"Omened" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spreading arms of a huge oak, he invited her to lie down and rest. She was about to accede to his invitation, when they were startled by a shrill and discordant sound accompanied with a heavy flapping of wings, and presently a flight of dull ill-omened ravens issued from their solitary abodes, and hovered about, as if to dispute the possession of their ancient ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... of their spite and anger trailed its venom through her happiness as the hideous viper had trailed across the sunny path, making her cry out that it was evil-omened. Alas! that spite and jealousy were destined to work her as deadly ill as ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... lady from a foreign land has died in the night, and the blind man who is lying in his daughter's arms has but one consolation, that of knowing that he shall soon follow her to her endless rest. And the ill-omened birds scream out to the winds that the old Slavonic curse has fallen on the castle, and the doom has lighted on the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the cause— Forget it not: when you lie down to rest, Let it be black among your dreams; and when The morn returns, so let it stand between The sun and you, as an ill-omened cloud, Upon a summer's day of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... satisfied the public clamor; and so ill-omened a commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for position, in which both armies were now manoeuvring. The real details of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. General Bragg's ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... her ears to listen through space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Llewellen, of New Mexico, a good citizen, a political leader, and one of the most noted peace-officers of the country; he had been shot four times in pitched fights with red marauders and white outlaws. There was Lieutenant Ballard, who had broken up the Black Jack gang of ill-omened notoriety, and his Captain, Curry, another New Mexican sheriff of fame. The officers from the Indian Territory had almost all served as marshals and deputy-marshals; and in the Indian Territory, service as a deputy-marshal meant capacity to fight stand-up battles ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... anxiety to get away from a place where such disagreeable things had happened. We accordingly marched about two hours, the marabouts accompanying us, and then pitched tent for the night. Sinister rumours, however, were still about, like a flight of ill-omened birds, and it was said that another troop of people were collecting further on to intercept our passage to Soudan. During this halt, grave conferences were held between the Kailouee merchant, En-Noor, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... shall forget the dismal appearance of the Cedar Barrens. The soil was nowhere more than two inches deep, and the trees which covered it by millions had all died as soon as they attained a height of fifteen or twenty feet. Swarms of ill-omened turkey-buzzards were the only living creatures visible "like foul ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... passed along the pleasant sequestered walk of Nightingale lane. For a pair of lovers what scene could be more propitious?—But such a pair of lovers! Not a nightingale sang to soothe us: the very gypsies who were encamped there during the fair, made no offer to tell the fortunes of such an ill-omened couple, whose fortunes, I suppose, they thought too legibly written to need an interpreter; and the gypsey children crawled into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us as we went by. For a moment I paused, and was almost tempted to turn gypsey, but the poetical feeling for the present was ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... night following the ill-omened banquet in Park Lane was held a second dinner party, in Cadogan Gardens. Like veritable ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... ill-omened bird through the somewhat narrow opening against the feathers, had the double effect of ruffling it out to a round and ragged shape, very much beyond its ordinary size, and of rousing its spirit to ten times its wonted ferocity, insomuch that, when ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a note, written hurriedly, to an agent of the police, whom he kept lodged near at hand. The man was still on the threshold when the boy went out on this errand, and he caught a glimpse of his face; but before the police-agent reached the spot, the ill-omened apparition had vanished. Gabriel now, as his eye rested full upon that threatening brow and those burning eyes, was convinced that he saw before him the terrible Pierre Guillot, whose very name blenched his father's cheek. When the figure retreated, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... improvements are often promised, I cannot see much change—for the better. Abbotsford, luckily, is above Galashiels, and only receives the dirt and dyes of Selkirk, Peebles, Walkerburn, and Innerleithen. On the other hand, your ill-omened later dwelling, "the unhappy palace of your race," is overlooked by villas that prick a cockney ear among their larches, hotels of the future. Ah, Sir, Scotland is a strange place. Whisky is exiled ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... child, the ill-omened report, they bring word that a decree has passed by the vote of the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... The men were awe-stricken. There was something despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet there was a savage grandeur in it, which bound their savage hearts still ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... That he thwarted my will in this respect, even by affectionate expostulation, cancelled all that debt of gratitude which I owed to him. I rewarded him for all his kindness by invective and disdain, and hastened to complete my ill-omened marriage. I had deceived the woman's father by assertions of possessing secret resources. To gratify my passion, I descended to dissimulation and falsehood. He admitted me into his family, as the husband of his child; but the character ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the Queen's Suzerainty;—an ill-omened term, which had proved fruitful in all conceivable kinds of misinterpretation, and made possible the misunderstandings and controversies that culminated in this cruel and wasteful war. So was resumed the Queen's ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... name, uttered in so ill-omened a place, I felt a fresh access of terror. It seemed as though the soul of that wicked man must be still hovering over his unburied remains, and boding evil to us all. A chill crept over me, the light, the walls, my brother, and Raffaelle all swam round, and ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... up from below, rather astonished at being so soon called. The other officers were also soon on deck Mr Randolph agreed that the stranger, which hung on our quarter like some ill-omened bird of prey, had an exceedingly suspicious appearance, and that we were only acting with ordinary prudence in ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... a new born thing, Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing; My mother died to give me birth: forlorn I came into the world, a babe of woe, Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn; Yet heir to what the idolators of show Deem life's good ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... once more, became a prey to the terror of another visit from the so-called Madame Le Prun, whose ill-omened approaches had inspired her with so much ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... democratic faction which already harassed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with the populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw Spain into anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened constitution of 1812. But above all, the attitude of the three Eastern Powers bade the ruler of France hesitate before committing himself to a military occupation of Spanish territory. Their sympathies were with Don Carlos, and the active participation ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... house-holder from his house, the physician from his patients, the notary from his office, the counsellor from his clients, the judge from his court, the husband from his wife, the brother from his brother, the father from his children, the child from his parents, and marks its ill-omened cross on every head, from the highest to the lowest. Nobody escapes. A man in tatters, wearing a long beard, came into my room one morning at Brussels. "I have just arrived," said he; "I have travelled on foot, and have had nothing to eat for two days." Some ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... clears St. Helen's shore Holds Burrard, Hope, ill-omened Moore, Clinton and Paget; while The transports that pertain to those Count six-score sail, whose planks enclose Ten ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... dear friends' door, of my hopes the goal, * Whose sight mote assuage my sorrow and woes of soul: No friends found I there, nor was there another thing * To find, save a corby-crow and an ill-omened owl. And the tongue o' the case to me seemed to say, * 'Indeed This parting two lovers fond was cruel and foul! So taste thou the sorrow thou madest them taste and live * In grief: wend thy ways and now in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... tombs of ages. All around Lies hushed and still, save with large, dusky wing The bird of night makes its ill-omened sound; Or moor-game, nestling 'neath th' flowery ling Low chuckle to their mates—or startled, spring Away on rustling pinions to the sky, Wheel round and round in many an airy ring, Then swooping downward ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... the stars went out, until none were visible except the bright, beautiful morning star, as it rose higher and higher in the eastern sky. One by one the owls and the wolves, ill-omened birds and beasts of night, retired to rest in the dark recesses of the forest. Little by little, the gray dawn overspread the sky, and paled the lustre of the morning star, until it faded away altogether; and then Jacques awoke with a start, and throwing ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ill-omened leaves, still rust apart! No further!—'tis a page turned o'er, And the long dead and coffined heart Throbs into wretched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... tempted to curl up where he sat and turn his rest into the sleep his body craved. It was in that second or so of time when he was beginning to relax, to forget the tenseness which had gripped him since his return to this ill-omened place, ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... scattered adventures. The two strongest motives, patriotic devotion and commercial gain, would have been lacking. The English have never been good at preparing for a merely possible war; they are apt, indeed, to regard such preparation as ill-omened and impious. This strenuous and self-dependent breed of men, being conscious that they do not desire war, and believing that he is thrice armed who has his quarrel just, have always been content, in the face of many warnings, to repose their main confidence in the virtue of their cause ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... first signs of that physical decay which in a very few years was to stretch him, a helpless wreck, too weak to utter his own name, upon the causeway of the London streets. At present, however, he was still an unbeaten man, the terror of the Ring, and as his ill-omened face was seen behind his infamous master many a half-raised cane was lowered and many a hot word was checked, while the whisper of "Hooper! 'Ware Bully Hooper!" warned all who were aggrieved that it might ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... story cast a cloud over our voyage; until, after long silence, during which we sat and watched the rocky coast of the ill- omened Island, the maiden said: ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... who both acquainted her with those fatal resolutions. Those gentlemen, however, assured her that the King would resolutely hold out against the tri-coloured cockade, but the nomination of the ill-omened man appeared inevitable. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and on which, if need were, one could buckle a cuirass, for battle: like his father, he was pale; like his father, he was to die young, and, even more than his father, his countenance wore that ill-omened melancholy by which fortune-tellers recognise those who are to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not seem to proceed from anywhere within the library, but from some distant room, far away overhead. A musical sound it was, but breaking in upon the silence of that ill-omened house, its music was the music of terror. In a faint and very sweet cascade it rippled; a ringing as ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Bolingbroke would thenceforward be a hinderance rather than a help to the Patriots. His counsel was of no further avail, and he only brought odium on them; indeed, his advice had from first to last been misleading and ill-omened. The Patriots were now only anxious to get rid of him; Pulteney gave Bolingbroke pretty clearly to understand that they wanted him to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "Speak no such evil-omened words, my father," answered Rames tenderly, for these two loved each other. "To me it seems more likely that it is I who shall not live, for this is a strange and desperate venture upon which I go, to tell to a great king the news of the death of his only son at my own hand. Mother, you ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... that he now was dying, and the Queen-mother took the opportunity of laying hands on the middle party. She arrested Alencon, Montmorency, and Henri of Navarre, together with some lesser chiefs; in the midst of it all Charles IX. died (1574), in misery, leaving the ill-omened crown to Henri of Anjou, King of Poland, his next brother, his mother's favourite, the worst of a bad breed. At the same time the fifth civil war broke out, interesting chiefly because it was during its continuance that the famous League was ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... was, her great speed and the fierce character of her master had made her a name of terror along the French coast, and many a bulky Eastlander or Fleming as he passed the narrow seas had scanned the distant Kentish shore, fearing lest that ill-omened purple sail with a gold Christopher upon it should shoot out suddenly from the dim gray cliffs. Now she was clear of the land, with the wind on her larboard quarter, every inch of canvas set, and her high sharp bows smothered in foam, as ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Government was told by the lord-lieutenant, that the exhausted state of the public revenues rendered it impracticable to embody a militia, whence the people were given to understand that they might take measures to protect themselves. This was an ill-omened step for ministers to take, when the people of Ireland were everywhere displaying the feelings of rebellion. By it the serpent's teeth were sown, and they sprang up armed men. The Irish obeyed the call with alacrity. Volunteers were embodied, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... 377. Gell. iv. 9. 5 says that the multitudo imperitorum confused the dies religiosi and dies nefasti. The distinction is most clearly seen in the fact that on dies religiosi the temples were (or ought to be) shut, and "res divinas facere" was ill-omened (Gell., ib.), while on dies nefasti the latter was regular, such days being made over to the gods. No wonder that Gellius brands the popular ignorance with such words as prave ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... the mountain has quickened the eye of the onlooker. The images in her mind are not at all portentous now; she is among her friends, she is harvesting impressions; there is not a word of anything dark or distressing or ill-omened. But still, but still—we have seen Milly when she believed herself unseen, and it is certain that there is more in her mind than now appears, and though she seems so full of the new excitement of making friends with Kate Croy there must be some preoccupation ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... them alone and they can find water. The lion is, however, rarely heard—much more seldom seen. Hyenas are numerous, and thievishly inclined. Leopards, less common, are the terror of the villagers. Foxes are not numerous, but frighten the black traveller by their ill-omened bark. Hares, about half the size of English ones—there are no rabbits—are widely spread, but not numerous; porcupines the same. Wild cats, and animals of the ferret kind, destroy game. Monkeys of various kinds and squirrels harbour in the trees, but are rarely seen. Tortoises ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... tale, stranger, if this token had not confirmed thy speech:—verily thou hast a better witness than a fool's tongue to thy story. That ill-omened losel may depart. See thou fall not hastily into the like offence, else shalt thou smart from Childermas to All-hallowtide. Hence! to thy place." Barnulf awaited not further dismissal, glad to escape the scrutiny of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... brought upon yourself by today's ill-doing." He darted back to the farmhouse, where he ordered half-wakened Waziri to pad barefoot after him to the wagon, rubbing his eyes. "Come, son," Musa said. "We must flee these ill-omened fields." Without another word to his host, the carpenter hoisted his boy into the wagon, mounted, and set off into the night. The hoofs of his horse padded softly ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... affected to hold himself dishonoured if not provided at once with the regular salary. 'Brahim was wholly beardless, and our Egyptians quoted their proverb, Sabah el-Kurud, wa la Saban el-'Ajrud—"Better (see ill-omened) monkeys in the morning than the beardless man." As the corruption of the best turns to the worst, so the Bedawi, a noble race in its own wilds, becomes thoroughly degraded by contact with civilization. I remember a certain ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... an ill journey for someone," I said. "I think, sir, for you. Something speaks in my bosom; and so much it says plain—that this is an ill-omened journey." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Elec. That self-same form indeed, in piteous case. Ores. Alas, alas, for this sad lot of thine. Elec. Surely thou dost not wail, O friend, for me! Ores. O form most basely, godlessly misused. Elec. Thy words, ill-omened, fall, O friend, on none But me alone. Ores. Alas, for this thy state, Unwedded, hopeless. Elec. Why, O friend, on me With such fixed glance still gazing dost thou groan? Ores. How little knew I of my fortune's ills! Elec. What have I said to throw such light on them? Ores. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... and yielded. After all, it did not much matter, for of course he would not touch upon the strange sequel of his ill-omened act; so he told the story faithfully and circumstantially, while the inspector took it all down in his note-book, questioning him closely respecting the exact ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... ceased. The spoiling of arms, at least during the battle, was also interdicted; and the consecration of the spoils of slain enemies to the gods, as, in general, all rejoicings for victory, were considered as ill-omened. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... now sworn, while Mrs. Jocelyn returned to her seat. In the young fellow's frank, honest face the judge found an agreeable contrast with the ill-omened visage of the floor-walker, whose good looks could not ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching simplicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a worship of the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... And this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's expansive forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two at least ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I will never speak to her one word, or willingly ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... themselves after the heat to which they had been subject. In an instant all hands were in the water swimming about round and round the vessel. The boat was in the water on the starboard side. Murray, intending to bathe afterwards, was alone on deck. Suddenly he saw the ill-omened fin of a shark rising above the water at no great distance off, and then his snout appeared, and his wicked eyes were visible surveying the scene of action. Murray shouted to Adair and the rest of the people to come on board. No one lost an instant in attempting to obey the order. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... births in kine. Some are having sexual pleasure with mothers. The trees in the forests are exhibiting unseasonable flowers and fruits. Women quick with child, and even those that are not so, are giving birth to monsters. Carnivorous beasts, mingling with (carnivorous) birds, are feeding together. Ill-omened beasts, some having three horns, some with four eyes, some with five legs, some with two sexual organs, some with two heads, some with two tails, some having fierce teeth, are being born, and with mouths wide open are uttering unholy cries. Horses with three legs, furnished with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the house, and brought him across the fields towards his own home. Maura then gave up the key, and the youthful bridegroom was soon dressed and prepared to meet his "man," and a few friends whom he had invited, at the chapel. His mind, however, was disturbed, and his heart sank at this ill-omened commencement of ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... been so supremely blest. The Prince was worse. Still he walked out on one of the terraces, and wrapped in a coat lined with fur he witnessed a review of the Eton College volunteers, from which his absence would have been remarked. The ill-omened chilly feeling continued, but there were guests at the Castle and he appeared at dinner. On Sunday, the 1st of December, the Prince walked out again on the terrace and attended service in the chapel, insisting "on going through all ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... sun arises in a few hours, the world will see coursing through its fields the four horsemen, enemies of mankind. . . . Already their wild steeds are pawing the ground with impatience; already the ill-omened riders have come together and are exchanging the last words before leaping ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of this sinister visage was Andre Thibout, of whom it might be said, like face like life; for he was one of those ill-omened creatures who feed upon the misfortunes of their kind, and stand on shore in foul weather hoping the worst, instead of praying for the best: briefly, a wrecker. He and his comrade, Jacques Moinard, had heard the Agra's gun fired, and came down to batten on the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... my betrothed, in a voice that made me tremble,—for he hath a hot temper when it is roused. "Unless thou canst hold that ill-omened tongue of thine, there presently will be another bloody fact between ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... this, O dread waker of the blast, that the fairies would consecrate this little spot; for this they would charm away from its tranquil turf the wandering ghoul and the evil children of the night. Here, not the ill-omened owl, nor the blind bat, nor the unclean worm shall come. And thou shouldst have neither will nor power to nip the flowers of spring, nor sear the green herbs of summer. Is it not, dark mother of the evil winds,—is it not our immemorial office to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He had reached the limit of his observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the tragedy ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... is almost unnecessary to observe, that when he thus speculated on his future proceedings, his mind had been strongly tainted with infidelity.—Towards the conclusion of April he set forth on his ill-omened journey. He had never yet gone farther than a Sunday's walk from his native city; and at the age of seventeen, equally inexperienced and confident, without a friend or a guide, and with principles shaken and perverted, he was about to enter on a new and perilous ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... middle-class is selfish and indifferent, and unmoved sees us perish. The people know nothing of our existence: even those who are fighting the same fight like us are cut off by silence and do not know that we exist, and we do not know that they exist.... Ill-omened Paris! No doubt good also has come of it—by gathering together all the forces of the French mind and genius. But the evil it has done is at least equal to the good: and in a time like the present the good quickly turns to ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... wedding-day arrived. Troops of guests streamed in from all parts, a long row of carriages stood in the street, as on that other ill-omened day; but this ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... while he was buying her apples, for he appeared very much pleased after he came home, and he hasn't bestowed a compliment on me since the month after we were married. Ah, fated word! Ah, Percy, Percy!—on that ill-omened day, what caused you to linger? We might even then have retraced ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... said Fergus; 'and you may wish Edward Waverley (no longer captain) joy of being freed from the slavery to an usurper, implied in that sable and ill-omened emblem.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... his good intentions towards Poland. A stream of visits and receptions then set in, at which Kosciuszko was the recipient of public marks of esteem, not only from the Tsar, but from his brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, whose ill-omened name was later to win for itself the execration of the Polish nation. But Kosciuszko was too far-sighted to content himself with promises. He asked for a written statement of what his country might expect from the Tsar. ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... I was cutting loose from this ill-omened company and continuing my road Edinburgh-wards. We were lying in a wide trough of the Pentland Hills, which I well remembered. The folk of the plains called it the Cauldstaneslap, and it made an easy path for sheep ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... look affected Edith very unpleasantly. The mystery about her father seemed to grow darker, and to assume something of an ill-omened character. The name also—Van Diemen's Land—served to heighten her dark apprehensions; and this discovery that she had known even less than she supposed about her father made it seem as though the knowledge that had thus been hidden could not but ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... he paused, and through an opening between the curtains saw the young men of whose bar-room performance he had happened to hear. Not caring to meet any of their sort he went silently away, shaking his head with ill-omened significance. Of course one good man told his wife what sort of company their new neighbors kept, and whom ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... But the objects that were encountered most frequently, at every step, in fact, were abandoned weapons, sabers, bayonets, and, more particularly, chassepots; and so numerous were they that they seemed to have sprouted from the earth, a harvest that had matured in a single ill-omened day. Porringers and buckets, also, were scattered along the roads, together with the heterogeneous contents of knapsacks, rice, brushes, clothing, cartridges. The fields everywhere presented an uniform scene ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... they passed through a huddle of huts, tents and lean-tos on the southern ascent. Though the hour was late, many windows were light and sounds of revelry came dimly, as though muffled, from curtain-hid interiors. There was something furtive and ill-omened about this neighborhood which one sensed rather than perceived. Spear rode close and touched ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... amaryllis, only showed their arid brown or gray remnants. The moat had become a deep waterless cleft; and beneath, on the accessible sides towards the glen, clustered a collection of black horsehair tents, the foremost surmounted by the ill-omened crescent. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had for its inspiration a full understanding of the consequences of disaster in such a direction. Outflanking stared at him with all its ugly meaning, and as he went he shouted hoarsely back to Kars his ill-omened news. Kars needed no second warning. He passed the call on to Bill. He claimed the reinforcement which only desperate emergency had the right to demand. Then he flung himself to the task of making good the depleted defence where Abe had withdrawn ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself—what wonder that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it? And, indeed, if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... This ill-omened happening broke up the wedding party. The marriage was cancelled. All the preparations had been for nothing. To this day the fate of the sisters is unknown. The bride and bridegroom-elect were married to ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... the state, is, according to very credible information, so completely beggared as to stand in need of the relief of alms. Mahomed Reza Khan, the second Mussulman in Bengal, for having been distinguished by the ill-omened honor of the countenance and protection of the Court of Directors, was, without the pretence of any inquiry whatsoever into his conduct, stripped of all his employments, and reduced to the lowest condition. His ancient rival for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Asa-queen, could not rest because of the ill-omened dream that her son had had; and in her distress she called all the Asa-folk together to consider what should be done. But they were speechless with sorrow and alarm; and none could offer advice, nor set her mind at ease. Then she sought out every living creature, and every ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... towards him and commiseration, came in a body to behold the Bodhisattva, so calmly seated and so undisturbed, surrounded with an uncounted host of devils, shaking the heaven and earth with sounds ill-omened. Bodhisattva silent and quiet in the midst remained, his countenance as bright as heretofore, unchanged; like the great lion-king placed amongst all the beasts howling and growling round him so he sat, a sight unseen before, so strange and wonderful! The host of Mara hastening, as arranged, each ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... vessel, Many months have lain at anchor, I, a war-ship well constructed, Am decaying in the harbor, Never having sailed to conquest; Worms are gnawing at my vitals, In my hull their dwelling-places, And ill-omened birds of heaven Build their nests within my rigging; Frogs and lizards of the forest Play about my oars and rudder; Three times better for this vessel Were he but a valley birch-tree, Or an aspen on the heather, With the squirrels in his branches, And the dogs beneath ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... the single room, first asked for, into one like Prince Houssain's,—no, Prince Houssain had the flying tapestry, and I forget which prince had the elastic palace. But, indeed, it must be a lordly chamber which shall be large enough to exhibit the true nature of thread and needle—omened ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to deposit his wealth (doubtless as a propitiation of outraged deities) upon a certain bank, and how, upon reaching the specified point, he discovered that what he carried had eluded his vigilance. "All gone: notes, gold, and pocket-book—the savings of a lifetime," concluded the ill-omened one, and at the recollection a sudden and even more highly-sustained frenzy of self-unpopularity involving him, without a pause he addressed himself by seven and twenty insulting expressions, many of which were quite new to ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Buller's Army was concentrated in the northern corner of Natal. Towering over his left front was the Drakensberg Range through which Botha's Pass runs into the Orange Free State; on his right front was the Buffalo River with a difficult country beyond; and on his front was Majuba of ill-omened memory and Laing's Nek, over which the road to Volksrust and the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Who could see the faintest glimmer of it? Who could see anything but the ill-omened figure of Michael Vanstone, posted darkly on the verge of the present time—and closing all the prospect ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... stowed ourselves in the Oriental manner, my dress and appearance affording infinite amusement to the ten rowers as they plied their paddles, while our escort stood in the entrance chewing betel, and looking more ill-omened than ever. We alighted at the king's pavilion facing the river, and were led, by a long, circuitous, and unpleasant road, through two tall gates, into a street which, from the offensive odors that assailed us, I took to be a fish-market. The sun ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... which he was aiming, and this he found in the word nevermore. He next invented a pretext for the frequent but varying use of nevermore. This word could not be spoken in the right tone by a human being; it must come from an unreasoning creature, hence the introduction of the raven, an ill-omened bird, in harmony with the main tone of the poem. He then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty. Hence the death of a beautiful woman was unquestionably ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... ended a voyage that, for adventure and discovery, deserves a high place in the history of maritime enterprise in the Pacific. Voyages take their rank from the scientific attainments and literary ability of the men who record them, and the Pandora, unlucky in her fate as in her ill-omened name, was scarcely less unfortunate ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... markets. In the Roman Catholic church Friday is a fast day, and is considered an unlucky day because it was the day of Christ's crucifixion. Soames ("Anglo-Saxon Church," page 255) says of it, "Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on Friday and died on Friday." Shakspere refers to the ill-omened nature of the day as follows: "The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton Friday" ("Measure for Measure," Act 3, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... destined to be disturbed. The Pope intermitted his visits to the sculptor's workshop, and began to take but little interest in the monument. Condivi directly ascribes this coldness to the intrigues of Bramante, who whispered into the Pontiff's ear that it was ill-omened for a man to construct his own tomb in his lifetime. It is not at all improbable that he said something of the sort, and Bramante was certainly no good friend to Michelangelo. A manoeuvring and managing ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... may be sure was the spirit of many another reply to these ill-omened invitations. It would have been well if, on these occasions, the pride he boasted of had stood him in better stead, and repelled such unjustifiable intrusions. But in this, as in so many other respects, Burns was the ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... thee and cast thee into prison and there confine thee till thou die. Had I foreknown that thou wast of them, I had not suffered thee near me, but had spat in thy face, for that thou art more ill-omened than a dog or a hog."[FN274] Then he kicked him down from his place and commanded him to divorce; but he said, "Be ruthful to me, O Efendi, for that Allah is ruthful, and hasten not: I will not ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... yet shrinking back against the wall as though to avoid a sword-thrust. "Silence, you ill-omened witch, with your talk of God and judgment. It is too late, I tell you, it is too late; my hands are too red with blood, my heart is too black with sin, upon the tablets of my mind is written too long a record. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... cartridges, great chests of shot and shell showed, half submerged in a tortuous creek. At the edge of the field, there was a cannon spiked and overturned. Here, too, were dead horses, and here, too, were the black, ill-omened birds. There was a trench as well, a long trench just filled, with two or three little head boards bearing some legend. "Holy Virgin!" said the courier, "if I was a horse, a child, or a woman, I'd hate war with a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... however, as if there was some fatality at work to prevent the attainment of Mrs. Elmslie's great object in life. Hardly was one obstacle to the ill-omened marriage removed by my father's death before another succeeded it in the shape of anxieties and difficulties caused by the delicate state of Ada's health. Doctors were consulted in all directions, and the result of their advice was that the marriage must be deferred, and that Miss ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... day Captain Broughton and Miss Woolsworthy did not meet till the evening. She had said, before those few ill-omened words had passed her lover's lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger's house on the following morning. Those ill-omened words did pass her lover's lips, and then she remained at home. This did not ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... as the independent and unbending defender of nationality and as the foe of compromise. He might then have brought Mr. Clay to his side, and remained himself the undisputed head of the Whig party. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun was a hollow, ill-omened thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in fact, it did, within a few years, and then Mr. Clay, if he had held out so long, would have been helpless without Mr. Webster. But such a course required a very ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... thousand imitators the only positively successful one was William E. Robinson, whose tragic death while in the performance of the bullet-catching trick is the latest addition to the long list of casualties chargeable to that ill-omened juggle. He carried the imitation even as far as the name, calling himself Chung Ling Soo. Robinson was very successful in the classic trick of apparently eating large quantities of cotton and blowing smoke and sparks from the mouth. His teeth ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... wind had now veered to the southward; and, as we were sailing on the port tack, by giving the ship a good deal of weather helm and bracing round the yards, we were able to bear up to the westward out of the ill-omened bay, steering west by south until we were in longitude 11 degrees 10 minutes west and well clear of Cape Finisterre, when we hauled our wind and shaped a ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... his presence offered the only hope of saving the Kingdom from all the horrors of civil discord, of which France and Scotland were likely to avail themselves. Filled with the most painful anxiety, Richard read, and again read, the ill-omened letters; compared the intelligence which some of them contained with the same facts as differently stated in others; and soon became totally insensible to whatever was passing around him, although seated, for the sake of coolness, close to the entrance of his tent, and having the curtains ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... hear what this ill-omened personage could have to say to me, so I told him to shew him in. After giving me a profound bow, with his hat in his hand, Signor Bargello told me that he had come to offer me his services, and to assure me that I should enjoy complete tranquillity and safety in Lugano, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Lithuanian folk gazed each night at this heavenly marvel, foreboding ill from it, and likewise from other signs: for too often they heard the cries of ill-omened birds, which, gathering in throngs on empty fields, sharpened their beaks as if awaiting corpses. Too often they noticed that the dogs rooted up the earth, and, as if scenting death, howled piercingly, which was an omen of famine ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... —Pray in deep silence. Rather: "use well-omened words;" or, as Kennedy has explained it, "Abstain from expressions unsuitable to the solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat the object ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... "where the accursed woman would have offered sacrifice, and the priests struck me down because I prophesied to them of the wrath to come, and that is now at hand. An ill-omened spot, indeed, and an ill-omened tryst with the fiends for witnesses. Well, lead on, and I pray you to be brief as may be, for this place weighs down my soul, and I feel danger in it—danger to the body and ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... short of paper. Now "Esmond" is, in my opinion, exceedingly interesting during the campaigns in the Lowlands, and when our Machiavelian hero, the Duke, comes in, and also whenever Lord Mohun shows his ill-omened face; but there are long stretches of the story which are heavy reading. A pre-eminently good novel must always advance and never mark time. "Ivanhoe" never halts for an instant, and that just makes its superiority as a novel over "Esmond," ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... continued to enjoy, in no ordinary degree, popular applause and the favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on which side he should embark in that perilous and ill-omened insurrection. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... of his cries, for I saw a black fin in the distance. Had I been alone when I saw that ill-omened fin I believe that I should have quickly sunk; but the feeling that I had my messmate to support, and that the honest boatswain was coming to my help, kept me up. I did as Mr Johnson directed me, and kept kicking with all my might, and shouting too, whenever I could get my mouth ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... succours. He had the satisfaction, meanwhile, to hear that his Queen was delivered of a son, at Windsor, on St. Nicholas' day (December 6th). Whether the common report has any foundation in truth, cannot now be certainly known: his father, however, is said to have omened ill of the young prince when he heard of the place of his birth, and to have spoken thus to Lord Fitz-Hugh, his chamberlain: "My lord, I Henry, born at Monmouth, shall small time reign and get much; and Henry, born at Windsor, shall long reign and lose all: ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... This ill-omened talk was broken in upon by the coming out of the minister, his wife and daughter, and the consequent interchange of Christmas compliments. I had had a shock, and felt heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly up to making the appropriate replies to the kind greetings ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... priest, nor any cultured coterie. The sandy peninsula, on whose inner edge, at the cove called Yerba Buena, stood some hide and tallow stores and fur depots which drew to them the stragglers that passed that way, was about as ill-omened a spot as the one designated by the snake-devouring eagle perched upon an island cactus as the place where the wandering Aztecs should rest and build their city of Mexico. San Francisco's godparents were but common humanity, traders and adventurers, later gold-seekers and pot politicians, intelligent, ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... Hillo-ho! Giles Corey!— No answer but the echo from the barn, And the ill-omened cawing of the crow, That yonder wings his flight across the fields, As if he scented carrion in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... waft heavenward your cry, Stung to the soul, bereaved, disconsolate! Wail out your anguish, till it pierce the sky, In shrieks of deep despair, ill-omened, desperate! ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... thus come to his knowledge. He set out at once, and upon his way again passed the glade, taking care not to go too near the dead oak, nor to look towards the suspended hawk. He saw a night-jar like a ghost wheeling to and fro not far from the scaffold, and anxious to get from the ill-omened spot, flew yet more swiftly. Round the wood he went, and along the hedges, so occupied with his thoughts that he did not notice how the sky was covered with clouds, and once or twice narrowly escaping a branch blown off by the wind which had risen to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... evening preceding that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the illustrious Delobelle returned home, with downcast face and that air of lassitude and disillusionment with which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... half-opened book when they close, crushing the trees below, piling its ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had been the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up that deep cavity above the mansion-house which bore the ill-omened name of Dead Man's Hollow. This it was which had saved the Dudley mansion. The falling masses, or huge fragments breaking off from them, would have swept the house and all around it to destruction but for this deep shelving dell, into which ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... please." His very politeness was ill omened. "The papers were in your baggage. Can you explain ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... have explained the feeling that was this morning at work within him. It was the first time he and the dowager had met since the marriage, and she brought before him all too prominently the ill-omened past: her unjustifiable scheming—his own miserable weakness. If ever Lord Hartledon felt shame and repentance for his weak yielding, he felt it now—felt it in all its bitterness; and something very like rage against the dowager was bubbling up in his spirit, which he had ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to get down here, however," said my evil-omened inviter. "Your boxes are all off the coach, and the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... wonderfully solemn and almost awful effect upon me. I would have given the whole world, and the sun and moon, and all the stars in heaven, if they had been mine, had I been safe back at Mr. Jones', or still better, in my home on the Hudson River. I thought it an ill-omened voyage, and railed at the folly which had sent me to sea, sore against the advice of my best friends, that is to say, my mother ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... did so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived by any present, or the attempt could be resumed, she dropped a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... fingers could scarcely enclose. Alas for the luckless Stewarts! again and again this affecting ceremony took place before the time of their final promotion which was the precursor of their overthrow. They were all kings almost from their cradle—kings ill-omened, entering upon their royalty with infant terror ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... on that first Sunday after Waterloo, driving off quietly to Malmaison, there to be joined by Hortense Beauharnais and a few faithful friends. At that ill-omened abode, where Josephine had breathed her last shortly after his first abdication, he spent four uneasy days. At times he was full of fight. He sent to the "Moniteur" a proclamation urging the army to make "some efforts more, and the Coalition ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of Fantomas a tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, which has reminded us of monstrous crimes ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the deepest gratitude to the Pastoureau family for their care of the infant; you were now near six years old; and on Pastoureau bluntly telling him, when he proposed to go that instant and see the darling child, that they never wished to see his ill-omened face again within their doors; that he might have the boy, though they should all be very sorry to lose him; and that they would take his money, they being poor, if he gave it; or bring him up, by God's help, as they had hitherto done, without: he acquiesced ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the most ill-omened day is that in which she separated herself from science. She compelled Origen, at that time (A.D. 231) its chief representative and supporter in the Church, to abandon his charge in Alexandria, and retire ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Let no ill-omened word Escape the barrier of your teeth. I heard Men say his temper's in an awful state; Therefore beware lest some untoward fate Befall you; and—I do not think ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... and more painful excitement was aroused by the misfortunes of the Red River expedition in April and May. Begun on unsound military principles, but designed politically to assert against French intrigues the claim of the United States to Texas, that ill-omened enterprise culminated in a retreat which well-nigh involved the Mississippi squadron in an overwhelming disaster. The Red River was unusually low for the season, and falling instead of rising. There was not, when the army retired, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two of its officers ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... hills, a Crow who perched there, 'Light o' Leap' by name, upon awakening, saw to his great wonder a fowler approaching—a second God of Death. The sight set him reflecting, as he flew off uneasily to follow up the man's movements, and he began to think what mischief this ill-omened apparition foretold. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Once more within the moonlight do I see That fair form sink upon my breast; No more of that! Alas, I never guessed Whither my fate was leading me. The angry gods some victim craved, I fear, At that ill-omened time, Since they have punished me as for a crime, For trying ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... be unlucky to certain tribes and counties. The men of Caithness alleged that their bands that wore this color were cut off at the battle of Flodden; and for this reason they avoided the crossing of the Ord on a Monday, that being the day of the week on which the ill-omened array set forth. This color was disliked by both those of the name of Ogilvy and Graham. The greatest precautions had to be taken against the Daoine Shi' in order to prevent them from spiriting away mothers and their newly-born children. Witches and prophets or seers, were ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... however, unfavourable to this idea, arose, and I turned from one conjecture to another, until I reposed, at length, in the belief that they were sinners—sinners of the deepest dye—such as their ill-omened looks betrayed—and that they sought the kind and ever-ready minister to obtain his counsel, and to share his prayers. At all events, this was a subject upon which I received no enlightening from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... is an ill-omened Year: beside War (which I won't read about) so much Illness and Death—hereabout, at any rate. A Nephew of mine—a capital fellow—was pitched upon his head from a Gig a week ago, and we know not yet how far that head of his may recover ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... was nervously conscious, meanwhile, of a more ill-omened occurrence. This was the non-arrival of several of her oldest pupils, notably, the refractory and incorrigible Pike County contingent to whom Sperry had alluded. For the past few days they had hovered on the verge of active ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... armistice of Cherasco, leaving him free to deal with the Austrians. He crossed the Po at Piacenza on May 7th, and obliged the Austrians to retreat to the Adda. Following them he forced the bridge of Lodi on May 11th, and entered Milan amid the rejoicings of the people on the 15th. But his ill-omened proclamation had done its work; violence and pillage were rampant in the French army, and he could do little to restrain them. Indeed, he himself showed an example of plundering, though under more organized forms. Heavy contributions were exacted, curiosities and works ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... her!' cried the prince savagely. 'Implacable, ambitious, unscrupulous. What will she not attempt with that old driveller?' Then, evidently impressed by something shadowed in the expression of his ill-omened Mercury, he exclaimed: 'You have ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... dark night, without moon, favourable to the robber's plans. For a good fifteen minutes the ill-omened crew continued their retreat by forced march. From time to ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... of the hurricane broke, and on the 24th she had reached 65 degrees north. There were indications of a change of wind. The sky had cleared so that the stars could be seen, and there was a brightness in the N.N.W. that omened the wind coming from that direction. At midnight the change came. Orders were given to let the reefs out of the topsails, but it took a considerable time to do this as the reef points and errings were covered with hard, flinty ice, and ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... ill-omened man Flitch had sidled round by the bushes to within a few feet of him. Flitch primarily defended himself against the accusation of drunkenness, which was hurled at him to account for his audacity in trespassing against the interdict; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... adjusted to the smile of hospitality, but it wore the expression like a mask, and he seemed ill at ease. He had been contending all the morning with Narcissa's freakishness, which he thought intensified by the presence of the valley man, who was returning the civility of that ill-omened visit, and who, by reason of the abnormal excitements of the day, had been received with scant formality, and was already upon the footing of a familiar friend. Selwyn stood smilingly in the way hard by, speaking to those of the men as they passed who gave his presence the meed of a start and a ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Governor spake to the officer of his bodyguard, saying, "Lay hands on him, and take him to see the tombs wherein they lie." And I said unto him, "Far be it from me to look upon such [ill-omened] things! As concerning the messengers of Kha-em-Uast, the men whom he sent unto thee as ambassadors were merely [officials] of his, and there was no god with his ambassadors, and so thou sayest, 'Make haste to look upon thy colleagues.' ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... volubility of the little speaker; for as she hastily, and with the license of a petted child, pulled the articles from the parcel, she was startled to find lying among the numerous colored things a black crape veil. Sombre, dark, and ill-omened enough it looked there, with pink, and lilac, and blue, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased, darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then one, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... the Methodist chapel occasionally, but won't put his foot inside our church; and he is no loss at all to the neighbourhood, for he lived the life of a recluse. I always look upon this house as an ill-omened place. I didn't tell you that the last vicar who lived here died of delirium tremens. He was a disgrace to his profession, but that was thirty years ago. The new vicarage was built shortly after.' Miss Miller paused for breath, ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... sheepish and frightened enough, as he patrolled slowly with his escort up and down the crowded Porta Pia thoroughfare; but even this insult failed to effect its object. The device was too transparent for an Italian crowd not to detect it, and the ill-omened cortege of the "Pope's representative," as the Romans styled the executioner, passed by ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... been chasing rainbows now for three years, and I suppose I shall go on chasing them; but as long as there is a chance left, I can't quit—I can't. And something tells me that I have left that ill-omened thing behind at last, and I am ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... and its ill-omened castle (which, a century after, was one of the principal scenes of Judge Jeffreys's cruelty), Amyas and his party trudged on through the mire toward Okehampton till sunrise; and ere the vapors had lifted from the mountain tops, they were ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Frank had gone to preach to the stockmen. The hut where Lee had been murdered—an ill-omened place; and as they came opposite to it, they saw two others approaching them in the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... someone shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard on Wednesday.' Mr. O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as 'ill-omened tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr. O'Rourke was not a man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... this ill-omened individual will afford you a clear indication of his abject views and pernicious purpose. Speaking of the patriotic tribunal now called upon to punish him, he declared insultingly,—'The Revolutionary Tribunal is like a play of William Shakespeare, who mixes up with the most ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind, and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog. But, one way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yourself. I, the only one who has a right to do it, willingly resign what ought to have been yours without your unfortunately illegal act. Your secret is perfectly safe with me. Time will heal the wounds you have inflicted on yourself and enable you to forget. Leave this ill-omened document with me; it is safer than in your hands. Indeed there is no use in ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... remuneration than the same cubic measurement of inanimate matter, had the unpleasant drawback of volition and motion. With this general tendency to bully and intimidate, the wary patron had, however, made a silent exception in favor of the Italian, who has introduced himself to the reader by the ill-omened name of Il Maledetto, or the accursed. This formidable personage had enjoyed a perfect immunity from the effects of Baptiste's tyranny, which he had been able to establish by a very simple and quiet process. Instead of cowering at the fierce glance, or recoiling at the rude remonstrances ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... I may say it is no good sign of the times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight. Not even in the worst days of Lord Castlereagh's ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a faction. Gentlemen, there is no right-minded or ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... youth, turning white to the gills, "thou art an ill-omened sorcerer!" And he slunk off—shortly afterwards, as it chanced, to meet this very fate. For he was sent on service and slain ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... "Since that ill-omened marriage an unbroken succession of misfortunes have attended my husband and myself until they culminated in the most crushing calamity of our lives—the loss of our dear and only daughter in a manner worse ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth |
