"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment our wood seemed rich with mystic presage. Pleadingly my hands went out to her, and trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I backed between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed beings. Everything about me called to her, everything in ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... rather under force Of some Divine command, Commissioned to presage a course Of happier days at ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... morning was blue with the presage of showers; blue, too, with the presage of fate. An interminable morning. My tasks had become utterly distasteful. And in the afternoon, so when I sat down to make out invoices, I wrote automatically the names of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Yes, Werter, thy presage was just; To cherish the hope be my care, For should it forsake me, how must I combat ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... sat over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage of danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, defenceless so far from the specious ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... gaudy plants flecked the waste round us; and insects without number whirred over our heads, or hung poised with their wings outspread on the tall stalks of marram grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a summer whirlwind, presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us, carrying up with it a column of dry sand, and rattling the dry bents ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Prayers, or their Despair, and with all imaginable Speed, unlash'd the Rudder, and hoisted all their Sails. Never sure in Nature did one Minute produce a greater Scene of Contraries. The more skilful Sailors took Courage at this happy Presage of Deliverance. And according to their Expectation did it happen; that heavenly Point of Wind deliver'd us from the Jaws of those Breakers, ready open to devour us; and carrying us out to the much more wellcome wide Sea, furnished every one in the Ship with Thoughts, as distant as we ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... with your early Piety to that Kingly Martyr whose Sacred dictates did institute your tender years, and whose sufferings were so much alleviated by your Majesties early proficiency in all that might presage a hopefull and glorious Successor: For so did you run through all his Vicissitudes, during that implacable war, which sought nothing more then to defeat you of all opportunities of a Princely education, as fearing your future Virtues; ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... rejoice to say, can claim them all as her own. For if the Tweed has been immortalized by the grave of Scott, the Clyde can boast the birthplace of Campbell, and the mountains of the Dee first inspired the muse of Byron. I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling—I hail it as a presage, that as Ayrshire has raised a graceful monument to Burns, and Edinburgh has erected a noble structure to the Author of Waverley, so Glasgow will ere long raise a worthy tribute to the bard whose name will never die while Hope pours its balm through the human heart; and Aberdeen will worthily commemorate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... revenues. "This," he says, "has of late been very ill-paid, owing to the distractions in the heart of the Moghul Empire, which have prevented the Court from attending to their concerns in those distant provinces." Although nothing came of these proceedings, they are here noted as the presage of future events. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... exclaimed. "Pride cometh before a fall, 'tis said. Then, in sooth, by the rule of contraries, a fall should presage humility's reward. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... eyes of one live nation The blind mute world found grace to see and speak, And light watched rise a more divine creation At that more godlike utterance of the Greek, Let there be freedom. Kings whose orient station Made pale the morn, and all her presage bleak, Girt each with strengths of all his generation, Dim tribes of shamefaced soul and sun-swart cheek, Twice, urged with one desire, Son following hard on sire, With all the wrath of all a world to wreak, And all the rage of ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that the true life should neither seek for pleasures, nor, on the other hand, entirely avoid pains, but should embrace the middle state (compare Republic), which I just spoke of as gentle and benign, and is a state which we by some divine presage and inspiration rightly ascribe to God. Now, I say, he among men, too, who would be divine ought to pursue after this mean habit—he should not rush headlong into pleasures, for he will not be free from pains; ...
— Laws • Plato
... the temple. None stayed or hindered them, yet although they reached the chambers of Aziel in safety, their hearts, which should have been light, were still heavy with the presage of new ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... became alarmed at the murmurings of the whites, which seemed to presage a coming storm. A number of them sought to arm themselves, but ascertained, upon inquiring at the stores, that no white merchant would sell a negro firearms. Since all the dealers in this sort of merchandise ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... unloose, open: on-sǣl meoto, sige-hrēð secgum (disclose thy views to the men, thy victor's courage; or, thy presage of ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... had threatened to break last night still held off, but the spirit of the weather had changed. It was no longer bright and clear, but sunless, airless, heated, silent—the stillness which seems to presage as much sorrow to man as it heralds tumult to Nature. Leam, however—interpenetrated by her love, which gave what it felt and saw what it brought—always remembered this early day as the ideal of peace and softness, where was no prophecy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... very superstitious, and Colonel Tod records that the partridge and the maloli or wagtail were their chief birds of omen. A partridge clamouring on the left when he commenced a foray was a certain presage of success to a Mina. Similarly, Mr. Kennedy notes that the finding of a dried goatskin, either whole or in pieces, among the effects of a suspected criminal is said to be an infallible indication of his identity as a Mina, the flesh of the goat's ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of August a halo round the moon fixed the attention of the inhabitants of Cumana, who considered it as the presage of some violent earthquake; for, according to popular notions, all extraordinary phenomena are immediately connected with each other. Coloured circles around the moon are much more rare in northern countries than in Provence, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... catalogue of his mother's possessions. Plainly this was no flying visit. You do not pop over to London for a day or two with a steamer trunk, another trunk, a black box, a suit-case, and a small brown bag. Lady Underhill had evidently come prepared to stay; and the fact seemed to presage trouble. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd: Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew, 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge: In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thund'ring sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around— And still they gazed, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... And Harlequin to storm in tragick rage. Britons, attend; and decent reverence shew To her, who made th' Athenian bosoms glow; Whom the undaunted Romans could revere, And who in Shakespeare's time was worshipp'd here: If none of these can her success presage, Your hearts at least a wonder may engage: Oh I love her like her sister monsters ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... from this startling presage of the nature of the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of the men, there was an instant when the young soldier would have retreated. It was, however, too late to appear to hesitate. The cry of the children had drawn a dozen warriors to the door of the nearest lodge, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... successor and avenger remained in safety. But finding that none supported her in these sentiments, and that force, in case of refusal, was threatened by the council, she at last complied, and produced her son to the two prelates. She was here on a sudden struck with a kind of presage of his future fate: she tenderly embraced him; she bedewed him with her tears; and bidding him an eternal adieu, delivered him, with many expressions of regret and reluctance, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... vigilance, to elude discovery or escape pursuit, he determined, upon farther consideration, to enter voluntarily into his majesty's service, and to take his future fortune in the royal navy. Perhaps he had some presage in his own mind, that by his activity and exertions he might rise considerably above his present situation. Accordingly, he went to a rendezvous at Wapping, and entered with an officer of the Eagle man of war, a ship of sixty guns, at that time commanded by Captain Hamer. To this ship ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... where people must observe Nature or else nothing—where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... plain, heroic completeness is touched with a stately life that is a presage of immortality. It is evident, indeed, that Arnold wrote Balder Dead in his most fortunate hour, and that Merope is his one serious mistake in literature. For a genius thus peculiar and introspective drama—the presentation of character through action—is ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... civilization, and even to happiness. It is, in our panegyric of polished ages, the parent of arts, the support of commerce, and the minister of national greatness, and of opulence. It is, in our censure of degenerate manners, the source of corruption, and the presage of national declension and ruin. It is admired, and it is blamed; it is treated as ornamental and useful, and it is proscribed ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... progeny which was being reared in Jotunheim, and by divination they discovered that they must receive great injury from them. That they had such a mother spoke bad for them, but their coming of such a sire was a still worse presage. All-father therefore despatched certain of the gods to bring the children to him, and when they were brought before him he cast the serpent down into the ocean which surrounds the world. There the monster waxed so large that he wound himself round the whole globe, and that with ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... knowing that the omen was purely instrumental to a higher power, deemed it more religious and respectful to have regard only to the higher power, and to say that God had graciously warned him. [101] One of the examples of this presage was, that, going along a narrow street with several companions in earnest discourse, he suddenly stopped, and turned another way, warning his friends to do the same. Some yielded to him, and others went on, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... off to bed, walking vaguely and full of the forerunners of dreams, Dion knew that his hour had come. He felt a sort of great stillness within him, stillness of presage, perhaps, or of mere concentration, of the will to be, to do, to endure, whatever came. Rosamund shut down the lid of the piano and came away from the music-stool. Dion looked at her, and thought of the maidens of the porch and of the columns ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. The night was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardens Domini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how he passed his solitary evenings when he went home from the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... so much," I said nastily. (When people presage a remark by saying that they only say it because they love you, you may lay long odds that it's going to be disagreeable!) "It certainly sounds a gruesome prospect. Not even a choice between bankruptcy and mania, but a certainty of both! And within a year, too! Such ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... lingered still in the familiar grounds of Wilton, which were dear to him from many associations. The whole place was familiar to him, and with a strange presage of farewell, a last farewell, he trod all the old paths between the closely-clipped yew hedges, and scarcely left a ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er, Known unto thee, were well revealed, That thou wilt trust it to our ear, And bid our anxious heart be healed! That waneth now unto despair— Now, waxing to a presage fair, Dawns, from the altar, Hope—to scare From our rent hearts ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... simple fact that there was no train away from Agrinion until the next daybreak had wrought a stupendous change in his outlook. He unhesitatingly considered it an omen of a good future. He was up before the darkness even contained presage of coming light, but near the railway station was a little hut where coffee was being served to several prospective travellers who had come even earlier to the rendezvous. There was no ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... a flushed, tear-stained face to look at her daughter standing before her, lovely and slender in the blue muslin gown which had been Cornelia's gift. The daintiness of the dress, its unaccustomed smartness and air of fashion, seemed at the moment a presage of the threatened separation. At the sight, and the sound of the softened voice, the tears streamed afresh, and ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the echoes of the river and the cricket field, the ingenuous ambitions, the chivalry, the courage of youth and health, the brilliant charm of the opening world. These things are but the prelude to, the presage of, the energies of the larger stage; his young heroes are to learn the lessons of patriotism, of manliness, of activity, of generosity, that they may display them in a wider field. Thus he wrote in "A ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then, go not far to dine: You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the English, by whom it was re-christened New York in honour of the King's brother, afterwards James II. It would perhaps be straining the suggestion already made of the persistent influences of origins to see in the varied racial and national beginnings of New York a presage of that cosmopolitan quality which still marks the greatest of American cities, making much of it a patchwork of races and languages, and giving to the electric stir of Broadway an air which suggests a Continental rather ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... against my will, As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set 75 Upon one battle all our liberties. You know that I held Epicurus strong, And his opinion: now I change my mind, And partly credit things that do presage. Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 80 Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted us: This morning are they fled away and gone; And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... weary of them; and the thought of the absolute want of reason in the causeless jealousy, and the misery that these little bickerings made of his life, exasperated him beyond measure. The dinner proceeded in silence, and every slight remark was a presage of storm. Hubert hoped the girl would say nothing until the servant left the room, and with that view he never spoke a word except to ask the ladies what they would take to eat. These tactics might have succeeded if Mrs. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... town is in an uproar. The news that Ptylus and his son have been found slain has been received, and the excitement is tremendous. The death by violence of two high priests of Osiris within so short a time is regarded as a presage of some terrible national misfortune. That one should have been slain was an almost unprecedented act—an insult of a terrible kind to the gods; but this second act of sacrilege has almost maddened the people. Some regard it as a judgment of Osiris, and deem that ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... the four occupants of the tonneau hung over the doors watching his progress; then once more springing to his seat, he started the car, and they went bumping unevenly along the road. No more singing now; no more laughing and telling of tales; deep in each breast lay the presage of coming ill; four pairs of eyes scanned the dreary waste of surrounding country, while four brains busily counted up the number of miles which still lay between them and their destination. Twenty miles ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... generation, and to an unexpected degree it fulfilled in its narrow area all the dreams upon which military Germany had been nourished for forty years. It thrilled the whole nation with the news, at the very outset of hostilities, of a sharp and glorious victory; it seemed a presage of far more to come. The Battle of Metz was the limited foundation upon which was rapidly erected that triumphant mood that lasted long after the tide had turned, and that matured, when bad blundering had lost the victory in the West, into ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... society was hailed with transport throughout the whole extent of the New-Netherlands; being considered a secret foothold gained in New-Amsterdam, and a flattering presage of future triumph. Whenever that society holds its annual feast, a sympathetic hilarity prevails throughout the land; ancient Pavonia sends over its contributions of cabbages and oysters; the House of the Four Chimneys is splendidly illuminated, and the traditional song of St. Nicholas, the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... stretchers made of mast poles and sail-cloth, that received the sick lowered over decks. Many of the scurvy stricken had not been out of their berths for six weeks. The fearful depression and weakness, that forewarn scurvy, had been followed by the pains, the swollen limbs, the blue spots that presage death. A spongy excrescence covered the gums. The teeth loosened. The slightest noise was enough to throw the patient into a paroxysm of anguished fright; and some died on the decks immediately on contact with the cuttingly cold air. Others expired as they were lowered to the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto, such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by Giorgione which Duerer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked. The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the Feast of Rose Wreaths in exactly the same ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... interesting and important topic in itself, is commonly exaggerated, to the neglect of the vastly more important question of the tenure of land. Free trade did not cause the famine. On the contrary, the presage of the famine was one of the minor causes which induced Peel to take up Cobden's policy for the free importation of foodstuffs. The effect of that policy upon Ireland sinks into insignificance beside an agrarian ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... them turning into the sombre courtway of the old Palazzo Santonini and, so surely had she been attuned to the American note, she could presage Johnny's blunt disparagement. He would be astonished that they were living upon the third floor—with the lower apartment let. He would be amused at the servants toiling up the stairs from the kitchens to the dining hall. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... time the First Consul was looking after a royal alliance for Louis. He often expressed regret at the precipitate marriages of his sisters. It should be recollected that we were now in the year which saw the Consulship for life established, and which, consequently, gave presage of the Empire. Napoleon said truly to the companions of his exile that "Louis' marriage was the result of Josephine's intrigues," but I cannot understand how he never mentioned the intention he once had of uniting Hortense to Duroc. It has been erroneously stated that the First ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it had suddenly come that the mating of lives is not a light matter. Standing at a window, he had caught from the storm a vague presage of perils and pitfalls approaching, through and around which he must be guide for another. That other was very, very dear to him. The thought set him to quaking. It was the first responsibility he had had ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself by every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to this task might with such diligence as they used embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my share would herein best appear, and best value itself, by how much more wisely and with more love of virtue I should ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... befalling still—what ever it might be—some evil was at work, and an evil that had Crispin for its scope. She had neither reason nor evidence from which to draw this inference. It was no more than the instinct whose voice cries out to us at times a presage of ill, and oftentimes compels our attention in a degree far higher ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... intimate with her, and insensibly made her as wicked as herself. The day after the death of the younger not finding her at home, I asked her elder sister what was become of her; but she, instead of answering, affected to weep bitterly; from whence I formed a fatal presage. I pressed her to inform me of what she knew respecting her sister 'Father,' replied she, sobbing, 'I can tell you no more than that my sister put on yesterday her richest dress, with her valuable pearl necklace, went out, and has not been heard of since.' I searched for her all over ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at the time of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... I preached, and wrought, and still I bore my message, For well I knew that on and upward without cease The spirit works for ever, and by Faith and Presage That somehow yet the end of human life ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... I am filled with presage That, some fair noon of balmy airs, I shall indite a rude Field Message If Colonels pry in my affairs; Shall tell them simply, "It is early May, And here the daffodils are almost old; About that sentry-group I cannot say—— In fact ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... hours. The rigors of Savary with regard to the press surpassed the traditions left by Fouche; the greater number of the journals were subjected to permanent fines, under the form of pensions to literary men. The erection of eight state prisons seemed to presage times still more harsh; however, the emperor demanded from the Council of State, in order to explain the motive for these erections, a couple of pages of clauses "containing liberal ideas." He had for a long time exercised towards France the power of ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... awoke at one o'clock the next day. The doctor was very pleased at her long and sound sleep, the like of which the old lady had not enjoyed since her first collapse, and which, in his view, was certain to presage a turn for ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... almost immediately, leading Mrs. Simon Schulien, her little figure so fragile that the hand directing the cane quavered of palsy, and the sightless face, so full of years and even some of their sweetness, fallen in slightly, in presage of ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... when the aged man arose And met Romara's wistful eye,— What accents shall the change disclose That marked his visage, fearfully?— From joy to grief and deepest dole, From radiant hope to dark presage Of future ills beyond control— Hath passed, the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... which surrounded her, and there was only one way to do that—talk to her. He must persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so, anyhow, for truly ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... a Presage in his own Breast, of the Misfortune impending from his accepting Laertes's Challenge, is beautiful; and we are to note, that our Author in several of his Plays, has brought in the chief Personages as having a sort of prophetick Idea of their Death; as in Romeo and Juliet. It was (I ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... will know it. In the fourth consulship of Titus Quinctius, the AEqui and Volsci, (scarce a match for the Hernici alone) came in arms to the very gates of Rome, and went away unchastised! The course of our manners, indeed, and the state of our affairs, have long been such, that I had no reason to presage much good: But could I have imagined that so great an ignominy would have befallen me this year, I would by death; or banishment (if all other means had failed) have avoided the station I am now in. What! might Rome then have been taken, if those men who were ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... an agitation of the question of slavery. [Footnote 2: Cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), chap. viii.] In the irritated condition and depression of this section, the triumph of loose construction principles and the possible election of a northern president seemed to presage not only the sacrifice of their economic interests, but even the freeing of their slaves. [Footnote 3: See the resolutions of Virginia, December 23, 1816, in Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... hills or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew Gave the sad presage of his future years,— The child of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... close the ceremonies of the holy day. Still the declining sun glowed with unnatural intensity of hue; and the evening breeze swept over the town in unusually fitful and stormy gusts. The air seemed to be laden with mysterious melancholy, to sigh with a hidden presage of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain— Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptized ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the astrologers, "since the event forces from you an acknowledgment of the truth of our presage, we must congratulate you now on being beyond the reach of an inevitable death, which he whose loss you deplore would have brought upon you. Your son, falling under his destiny, has died in innocence ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... when he frowned. Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village{8} all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides{9} presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:{10} In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill; For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... only every other year, and the natives superstitiously look upon their appearance as a presage of a good crop. It is a pity that the cattle are so greatly molested by them, that they cannot remain in the fields; for they are extremely beautiful and twice as ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... of youth ran strong in him. He had imagination. He could dream. The good things he was tasting were a presage only of the better things to come, and that is a wholesome point of view. He was proud—as who would not be?—to step straight into the tracks of such a father; and with that thought came another—just as good for him, and for India, that made him feel as ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... wife. Of course he is disowned by his family, and spurned by his friends, even radical fanaticism not being yet ready for such a dose as this. However—" Jim did not finish the homily of which this was the presage, but, throwing the paper on the ground, indignantly drove his heel through it, tearing and soiling it, and then viciously kicked it into ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... temples and chapels, which had been vowed first by king Tatius, in the heat of the battle against Romulus, and which he afterwards consecrated and dedicated. In the very beginning of founding this work it is said that the gods exerted their divinity to presage the future greatness of this empire; for though the birds declared for the unhallowing of all the other temples, they did not admit of it with respect to that of Terminus. This omen and augury were taken to import ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... counterpart in the political campaign. Several circumstances contributed to divide and discourage the administration party. The resignation of Mr. Chase had seemed to not a few leading Republicans a presage of disintegration in the government. Mr. Greeley's mission at Niagara Falls had unsettled and troubled the minds of many. The Democrats, not having as yet appointed a candidate or formulated a platform, were free to devote all their leisure to attacks ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... name that, in the Phoenician and Hebrew tongues, (which have a great affinity,) signifies the New City. It is said, that when the foundations were dug, a horse's head was found, which was thought a good omen, and a presage of the future ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... at night In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS And JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchance With power permitted to alleviate ill And fit the sufferer for the coming woe, Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart The balm of resignation, and inspires With heavenly hope. Even as a Child ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... own. Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates; (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs denied with gore, Not all my brothers gasping on the shore; As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread; I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!] In Argive looms our battles to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... been sawn asunder, the ceiling gave way and fell, burying every one beneath the ruins. Jacques de Bourbon, Seigneur de Preaux, died in consequence, several others were grievously wounded, but the king, by a good fortune, almost miraculous, escaped. This was a certain presage, that, after great danger, Divine Providence, in the end, would save him, and draw him forth from the ruins of his ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... scarcely strong enough to ruffle the surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war—alike elemental and human—and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... to look the old place over by myself, perhaps half inclined to pay a visit to Con, I left Jim in the library to his own devices, and stepped out alone along the road. The air was clear now, and the sleet had frozen to a thin crystal layer, a presage of winter, which glistened under the clear stars and sent them shivering up at me again. As I neared the mill house, I could hear voices through its scanty boarding, and decided, for the moment, to go on, following the bed of the creek, when an intonation, oddly familiar, brought ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Assault him, or a woman darting love From all her body—that one strains to get Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs To join with it and cast into its frame The fluid drawn even from within its own. For the mute craving doth presage delight. ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... place subsequently it was believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian history, and were embodied in a great work which was compiled for the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... sound, poured out in a tumult of joy; and, understanding that their young master was returned, raised such a peal of acclamation, as astonished the commodore and his lady, and inspired Julia with such an interesting presage, that her heart began to throb with violence. Running out in the hurry and perturbation of her hope, she was so much overwhelmed at sight of her brother, that she actually fainted in his arms. But from this trance ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... occasions they form in an instant, and from a small speck increase to a prodigious size. This is particularly observable at the summit of Lebanon; and mariners have usually found that the appearance of a cloud on this peak is an infallible presage of a westerly wind, one of the "fathers of rain" ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... triumphed over the majority of his own party, and his speech in support of the Ministry, though not remarkable for eloquence, was admirable alike in temper and in tact, and was hailed at the moment as a presage of victory. 'Peel lives, moves, and has his being through Lord John Russell,' was Lord Shaftesbury's comment at the moment. Looking back at the crisis from the leisure of retirement, Lord John Russell declared that the Maynooth Act was a work of wisdom and liberality, and one which ought ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... prefiguration[obs3], prefigurement; prototype, type. [person who predicts] oracle &c. 513. V. predict, prognosticate, prophesy, vaticinate, divine, foretell, soothsay, augurate[obs3], tell fortunes; cast a horoscope, cast a nativity; advise; forewarn &c. 668. presage, augur, bode; abode, forebode; foretoken, betoken; prefigure, preshow[obs3]; portend; foreshow[obs3], foreshadow; shadow forth, typify, pretypify[obs3], ominate[obs3], signify, point to. usher in, herald, premise, announce; lower. hold out expectation, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... danger of their situation. Hope had been strongly excited by the return of dawn; for while the shadows of night lay on the ocean, their situation resembled that of one who strove to pierce the obscurity of the future, in order to obtain a presage of better fortunes. With the light had come the distant sail. As the day advanced, the ship had approached, relinquished her search, and disappeared, without a prospect ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he recognised his error, though he tried not to admit it. The extra subjects had exacted ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... hy testimony of the ceremonious Texera, as a presage of Lewes the prince of Condyes death, 1569. Foure daies before which, at Xaintes, the youth of all sorts, from 9. to 22. yeres age, assembled, and (of their owne accord) chose two Commaunders, one they entitled the Prince of Condy, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... causes of sickness are seated in us, and they produce certain signs of sickness to come, which physicians lawfully observe. Wherefore it is not unlawful to consider a presage of future events as proceeding from its cause; as when a slave fears a flogging when he sees his master's anger. Possibly the same might be said if one were to fear for child lest it take harm from the evil eye, of which we have ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... mankind, the priests kept his staff just like any other sacred object. That at such a time, when all the other holy things perished, this should have been preserved, gave them good hopes of Rome, which that omen seemed to presage would ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian pudding, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... with a train of shocking and fearful reminiscences. Her physical sufferings were also great. She felt benumbed and chilled; her heart was cold, and a shivering sickness ran through her whole frame, with a deadly presage of approaching dissolution. She looked up to the sky, then round her at the graves, and in a moment recognized the burying-place of her husband and children. All the circumstances then connected with the Extermination scene at Drum Dim, and that ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... or lightly go: Though thy heart presage thee woe, Vales and many a wasted sun, Oread let thy laughter run, Till the irreverent mountain air Ripple all thy ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... not transformed Gilbert, and Albinia's old fondness glowed with double ardour as she mused over his history of the battle-eve. His father attributed the impression to a mind full of presage and excitement, acted upon by strong memory; but woman-like, Albinia preferred the belief that the one twin might have been an actual messenger to cheer and strengthen the other for the coming trial. Sophy only ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Septimius Severus's of history, were directed to making head against the ever rising flood of barbarians, which had already before his time burst the dykes that restrained it, and though once driven back, continued to dash itself on every side against the outer borders of the empire, and to presage its speedy overthrow. His efforts were, on the whole, successful; he was able to uphold and preserve for some considerable time longer the territorial greatness which the nineteenth dynasty had built up a second time. The monumental temple of Medinet-Abou, near Thebes, is the Pantheon ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... night, as the Scotch say, when an unaccountable lightness of mood precedes a heavy sorrow, which it so often does, as well as the more usual mood, the presage of gloom. I felt that I had the power to put aside all ills—to grapple with my fate, and compel back my lost happiness. Truly my bosom's lord sat lightly on her throne, as of late it had not been ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... was called a hunch, a premonition, the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... found, what was constantly verified by all our observations in these high latitudes,* that fair weather was always of an exceeding short duration, and that when it was remarkably fine it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm; for the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from the south-west as the night came on, and increasing its violence continually till nine in the ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... depths of subtlety in the methods of these men. He understood their ruffianism too well. Therefore the sound of movement that reached him suggested the obvious result of their first failure. It was the presage of ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... are these impressions, it is strange and worth thinking on that the dominant suggestion of Nature through all her changes, whether her mood be stormy or sunny, melancholy or jubilant, is one of presage and promise. She seems to be ever holding out to us an immortal invitation to follow and endure, to endure and to enjoy. She seems to say that what she brings us is but an earnest of what she holds for us out there along the vanishing ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... dreary rain on Saturday morning seemed to presage failure for the girls' plans at the very start. It was always dismal, Marjorie thought, to go anywhere in the rain, but especially to a new town. Frieda would receive a bad impression of the place from the beginning, and, if she had any tendency toward homesickness, the ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... express Prince Camaralzaman's joy: 'Dear princess,' continued he to himself, 'this happy minute, which restores to me a treasure so precious to thee, is without doubt a presage of our meeting again, perhaps even sooner ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... Jewess, jewel! I have thinned my harem out! Must every flirting of your fan Presage ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... refuses, collected in that box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan—certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however you may be distressed, at the mournful presage with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... large sums were extorted by either party. In 1235 the church was struck by lightning and set on fire, but fortunately a tank of rainwater was close at hand, and the fire was soon extinguished. As the Abbot died eight days afterwards, the accident was looked upon as a presage of his coming death. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... surge High reared as heaven with monstrous surf of spears That shake on us their shadow, till men's heads 490 Bend, and their hearts even with its forward wind Wither, so blasts all seed in them of hope Its breath and blight of presage; yea, even now The winter of this wind out of the deeps Makes cold our trust in comfort of the Gods And blind our eye toward outlook; yet not here, Here never shall the Thracian plant on high For ours his ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... see the goodnesse of the Deities, who still with grace preuents our ill presage, This groue was hallow'd to no Hiadres, but chast Diana, who with violent rage Discending from her towre of Christalline, To keepe the place still sacred and diuine: against her rites, brought with her thereupon white Poplar from the banckes ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... occurred a year later and was a grand affair. Asbury presided on each of the three days of the ceremony, and his text on the second day, "O man of God, there is death in the pot,"[32] was looked on by the superstitious, in time to come, as a presage of disaster. The faculty was filled up and all seemed to bid fair for prosperity; but Mr. Heath remained in charge of the College less than a year, resigning because of certain charges of insufficiency, which seem rather trival. ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... became the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of their death. It has been conjectured that it is from this connection of the rose with Paradise, and with the thought of the love ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... present, seeing that the time is not favourable for interpretation." The King rejoiced in these words with exceeding joy and great was his contentment; his trouble departed from him, his mind was at rest and he said, "If the case be thus of the happy presage of my dream, do thou complete to me its exposition when the fitting time betideth: for that which it behoveth not to expound to me now, it behoveth that thou expound to me when its time cometh, so my joy may be fulfilled, because I seek naught in this save the approof of Allah extolled ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... such a gruesome stare, Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright; The morning gave no presage of the night; A smile may be the prelude ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... veldt, in the pineland, Camped by the spring or the hill, Pressing the grapes of the vineland, Grinding the wheat at the mill, Oracles whispered the message Meant for the ear of the King— Joyous and splendid the presage, Lofty the vision ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thus given often dazzles us, and deepens the darkness which is in front. We can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap- door opens beneath us ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Don Miguel reach the glens of Mariposa in the lovely days when bird, bud, and blossom make Lagunitas a fairyland. In the mind of the veteran but one care lingers—future war. Already the feuds of Alvarado and Micheltorrena presage a series of domestic broils. Don Miguel hears that foreigners are plotting to return to the coast; they will come back under the protection of foreign war-ships. As his horse bounds over the turf, the soldier ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... loose cap of yellow. There is a ruff about his neck, and a pair of fine buckles to his shoes, and he always dances. He has his back to the thunderclouds, but there is that in his eyes which tells us that he has seen them, and that he knows their presage. He is afraid. Yet he dances. Never, howsoever slightly, swerves he, see! from his right posture, nor fail his feet in their pirouette. All a' merveille! Nor fades the smile from his face, though he smiles through ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... already an Alliance for him, and was resolv'd on his Favourite's marrying Agnes, conjur'd her so tenderly to prevent these Persecutions, by consenting to a secret Marriage, that, after having a long time consider'd, she at last consented. I will do what you will have me (said she) tho' I presage nothing but fatal Events from it; all my Blood turns to Ice, when I think of this Marriage, and the Image of Constantia seems to hinder me from ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the army under the command of General Wayne is a happy presage to our military operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio. From the advices which have been forwarded, the advance which he has made must have damped the ardor of the savages and weakened their obstinacy ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... for griefe: I cannot see him frowne, it may not be: Armies of foes resolu'd to winne this towne, Or impious traitors vowde to haue my life, Affright me not, onely AEneas frowne Is that which terrifies poore Didos heart: Nor bloudie speares appearing in the ayre, Presage the downfall of my Emperie, Nor blazing Commets threatens Didos death, It is AEneas frowne that ends my daies: If he forsake me not, I neuer dye, For in his lookes I see eternitie, And heele make ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... aid withdrawn, I look'd around, And in my school a bless'd subsistence found - My winter-calm of life: to be of use Would pleasant thoughts and heavenly hopes produce; I loved them all; it soothed me to presage The various trials of their riper age, Then dwell on mine, and bless the Power who gave Pains to correct us, and remorse to save. "Yes! these were days of peace, but they are past, - A trial came, I will believe, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... it would not be an omen of ill presage, a dreadful phenomenon in the land, if our great men should take it in their heads to deride ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley |
