miles, with only his fowling-piece on his shoulder. He shot a red-headed woodpecker by the way,—an omen of his future pursuits, for hitherto he had devoted no attention to the study ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... without any hesitation, for he understood in a moment that those savage and superstitious men regarded the appearance of a reptile as an evil omen and an announcement that the flight ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and a vote passed, at your last [1] meeting, on a subject the substance whereof you had al- ready accepted as a By-law. But, I shall take this as a favorable omen, a fair token that heavy lids are opening, even wider than before, to the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the lover's presents,—the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the fruits,—the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not eat,—she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... into the woods, which were very thick at that point, and tied them. My beast, however, lay down and rolled, saddle and all, thus breaking my mirror—a most unlucky omen—and the bottle of olive oil which we had brought along for mayonnaise dressing. Tish is fond of mayonnaise, and, besides, considers olive oil most strengthening. However, it was gone, and although Aggie comforted me by suggesting that her boiled salad dressing ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... no man can foresee the coming evil, or how great our woes and distractions may be?" he asked, with a gloomy triumph. "Whoever thought to hear De Ruyter's guns at Sheerness, or to see the Royal Charles led captive? Absit omen! Who knows what destruction may come upon that other Royal Charles, for whose safety we pray morning and night, and who lolls across a basset-table, perhaps, with his wantons around him, while we are on our knees supplicating the Creator for him? Who knows? We may have London in flames again, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... bedstead keeps, With direful notes to fright your sleeps; No furies here about To put the tapers out, Watch or did make the bed: 'Tis omen full of dread; But all fair signs appear Within the chamber here. Juno here far off doth stand, Cooling sleep ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... the pharaoh, "then they threaten me thus from the first day of my reign. My mother, a dog barks loudest when he is afraid; so threats are of evil omen, but ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... the numbering and registering of the people in their tribes and centuries. The consuls in general commanded the army, but sometimes, when there was a great need, one single leader was chosen and was called dictator. Sometimes a dictator was chosen merely to fulfil an omen, by driving a nail into the head of the great statue of Jupiter in the Capitol. Besides these, all the priests had to be patricians; the chief of all was called Pontifex Maximus. Some say this was because he was the fax (maker) ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of human beings arrived. Nobles and nobodies, beauties and blacklegs, dispersed in all directions. The Duke of Burlington carried off the French princes and the Protocolis, the Bloomerlys and the Vaticans, to his Paradise of Marringworth. The Fitz-pompeys cantered off with the Shropshires; omen of felicity to the enamoured St. Maurice and the enamouring Sophy. Annesley and Squib returned to their pates. Sir Lucius and Lady Aphrodite, neither of them with tempers like summer skies, betook their way to Cambridgeshire, like ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... aught of evil omen save that which signifies some evil thing? Cowardice is a word of evil omen, if thou wilt, and meanness of spirit, and lamentation and mourning, and shamelessness. ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... not only a big and powerful man—he was also courageous, but the absence of Dodge and the presence of Cunningham offered such sinister omen that temporarily he was bereft of his natural wit ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... had their faces disfigured, disturbed many even of those who, as a rule, despised such things. A story was put about that the Corinthians, of whom the Syracusans were a colony, had done it, hoping that such an evil omen might make the Athenians either postpone or give up their expedition. But the people paid no heed to this insinuation, and still less to those who argued that there was no omen in the matter at all, but that it was the work of extravagant young men after their wine. They regarded the incident ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... done speaking there rose up from the Champions a hum as of praise, and Ralph was well-pleased withal, deeming it a good omen; so he said: "Fear not, good fellows, that I shall forget you when we have overcome the foemen, and meanwhile we will live and die together. But thou, ancient man, show our sergeants where our riders shall lie to-night, and what they shall ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the mysterious incident which broke in upon the eager and bustling movement of Athens, a few days before the Sicilian expedition was starting. In reference to that expedition, it was taken to heart as a most depressing omen. It would doubtless have been so interpreted, had it been a mere undesigned accident happening to any venerated religious object—just as we are told that similar misgivings were occasioned by the occurrence, about this same time, of the melancholy festival ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... and flagrant dishonesty. Business men, although Home Rulers, agree that the destinies of the country should not be trusted to either or any of the jarring factions, which like unclean birds of evil omen hover darkling around, already disputing with horrid dissonance possession of the carcase on which they hope to batten. At the Station Hotel, Limerick Junction, a warm Nationalist said to me, "The country will be ruined with those ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... grass plots in the direction of the temple. She could see from a distance a black figure seated on the portico, and she hastened her steps. She recognized the familiar squat, black-clothed person of Mrs. Ducharme. There, in the sunlight between the broken pillars, this gloomy figure seemed of ill omen. Alves regretted that she had ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... first 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 turn followed ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... three days,' to a 'dream' containing that assurance, and thence to apparitions of a young woman and a robin-redbreast. The appearance of that bird, by the way, is, in the folk-lore of Surrey, an omen of death. Walpole was in a position to know all current gossip, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... old cotton-wood trees that grew along the bank, lamentably abused by lightning and tempest, were withering with the drought, and on the dead limbs, at the summit of the tallest, half a dozen crows were hoarsely cawing like birds of evil omen as they were. We had no alternative but to keep on. There was no water nearer than the South Fork of the Platte, about ten miles distant. We moved forward, angry and silent, over a desert as flat as ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... had a good many at the top already, you know," answered Tom, watching the operation with as much interest as if he had faith in the omen. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... to Rome. Raphael could not be induced to join the 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 shrank ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... of Ohio and from several cities of the adjoining States, there came letters in cordial appreciation of the critical recognition which it was my pleasure no less than my duty to offer Paul Dunbar's work in another place. It seemed to me a happy omen for him that so many people who had known him, or known of him, were glad of a stranger's good word; and it was gratifying to see that at home he was esteemed for the things he had done rather than because as the son of negro slaves he had done them. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... us, that, according to Hippocrates's Doctrine, Deafness is a very dangerous Symptom in the Beginning of acute Disorders, though it be a good Omen, and portends Health, when it does not appear till the Height of Fevers, especially those of a malignant Kind; and adds, that he himself has a thousand Times observed, that those labouring under this Fever have recovered, when this Symptom of Deafness ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... mightier struggle, and the volunteers of the Confederacy, enduring all things and sacrificing all things, the prototype and model of a new army, in which North and South shall march to battle side by side. ABSIT OMEN! But in whatever fashion his own countrymen may deal with the problems of the future, the story of Stonewall Jackson will tell them in what spirit they should be faced. Nor has that story a message for America alone. The hero who ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... rather poorly dressed and pushed about as I was. When the surge again gave him footing, he spoke beside me. "'Now that this is over, they might do some great, worthy thing!' Very true, friend, they might! I take your words for good omen." The throng shot out an arm and we were parted. The same action brought back to me Diego Lopez. Speaking to him later of the tall man, he said that he had noticed him, and that it was the Italian who would go to India by ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... raised to this barrier, which seemed to shut out the boisterous world beyond, he fancied he noticed for the first time a slight breach in the parapet, over which an advanced banner of the fog was fluttering. Was it an omen? His speculations were cut short by a ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... full of infinite significance—the snapping of a dry twig among the shadows; a sound that made the ensuing silence but the more profound, a breathless quietude which, as moment after moment dragged by, grew full of deadly omen. And now, even as Barnabas turned to front these menacing shadows, the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... hear my husband first," she answered coldly, and Larssen took it as an ill omen. He offered her a chair again, and seated himself so as to command ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... from the circlet of rubies which, like the espousal ring of the Serenissimo, had been consecrated with solemn mass and benediction by the Patriarch of Venice,—did the words of the ancient rite occur to some among that throng of nobles, perchance, as an omen? ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Mrs. Colwood could sleep. Was the emotion she had just witnessed—flinging itself geyserlike into sight, only to sink back as swiftly out of ken—was it an effect of the past or an omen of the future? The longing expressed in the girl's heart and voice, after the brave show she had made—had it overpowered her just because she felt herself alone, without natural protectors, on the brink of her ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opprobrium I heap upon you—you, the most pointless things imaginable, saucy apes, brewers of odious contrasts, haunting birds of ill omen, mocking echoes, unseasonable reminders, oft-returning vexations, skeletons in my morris-chair, jesters in the tomb, death's-heads at the wedding feast, outlaws of the brain that every night defy the mind's police service, thieves ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... species of pigeon that nests in the Hills. It seldom sings, and then only at nightfall. It is reverenced by these people, who believe that it sings prophecies of good or evil, the character of the omen being determined by the point of the compass in which it lights to offer its rare evening song. Direction is gauged from where the Tribal Agong hangs—I will show you that after supper. It is a queer superstition, Major: they think that a song ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... few slashes and jabs, von Schlichten knocked the unwieldy thing from his opponent's hand. This raised a fearful ullulation from the Skilkan nobility, who had stopped fighting to watch the duel; evidently it was the very worst sort of a bad omen. Firkked, seemingly relieved to be disencumbered of the thing, caught his sword in both hands and aimed a roundhouse swing at von Schlichten's head; von Schlichten dodged, crippled one of Firkked's lower hands with ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... "That's a good omen," said Fran, pressing Mrs. Gregory's hand. "The moonlight was beautiful when I was on the ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... effort of your literary power one further claim, besides the many you have already established, to the gratitude and veneration of Catholics, and trust that the reception which it has met with on all sides may be the omen of new successes which you are destined to achieve in the vindication of the teaching and principles of ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... 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 ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... chief and the queenly Wiwaste 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 grove ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... way divining the count's project, his friends followed him, accompanied by a crowd of people whose acclamations and delight seemed a happy omen for the success of that project with which they were yet unacquainted. The wind was blowing strongly from the harbor, and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in it, and felt glad as well as they; for while she might have doubts of howling dogs and dripping candles, this seemed an omen that heaven itself might deign to send as a ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the new day shone on them, on his daughter and grandson and the prowler pups, and in it he saw the bright omen for ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... my whole desire, And listened for the queen of all the quire. Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing, And wanted yet an omen to ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Creoles—to the incoming lower class of superstitious Germans, Irish, Sicilians, and others—he became an omen and embodiment of public and private ill-fortune. Upon him all the vagaries of their superstitions gathered and grew. If a house caught fire, it was imputed to his machinations. Did a woman go off in a fit, he had bewitched her. Did a child stray off for an hour, the mother shivered ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... and no more auspicious omen could have been furnished Mrs. Halliday than the fact that, except in several unimportant details, Sally could have put it on and worn it, just as it was. Not only did it fit, but the intervening years had brought ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... battle at Tucuman, and the Spaniards suffered a heavy loss in men and munitions of war. Belgrano, then in turn advanced and made once again for Salta. In the neighbourhood of this town the Argentine flags were carried into battle for the first time, and their presence was welcomed as a favourable omen, for the victory remained with the patriot forces. Belgrano showed himself generous as a victor by liberating the great majority of his prisoners on parole, which, it is regrettable to state, large ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... has no constitutional power to hold territory that is not to be erected into States in the Union, or to govern people that are not to be made citizens. They are able to cite great names in support of their contention; and it would be an ill omen for the freest and most successful constitutional government in the world if a constitutional objection thus fortified should be carelessly considered or hastily overridden. This objection rests mainly on the ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... interrupted the speech, and she leaned over the parapet to see. Then she drew back, and cried, with hands clasped above her head, "Now blessed be Isis! 'Tis he—Ben-Hur himself! That he should appear while I had such thought of him! There are no gods if it be not a good omen. Put your arms about me, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... we gained that beauteous height, Where dwells the monarch, of the sons of light; Thou knowest he declared us two to be The chosen servants of his ministry, Thou as his messenger, a sacred sign Of conquest, or, with omen more benign, To give its due weight to the righteous cause, To express ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... other than to me Thy words were evil augury; But still I hold Sir Roderick's blade Clan-Alpine's omen and her aid, Not aught that, gleaned from heaven or hell, Yon fiend-begotten Monk can tell. The Chieftain joins him, see—and now ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... answered the admiral. "I have not been let into their secret intentions, and I don't wish to act the part of a bird of ill-omen; though I confess that, were he to have the offer of a ship, I should ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 a ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the various phenomena of the heavens inspired into those who knew not their causes; and he mentions a striking proof which he gave of this knowledge, on his expedition against Peloponnesus, when there happened an eclipse of the sun. The sudden darkness, being considered as an omen unfavourable to the object of the expedition, occasioned a general consternation. Pericles, observing the pilot of his own galley to be frightened and confused, took his cloak and placed it before his eyes, asking him at the same time if he found any thing alarming, or of evil presage, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... 960 To prayers, then winds and seas, yet winds to seas Are reconcil'd at length, and Sea to Shore: Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, Eternal tempest never to be calm'd. Why do I humble thus my self, and suing For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate? Bid go with evil omen and the brand Of infamy upon my name denounc't? To mix with thy concernments I desist Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 970 Fame if not double-fac't is double-mouth'd, And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds, On both his ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time. Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Astolphe on his hippogriff, I was galloping through worlds, suiting them to my fancy. Presently, as I looked about me to find some omen for the bold productions my wild imagination was urging me to undertake, a pretty cry, the cry of a woman issuing refreshed and joyous from a bath, rose above the murmur of the rippling fringes as their flux and reflux marked ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... was staying with his guardian, an old Colonel Sinclair; and when my father came up to town he and this Colonel Sinclair discovered that they were old school-fellows, which Leo and I looked upon as a good omen for our friendship. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... before the mad tempest under bare poles. A snow-white sea-bird came for shelter from the storm, and poised on the deck to rest. The incident filled my sailors with awe; to them it was a portentous omen, and in distress they dragged themselves together and, prostrate before the bird, prayed the Holy Virgin to ask God to keep them from harm. The rain beat on us in torrents, as the bark tossed and reeled ahead, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... Emma and Louis recurred to my mind. I dressed; the hairdresser called me "Madame" too, and arranged my hair so nicely that I said, I remember, "Things are beginning well; this coiffure is a good omen." I stopped Marie, who wished to lace me tighter than usual. I know that white makes one look stouter and that Marie was right; but I was afraid lest it should send the blood to my head. I have always had a horror of brides who looked as if they had ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... The "happy omen" of getting her passage to New York free had stopped working on the Monarchic. Since then bad luck had walked after her and jumped onto her lap and purred on her pillow, exactly like a cat that persistently clings to a person who dislikes it. All the positions which she was competent to ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... little native climbed the mast after them; but though they are generally so tame, or so stupid, as to permit themselves to be approached and taken with the hand, these flew away before he could seize them. We hailed the appearance of these birds as a favourable omen, neither species being often seen at any considerable distance from land. It was, I suppose, about an hour after this, that happening to look back, I saw what appeared to be a high island, covered with tall groves of palms, some two miles distant. The elevated shores, and the green tops of the trees, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... edge of the throng, and the news was passed along from man to man until it swept up the steps, through the lobby and to the dining room upstairs where the football men of the Varsity team were impatiently awaiting lunch. "A good omen," said the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... principles of liberty. The planters look with astonishment on the continuance of slavery in the United States, and express their strong belief that it must soon terminate here and throughout the world. They hailed the arrival of French and American visitors on tours of inquiry as a bright omen. In publishing our arrival, one of the St. John's papers remarks, "We regard this as a pleasing indication that the American public have their eyes turned upon our experiment, with a view, we may ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... seamen thought it a good omen— It is as well to think so, now and then; 'T was an old custom of the Greek and Roman, And may become of great advantage when Folks are discouraged; and most surely no men Had greater need to nerve themselves again Than these, and so this rainbow look'd like hope— ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... o'clock in the evening, one of my friends came to seek me at the Rue de la Fontaine, to conduct me to the general rendezvous. We traversed together the whole city. A bright moon illuminated the streets. I regarded the fine weather as a favorable omen for the next day. I examined with care the places through which I passed. The silence which reigned made an impression upon me. By what would ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... wine, nor sit in the theatre the hired applauder of the mouthing actor. But whether the citadel of panoplied Minerva allure him with its smile, or the land where the Spartan exile came to dwell, or the Sirens' home, let him devote his early years to poesy, and let his spirit drink in with happy omen a draught from the Maeonian fount. Thereafter, when his soul is full of the lore of the Socratic school, let him give himself free rein and brandish the weapons of great Demosthenes. Next let the band of Roman authors throng him round, and, but newly freed from the music of Greece, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... that we could not find it, till one of the king's footmen recollecting me, I imagined, came forward, a volunteer, and walked by the side of the chaise to show the postilion the house.—N.B. No bad omen to worldly augurers. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... upon a flat stone, she cut them through the jaws, and, extracting the poison sac, stirred the fluid into the tin cup. While she stirred, she remembered that she had heard an owl hoot the night before. It was an ill-omen, and it had sounded close. The hooting of an owl meant harm to some one. She wondered now if an owl feather would not make the medicine stronger. She set down her cup and looked carefully under the trees, but could find no feathers. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... the augury of the ancients was a good deal founded upon the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,—but two may be always regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather, one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together, it is only when the weather is warm and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... reign Akkad attained to a splendour which surpassed that of Babylon. In an omen text the monarch is lauded as the "highly exalted one without a peer". Tradition relates that when he was an old man all the Babylonian states rose in revolt against him and besieged Akkad. But the old warrior led forth his army ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... proper for human life, [133] where a gentle temperance reigns; and at the extremes she drew the twin zones of numbing cold, making her work dun and sad with the hues of perpetual frost. She paints in, too, the sacred places of Dis, her father's brother, and the Manes, so fatal to her; and an omen of her doom was not wanting; for, as she worked, as if with foreknowledge of the future, her face became wet with a sudden burst of tears. And now, in the utmost border of the tissue, she had begun to wind in the wavy line of the river ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Cinq-Diamants, and got the address of the owner, for the purpose of negotiating a lease. As he sauntered through the dusky labyrinth of the great market, thinking how to achieve a rapid success, he suddenly came, in the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, upon a rare chance, and one of good omen, with which he resolved to regale Cesar on the morrow. Soon after, while standing about the door of the Hotel du Commerce, at the end of the Rue des Deux-Ecus, about midnight, he heard, in the far distance of the Rue de Grenelle, a vaudeville chorus sung by Gaudissart, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... an omen of good that chairs of political and social science are being established in all our high grade colleges to train young men for this service. They ought to prosper, and will. Milton saw this need years ago, and said: "The next remove must be to the study of politics, to know ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... it, and of which I would of course have said nothing, but that he chanced to brog his thumb, and completely soiled the whole piece of work with the stains of blood; which, for one thing, could not wash out without being seen; and, for another, was an unlucky omen to happen to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... Already in vivid imagination he saw a goodly city rise, mapped out the courts and streets in his mind, and explained his glowing schemes to the friendly Heitz. The steward himself was carried away with zeal. The very name of the hill was hailed as a promising omen. "May God grant," wrote Heitz to the Count, "that your excellency may be able to build on the hill called the Hutberg a town which may not only itself abide under the Lord's Watch (Herrnhut), but all the inhabitants of which may also continue on the Lord's Watch, so that no silence may be ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... was one element yet wanting to assure the right usage of all this wealth of material, intellectual, and ecclesiastical power. This was what the slaveholding aristocracy saw at once to be the fatal omen for their cause, and nicknamed 'Abolitionism.' Abolitionism, as recognized by the Slave Power, is nothing more nor less than the religious reverence for man and his natural rights. This moral respect for the nature and rights of all men has always encountered the peculiar scorn of aristocracies, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... anything to celebrate it with some lucky event, although I was at a loss to think of anything lucky that could have happened to me there. Indeed, I began my new year badly—much worse even than I expected. That was an ill-omen to me. First of all there was a terrible row among my men in camp. They had taken to their rifles. They wanted to shoot the cook. The man deserved punishment, perhaps, but not quite so severe a one. After a great deal of arguing I quieted them and got them to lay down their weapons. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... beautiful still evening. July was not yet ended, and roses, lilies, and mignonette breathed their fragrance upon the air. Overhead one clear star was shining; like the star of promise that shone of old, it seemed to Marjory an omen of a new life for her. Peace entered into her soul as she gazed upwards. Away to the west the last lingering tints of a late sunset were still to be seen; the whole world seemed at rest. She, too, would lie down and sleep, calm after the storm, and ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... when o'er rock and dell A sudden stream of yellow splendour fell, As if a star, with sunlike lustre crown'd, Dropp'd instantaneous thro' the blue profound. His heaving breast the joyful omen cheer'd, And now thro' ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... scarcely known; yet Lamb dedicated his prose works to him, in 1818, and there described him as "no common judge of books and men;" and Southey, corresponding with Rickman, when his "Joan of Arc" was being reprinted, says, "The best omen I have heard of its welldoing is, that Martin Burney likes it." Lamb was very much attached to Martin, who was a sincere and able man, although with a very unprepossessing physiognomy. His face was warped by paralysis, which affected one eye and one ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... case," returns courteous Manager, bowing most graciously as he emphasises the possessive pronoun. In the hall are trim young ladies, pleasant matronly ladies, chorus of young porters and old porters, all smiling, and awaiting my lightest bow and heaviest baggage. I am "to be shown up." (Absit omen!) However, I am shown up. Charming room: sea-view, nearly all the views from the windows of Royal Bath are sea-views, take the Bath which way you will; and the welcome is so warm, it ought to be The Warm ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... looked like an old man, but moved briskly, clad himself in good armour, and seemed a mighty warrior. His joy broke forth in words, and he chanted songs of gladness in vengeance, and joy in strife, and evil omen to the death-doomed foe. Thus gladly, with spear in hand, he went forth to find his enemy and avenge his son; but he turned and kissed his brave wife farewell, for he said: "It may well be that we shall not ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... it does so visibly, just where Pembury is. I take it as an omen. In your diary to-morrow you may write down in the business column that you have had a business letter from me, or as near to one as I can go:—chiefly for that it requires an answer on this matter of "outside importance," ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... increase the sense of our own imperfection, and be sure that the diminution of a consciousness of sin means not diminished power of sin, but lessened horror of it, lessened perception of right, lessened love of goodness, and is an omen of death, not a symptom of life. Painter, scholar, craftsman all know that the condition of advance is the recognition of an ideal not attained. Whoever has not before him a standard to which he has not reached will grow no more. If we see no faults in our work we shall never ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... some progress, and it is likely our operations will yet have a decided effect on slave-trading in Eastern Africa. I am greatly delighted with the prospect of a Church of England mission to Central Africa. That is a good omen for those who are sitting in darkness, and I trust that in process of time great benefits will be conferred on our own overcrowded population at home. There is room enough and to spare in the fair world our Father has prepared for all his progeny. I pray to be made a harbinger of good to many, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... on his way to Nuremberg[1] to fulfil a mission with certain German princes when the dauphin alighted in Brabant, like "a bird of ill omen," as he designated himself on one occasion. The count did not return to Brussels until January 12, 1457. Thus he took no part in the hearty welcome accorded to the visitor. It is more than possible that the heir of Burgundy was not wholly pleased with the state of ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... fishing towns on the east coast of Fife, till very recently, that class entertained a great horror of swine, and even at the very mention of the word. If that animal crossed their path when about to set out on a sea voyage, they considered it so unlucky an omen that they would not venture off. A clergyman of one of these fishing villages having mentioned the superstition to a clerical friend, and finding that he was rather incredulous on the subject, in order to convince him told him he would allow him an opportunity of testing the truth ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... world had moved a good deal since that cautious innovation, and after 1860, enormous and excessive masses of archive were brought into play. The Italian Revolution opened tempting horizons. In 1864 Doellinger spent his vacation in the libraries of Vienna and Venice. At Vienna, by an auspicious omen, Sickel, who was not yet known to Greater Germany as the first of its mediaeval palaeographers, showed him the sheets of a work containing 247 Carolingian acts unknown to Boehmer, who had just died with the repute of being the best authority on Imperial charters. During several years Doellinger ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... day before yesterday to Do, and was about to continue with a letter to you when a telegram called me subitissimo back to Rome. The thread of my ideas has not been broken on the journey, and I resume our conversation, a trois, on the long gestation—omen of abortion—of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... sure of getting back comfortably, . . . a stone's throw, too, it is from the Pitti, and really in my present mind I would hardly exchange with the Grand Duke himself. By the bye, as to street, we have no spectators in windows in just the grey wall of a church called San Felice for good omen. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... teaching, and, along with his books, have made his name known in all the civilised countries of the world. Some of Eucken's most important works have already appeared in half a dozen languages. The demand for them increases everywhere. This receptivity is a good omen of better days. The world is beginning to get tired of the mechanism and shallowness of our age, and is once more on the point of turning to the spiritual fountains of life. Where can it find a better guide to lead it to the waters of ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... dreams?' I said. Hers, I would have it, was one of good omen; for though she fought with the storm all night, she was not drowned. So it would be with the lads: they might encounter a gale, and get a severe buffeting, but would ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... piazza-steps, and began to peer into the long windows, at the blackness within. He did not at once notice that the shutters were open, with an effect of reckless security or indifference, which struck a pang to his heart when he realized it. He felt the evil omen of this faltering in the vigilance which had once guarded his home, and which he had been the first to break down, and lay it open to spoil and waste. He tried the windows; he must get in, somehow, and he did not dare to ring at the door, or to call ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... maintain his footing there. His account of it was, that, one day, when he was perplexed with doubt and uncertainty about his plans, he fell asleep and dreamed that he saw a swarm of bees flying southward. This was an omen, as he regarded it, indicating the course which he ought to pursue. He accordingly embarked his men on board his ships again, and crossed the Channel, and sought successfully in Normandy, a province ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Cough and by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever - but whither that way points there can be no question - and there will be a meeting of the twa Hoasting Scots Makers in spite of fate, fortune, and the Devil. ABSIT OMEN! ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Apostle of Altitude, as he has been recently denominated, welcomed the appointment of Bishop TALBOT as a good omen for the campaign which he is so ably conducting. "Nothing," he remarks, "has impressed me so much in the works of TENNYSON as the line, 'We needs must love the highest when we see it.' Mountain or building or man, it is all the same. I never felt so happy in all my travels ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... steeple,—fulness of time, or entire rottenness of axle-tree, being at last completed, at this fateful moment. Perhaps an ominous thing? Friedrich, as Caesar and others have done, cheerfully interprets the omen to his own advantage: "Sign that the High is to be brought low!" says Friedrich. Were the march-routes, wagon-trains, and multifarious adjustments perfect to the last item here at Crossen, he will with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... forth, skirting the cliffs, examining every bit of rock which showed the slightest mineral stain. Scarcely a moment of the daylight was wasted in this search. His mysterious guide no longer touched him, and this he took to be a favorable omen. "I'm near it," ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... father was a child, came swimming down from the far north, where they look for the northern lights, swimming and diving through the broken ice; and they watched her in wonder, and no one would throw a harpoon at this white lady of the Greenland seas, for her visit was a good omen, promising ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... 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 ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... in the Rubber Boot Reservation, the Stork came staggering up to a Frame Dwelling with a hefty Infant. The arrival was under the Zodiacal Sign of Taurus, the Bull. Every Omen ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... Mashauana, stopped the canoe to tell us, namely, that a water-turtle which, in trying to ascend a steep bank to lay her eggs, had toppled on her back, thus enabling us to capture her, was an infallible omen of good luck ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... that Maqueda was trembling, for she, too, thought this occurrence a very bad omen, and even Oliver remained silent, perhaps because he feared ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... leading his enemy in triumph through the streets, proclaiming before him: "This is the man whom the king delighteth to honor." As he passed by the gallows he had the day before erected for that very man, a shudder crept through his frame, and the first omen of coming evil cast its shadow ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... favorable wind had accelerated the progress of the Resolute toward the place of her destination. The navigation of the Mozambique Channel was especially calm and pleasant. The agreeable character of the trip by sea was regarded as a good omen of the probable issue of the trip through the air. Every one looked forward to the hour of arrival, and sought to give the last touch to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... story of these ships is not like that later one of the Mayflower. The colour dies out of the picture; and there remains only the worn, motley band of men—men who have taken possession of the country by the sign of the cross, fit omen of the fate ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... soul of the deceased and acquires his superhuman knowledge. As a sign of his inspiration the medium shivers and shakes. According to some accounts, however, this shivering and shaking of the medium is an evil omen; whereas if he remains tranquil, the omen is good. It is especially in cases of sickness that the images are consulted. The mode of consultation has been described as follows by a Dutch writer: "When any one is sick and wishes to know the means of cure, or when any one desires ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... 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 ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cried the old lay-sister. "I fear me it is an omen. The angel Gabriel, Reverend Mother, sent to bear you from earth to heaven. 'The one shall be taken, and the other left.' Ah, if he had but flown off with ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... 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 years. That nation should rise up against nation, and kingdom ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the rising of the sun, he did not fail to make the orthodox greeting at the exact moment that the chief's shadow passed in front of him, which Zalu Zako returned punctiliously, thereby averting an evil omen. As soon as the young man had passed beyond the next hut appeared in the grove a girl, modelled like a bronze wood nymph. She wore the tiny girdle of the unmarried and walked furtively, carrying in her hand a parcel wrapped in banana leaves. In the shadow ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... guardian's humours, has proposed to be of the party, and Lady Lillycraft has talked also of riding out to the scene of action and looking on. This has gratified the old gentleman extremely; he hails it as an auspicious omen of the revival of falconry, and does not despair but the time will come when it will be again the pride of a fine lady to carry about a noble falcon in preference to a parrot or ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... of his wife. Arundhati insulted even the wise Muni amongst the (celestial) seven. In consequence of such insulting thoughts of hers, she has become a little star, like fire mixed with smoke, sometimes visible and sometimes invisible, like an omen portending no good (amongst a constellation of seven bright stars representing the seven Rishis). I look to thee for the sake of children. I never wronged thee, like Vasishtha who never wronged his wife. Thou hast, therefore, by thy jealousy behaved towards me like Arundhati of old ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the god made of earth and corn were buried. When these effigies were taken up it would be found that the corn had sprouted actually from the body of the god, and this sprouting of the grain would, as Dr. Frazer says, be "hailed as an omen, or rather as the cause of the ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... seven spheres which have a retrograde movement, opposite to that of the heavens. One of these is the domain of the star which on earth they call Saturn. Next is the luminary which bears the name of Jupiter, of prosperous and healthful omen to the human race; then, the star of fiery red which you call Mars, and which men regard with terror. Beneath, the Sun holds nearly the midway space, [Footnote: The middle, as the fifth of the nine spheres, enclosed by four; and enclosing ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... well to-morrow—the darling little man,' said Rachel, all the more fondly for that vague omen that seemed ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the Prince Imperial pinned to the wall over the drawers, which were covered with surgical instruments. As consciousness returned to him through the medium of external objects, the poor melancholy face with its faded eyes, discoloured by the damp of the walls, suggested a sad omen of ill-fated youth. But besides ambition and cunning, Paul had his full share of courage; and raising with difficulty his head and its cumbrous wrapping of bandages, he asked in a voice broken and weak, though fleeting still, 'Wound ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... man of no mean note, was the father of our poet. He was born in 1632, at Maltesmeaburn, in the parish of Corby Ravensworth, (what a name of ill-omen within ill-omen, or as Dr Johnson would say, "inspissated gloom"!) in the county of Westmoreland. His father was a minister of the gospel; but in such humble circumstances, that Lancelot was received from the Grammar-school of Appleby into Queen's College, Oxford, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... tribe, and drawing 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. And ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... hillocks behind the hotel at Huelva you can see in the distance East Rabida, Palos, Moguer, San Juan del Porto, and the sea, where the three birds of good omen went skimming past in the vague morning light 400 years ago, lest they might be seen by the Portuguese. Columbus means dove, and the arms of Columbus contained three doves. From Huelva I sailed to Rabida first. Rabida is on the last point of the promontory, nearest the sea, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... reared. A sergeant-de-ville seized him by the bit. Listen to Madame de Gontaut: "I was frightened, and cried out. The King scolded me for it afterward. I confessed my weakness; to fall at the first step in Paris would have seemed an ill omen. The King subdued his fretful horse, said a few tender words to the children, raised his hat gracefully to the ladies surrounding us. A thousand voices shouted: Vive le Roi! The grand-master was reassured, the horse was quieted, and the King resumed his place. The carriage ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... blossom; and near one another were the two rose- bushes, one damask and one white provence, whence Somerset and Warwick were said to have plucked their fatal badges; while on the opposite side of a broad grass-plot was another bush, looked on as a great curiosity of the best omen, where the roses were streaked with alternate red and white, in honour, as it were, of the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your unlucky soul, you tun-bellied beast of ill-omen! for the bare supposition of such a thing; depart—depart quickly, and never let me ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the bird's flight would take him. No Roman legionary, going into unequal battle with his war eagle wheeling above its standard, ever watched its swift course with higher hopes or believed more fully in the omen. The eagle spread his wings and glided off to the west, flying low as he approached the plain; and as he passed over Pinal and the claim by Queen Creek, Denver ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... staid about the house all winter. Whenever the door was opened, they would fly to the little girl. The parents feared that this might be a bad omen, and that ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... this; l for r appears in Sally, Dolly, Hal P for m in Patty, Peggy; vowel-change in Harry, Jim, Meg, Kitty, &c; and in several of these the double consonant. To pursue the subject: re-duplication is used; as in Nannie, Nell, Dandie; and (by substitution) in Bob. Ded would be of ill omen; therefore we have, for Edward, Ned or Ted, n and t being coheir to d; for Rick, Dick, perhaps on account of the final d in Richard. Letters are dropped for softness: as Fanny for Franny, Bab for Barb, Wat for Walt. Maud is Norman for Mald, from Mathild, as Bauduin for Baldwin. Argidius ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... point of fact, McDowell, feeling time to be of great value, urged the President to let him move on the morning of Sunday, the 25th; but Mr. Lincoln positively refused; the battle of Bull Run had been fought on a Sunday, and he dreaded the omen.[15] This feeling which he had about days was often illustrated, and probably the reader has observed that he seemed to like dates already marked by prestige or good luck; thus he had convened Congress for July 4, and had ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... It actually seemed as if they were preposterous enough to take this ordinary meteorological incident as an omen. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... collection of his short stories about a month before. He took the letter into the "round window" of the club, overlooking the street, and tore it open excitedly. The fact that he had received a letter from the firm without the return of his manuscript seemed a good omen. This was what ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... treating 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
... of joy.]—Creon says this for the sake of the omen. The first words uttered at such a crisis would be ominous and tend ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... to them from time to time, through the afternoon. The bride-cake was considered a miracle of art, and the fact that Martha divided it with a steady hand, making the neatest and cleanest of cuts, was considered a good omen for her married life. Bits of the cake were afterwards in great demand throughout the neighborhood, not so much to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... than that women, enemy of the government and of France, without which she cannot live;" and several days previously he wrote to Fouche, "When I occupy myself with Madame de Stael, it is because I have the facts before me. That woman is a true bird of bad omen; she believes the tempest already arrived, and delights in intrigues and follies. Let her go to her Lake Leman. Have not the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... alarmed by this omen, or not, she certainly was relieved from much terror by discovering this man to be only a soldier on duty, and it immediately occurred to her, that it might be he, who had occasioned so much alarm on ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... several guesses, I said that I wished it to be a white house with brownish steps and a dark door with a white knob. Hence, great was my satisfaction when near the southeast corner of Eighteenth and K streets, we halted in front of a cottage of that description; and it was regarded as a lucky omen for me, that my first wish amid new scenes ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Particulars as to the cases hereinbefore-mentioned can be obtained from anybody in Killygordon, which is altogether a remarkable place—to say nothing of its name, which for obvious reasons has the misfortune to be unpleasant to the Grand Old Man. Nomen, Omen? ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... do, there were not many hours of the night left in which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of ill omen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at the same time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself, I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom of the streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... thoughtfully; "but the thing, you see, was in the shape of a man—a man lying at full length as if he were dead, and indeed in his grave: he might take it for his wraith—an omen ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald |
