"Augury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a size which required all his strength to draw it, as he at length did, flapping and floundering to a safe landing. And for the next three hours he pursued the sport with a success which, notwithstanding the great number that broke away from his hook, well made good the augury of his beginning. By that time he had caught some dozens, of sizes varying from one to seven pounds, and enough, and more than he needed. But still he could not forego his exciting employment, and, insensible of the lapse of time, continued his drafts on the seemingly inexhaustible eddy, till roused ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... With black and purple scarfs by her left side. Apollo gave it, and her skill withal, And she was term'd his dwarf, she was so small: 70 Yet great in virtue, for his beams enclosed His virtues in her; never was proposed Riddle to her, or augury, strange or new, But she resolv'd it; never slight tale flew From her charm'd lips without important sense, Shown in some grave succeeding consequence. This little sylvan, with her songs and tales, Gave such estate to feasts and nuptials, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Wicklow and Lord Fitzgerald made yet ampler concessions than his grace; and the Marquis of Lansdowne argued on this, that they assented to the principles of the bill; and that, therefore, no further delay should take place in its progress. Lord Brougham said that he drew no happy augury of the fate of the bill from the very significant speech of the Duke of Wellington. He would not say any sinister motive lurked in his proposition for delay; but if he was averse to the present measure, as he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... noticed that Parrish was already speaking of Atlantis as if it was in the past. They drew a hopeful augury from that. And then there was nothing to do but resign themselves to that universal greyness—and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... English Company entrusted to Byleth, who had taken part in the last voyages, the command of a vessel of fifty tons. Her name, the Discovery, was of good augury. She carried, as pilot, the famous William Baffin, whose renown has eclipsed that of his captain. Setting sail from England on April 13th, the English explorers sighted Cape Farewell by the 6th of May, passed from the Island of Desolation ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... warrant of scientific authority. Cuvier had prefaced his classical work with a speculative disquisition whose very title (Discours sur les Revolutions du Globe) is ominous of catastrophism, and whose text fully sustains the augury. And Buckland, Cuvier's foremost follower across the Channel, had gone even beyond the master, naming the work in which he described the Kirkdale fossils, Reliquiae Diluvianae, or Proofs of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... few rabbits upon the island. It grew blanker the more I turned the prospect over. At last in the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I had encountered. I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them. In turn I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury of assistance ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace and friendship which now exist between the two nations will be, as it shall be my desire ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to the leading female character on bills rapidly printed and distributed through the town. She went about in a dream, rather a delirium. Mr. Peel used his most affable manner to her; his compliments after the rehearsal were an augury of great things. And ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... doubt of tha-at! There must have been something in it to obtain the palm of victory in the face of such prodigious competeetion. It's the see-lect intellect of Scotland that goes to the Univairsity, and only the ee-lect of the see-lect win the palm. And it's an augury of great good for the future. Abeelity to write is a splendid thing for the Church. Good-bye, John, and allow me to express once moar my great satisfaction that a pareeshioner of mine is a ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... seemingly good augury for the cause of a suppliant man, however little for the man himself, when she who has much to pardon can depict him in a manner that almost smiles, not unlike a dandling nurse the miniature man-child sobbing off to sleep after a frenzy; an example of a genus framed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wish, Sir," rejoined Charles in a stern tone and with a freezing look, that seemed of ill augury to the extortioner—"It is my intention to terminate the scene. Stand forth, Clement Lanyere and let me hear what you have to declare in reference ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom, defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams; but when his hour comes, Caesar will go to the appointed spot where the daggers of his assassins ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... said, as I swung over the side of the boat into the water, when I found myself knee-deep. Olivia looked from me to Tardif with a flushed face—an augury that made my pulses leap. Why should her face never change when he carried her in his arms? Why should she shrink ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... surprised." Her presence was a charm to abate the violence of the hurricane. He could not resist the gentle tones of her voice, and at the spell his calmed spirit trembled into comparative repose. Armstrong acknowledged it to himself as an augury of good. ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... existed in this archipelago. At the end of this barbarous ceremony, which was a blot in the memoirs of so peaceable a people, a king-fisher alighted in the foliage. "It is Atoua!" cried Otoo, delighted at the happy augury. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... that frenzy into which savages are so readily lashed, and that is so like to the action of mobs in trousers, they tumbled, leaped, danced, yelled, sang, grimaced, and gesticulated until the Manitou disclosed himself, either as a harmless animal or a beast of prey. If he came in the former shape the augury was favorable, but if he showed himself as a bear or panther, it was a warning of evil that they seldom ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... be out of place to append two or three parallel passages here by way of illustration:—"Bodily suffering purges away sin" (Berachoth, fol. 5, col. 1). "He who suffers will not see hell" (Eiruvin, fol. 41, col. 2). "To die of diarrhoea is an augury for good, for most of the righteous die of that ailment" (Kethuboth, fol. 103, col. 2, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... were rather stronger than the School House, and Donaldson's had beaten them by a rather larger score than that which Seymour's had run up in their match. But neither Trevor nor Clowes was inclined to draw any augury from this. Seymour's had taken things easily after half-time; Donaldson's had kept going hard ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... the screech owl referring to death, it is interesting to note that among the Nahuas the owl is considered of unlucky augury and is usually found in the "House of Death" and "of Drought", as contrasted with the turkey, considered as a bird of good fortune, and found in the "House ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... to see a fire," said I, in reply to the English nobleman, "for some dreadful accident always results therefrom. Yet, on the whole, they are of good augury, and I am sure, my lord, that your health or your affairs ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... invited by Balak, the king, to come and devote the Israelites to destruction, God put blessings into his mouth instead of curses;[124] and this bad prophet, amongst the blessings which he bestows on Israel, says there is among them neither augury, nor divination, nor magic. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... given measuring rods of life—will think of estimating a life by the money measure. It is a shallow world that knows a man as soon as and only when it has scheduled his marketable assets; nor is it a happy augury for a nation when it acquires the habit of estimating its men by the length of the catalogues of ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... all rose and went to the window, to ascertain Corbett's fortune by this new species of augury. The blue pigeon flapped his wings, and then he sidled up to the white one; at last, the white pigeon flew off the wall and settled on the roof of the adjacent house. "Bravo, white pigeon!" said Corbett; "I shall ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... door, Joe!" he said, and stumbled into the body of the vehicle. A shrill cheer rose from the eight boys, who could see him through the further window. Taking this for an augury Of success, Mr. Lavender removed his hat, and putting his head through the window, thus addressed the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rear, so that their situation, during this day and night, appeared nearly desperate. In the night Xenophon had a dream—the first which he has told us since his dream on the terrific night after the seizure of the generals—but on this occasion, of augury[62] more unequivocally good. He dreamt that he was bound in chains, but that his chains on a sudden dropt off spontaneously; on the faith of which, he told Cheirisophus at daybreak that he had good hopes of preservation; and when the generals offered sacrifice, the victims ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... Great Work was concerned, my father only cared for its publication, not its profits. I will not say that he might not hunger for praise, but I am quite sure that he did not care a button for pudding. Nevertheless, it was an infaust and sinister augury for Austin Caxton, the very appearance, the very suspension and danglement of any puddings whatsoever, right over his ingle-nook, when those puddings were made by the sleek hands of Uncle Jack! None of the puddings which he, poor ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... summit of the M. I saw Descending other lights, that rested there, Singing, methinks, their bliss and primal good. Then, as at shaking of a lighted brand, Sparkles innumerable on all sides Rise scatter'd, source of augury to th' unwise; Thus more than thousand twinkling lustres hence Seem'd reascending, and a higher pitch Some mounting, and some less; e'en as the sun, Which kindleth them, decreed. And when each one Had settled in his place, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... double snipe in the Campagna of Rome, a great flight appeared on the 3rd of April, and the day after heavy rain set in, which greatly interfered with my sport. The vulture, upon the same principle, follows armies; and I have no doubt that the augury of the ancients was a good deal founded upon the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,—but two ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... to be a painter you must go to France—France is the only school of Art." I must again call attention to the phenomenon of echo-augury, that is to say, words heard in an unlooked-for quarter, that, without an appeal to our reason, impel belief. France! The word rang in my ears and gleamed in my eyes. France! All my senses sprang from sleep ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... His shrewd augury, however, was not fulfilled. Those who recoiled from the colossal weight of Dinmont, on looking up at his size and strength, apparently judged him too heavy metal to be rashly encountered, and suffered him to pursue his course unchallenged. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... they be for you both an augury of good! Mind and return home, Le Gardeur, after your visit. I shall sit up to await your arrival, to congratulate you;" and, after a pause, she added, "or to console ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... There came too Titaresian Mopsus, whom above all men the son of Leto taught the augury of birds; and Eurydamas the son of Ctimenus; he dwelt at Dolopian ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... person who received me in Russia was a Frenchman, who had formerly been a clerk in my father's bureaux; he talked to me of him with tears in his eyes, and that name thus pronounced appeared to me of happy augury. In fact, in that Russian empire, so falsely termed barbarous, I have experienced none but noble and delightful impressions: may my gratitude draw down additional blessings on this people and their sovereign! I entered Russia at the moment ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth." What was the beginning of Rome, the metropolis of all the world? what was it but a concourse of thieves, and a sanctuary of criminals? it was justly named by the augury of no less than twelve vultures, and the founder cemented his walls with the blood of ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... lustily, waxed strong, and filled the colony with joy. A new spirit pervaded Settlement Cliffs. The vital fact of new life born there, an augury of strength and increase and world-dominance once more, cemented ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... opportunity of being alone with his hostess, and talked to her of the great venture with all the good humour he could command. Mrs. Morton had seen two notices of Alma's debut; both were so favourable that she imagined them the augury of a brilliant career. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... compelling State prisoners to purchase their liberty—an idea which undoubtedly ranks as one of the most extraordinary schemes for raising money ever employed. Measures such as this constituted a sufficiently ominous beginning; they provided, indeed, an only too true augury of what was to come and from what species of wrongs the unfortunate country was doomed to ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... centuries before the Greek science was heard of, there were scientists in Babylonia. During the Sumerian period "the forms and relations of geometry", says Professor Goodspeed, "were employed for purposes of augury. The heavens were mapped out, and the courses of the heavenly bodies traced to determine the bearing of their movements upon ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... e., But, above all, he was tormented with nervous irritation, by sleeplessness; for he enjoyed not more than three hours of nocturnal repose; nor these even in pure untroubled rest, but agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon one occasion he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Samoa. The Romans had an official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... deficiency in the upper forehead, while there was an almost universal enlargement of the lower jaw and of the base of the brain. Being, unfortunately, a friend of Phrenology, as well as a heretic, I drew no very auspicious augury from these developments; and looking into their faces, the physiognomical traits were narrow-mindedness, bigotry, or cunning. The Benedictine heads showed more intellect and will; the Franciscans more dulness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... as a good augury, that a violent storm had raged for three days before. In the morning, notwithstanding this much magnified triumph on the part of his enemies, neither Rob Roy nor his followers were in the least daunted, but went about "proclaiming the Pretender," and carrying ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... whole of Turkish Armenia. They will thus be conferring a benefit upon humanity and ending one of the most grinding and barbarous tyrannies that the modern world has ever seen; the progress made by the Armenians under Russian rule during the past twenty years is a happy augury for the future of this race when once united in common allegiance to the Tsar, under a wise system of local autonomy. But will the Ottoman Empire be able to survive when shorn of its European possessions, of its Armenian and Arab populations? Will not Italy demand her share of ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... of the twentieth and twenty-third ult. are received. Of the tone and temper of both I do not complain. The desperate fortunes of a bad cause excuse much irritation of temper, and I pass it by. Indeed, I received it as a favorable augury, and as evidence that you are not indifferent to the opinions ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... by the formation of a compact and union that will afford protection to their liberties and rights." States that had spurned South Carolina's plea for nullification in 1832 responded to this new appeal with alacrity—an augury ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... to learn the future comes from the old system of augury from sacrifice. Who sees in the nuts thrown into the fire, turning in the heat, blazing and growing black, the writhing victim of an ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... days of killing time, our orders came through to leave for the front, two of us to go by motor and the rest by train. Our experience with the British officer at the base had certainly been pleasant and proved to be a happy augury of our future relationships with them. The British officer in France is quite a different man from the same officer in England, and does not impress you with the fact that the war is being carried on by ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... clouds lifted and broke, showing blue sky and one streak of sunshine. But the augury was without warrant. The wind increased. A huge black pall bore down from the mountains and it brought rain that could be seen falling in sheets from above and approaching like a swiftly moving wall. Soon it ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... contemptible artist, told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a festal roll, long and loud, of vivas; and this word viva of good augury—but stop; ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... exaggerated reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little better than a drawn battle—had been looked upon with dread by some, with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in this an augury of failure. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... if spirits in the other world have knowledge of human affairs, can Mr. Cartwright be now altogether satisfied with his rogue's augury as to the capacities of the New England Puritans, when he intends to pick pockets in the New World, having made the Old too hot to hold ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... pleasure is found in the marital relation is a favourable augury for impregnation, it has been long noticed that Messalinas are sterile. It was observed in Paris, that out of one thousand only six bore children in the course of a year, whereas the ordinary proportion in that city ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... directed a labourer to place a stone as a mark. The man took a broken fragment of an old gravestone on which was inscribed the word Resurgam; and by many this was naturally taken as a favourable augury. In 1686 the old west end, hitherto left undisturbed in its ruins, was cleared away, and two years later the choir was ready for its roof; but shortly after, a fire at the west of the north choir aisle, in a room allotted ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... on a field gules. A bronze card-tray, heaped with cards, stood in the middle of a table, and happening to cast his eye over them, Andrea noticed the one which Grimiti had just left lying on the top—Bonne chance!—The ironical augury ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... all lock up themselves a' late, Or talk in character; I have not seen A company so changed. Except they had Intelligence by augury of ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... form Of all things ominous, disastrous, ill, And as a mid-day gloom portending storm, A lowering fate made prophecy of fear, And Atma knew the menace in the air, As ghostly shudderings of our fearful life Foretell the advent of th' assassin's knife. Low sank his heart before the augury (For life was dearer on this eventide Than e'er before), and all dismayed, he cried, "These are the heralds of calamity That bid me hence, for all too well I know The pensive pageantry of mortal woe; O Love, my Love, this sweetest love may flee ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... nominal president, but the real authority was possessed by the Russian ambassador. The partition was not fully arranged till 1774, and then Prussia and Austria began to extend their bounds beyond the agreed limits. L'appetit vient en mangeant, and these encroachments were a sad augury of future partitions to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... vanished, and to-night we have our first Lotos dinner in a home that is all our own. It is peculiarly fitting that the board should now be spread in honor of one who has been a member of the club for full a score of years, and it is a happy augury for the future that our fellow-member whom we assemble to greet should be the bearer of a most distinguished name in the world of letters; for the Lotos Club is ever at its best when paying homage to genius in literature or in art. Is there a civilized ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... encamped, partly from their captain's name of Fiorino, and partly from the abundance of flowers which grew there; wherefore Caesar, thinking it a beautiful name, and considering flowers to be of good augury, and also wishing to honor his captain, whom he had raised from an humble station, and to whom he was greatly attached, gave it to the city which he founded ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... be drawn from the croak of a magpie, from the rush of waters, and the howling of dogs. If a flower is seen to expand on a barren rock, or in a place where there is no other vegetation, it is looked upon as an augury of an abundant harvest throughout the country. But if a tree spreads its branches over the roof of a house it announces all sorts of misfortunes: the sons of that house will perish in a foreign land: ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... regards as her right as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, there is a system which moves on, as soon as such movement becomes possible, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... something of yours which is in itself a thing of no moment; yet, because it is of good augury, take it ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... shape of the head, I have found this is not uncommon. The phrenologist made all sorts of predictions of what I should be and do, which proved about as near the truth as those recorded in Miss Edith Thomas's charming little poem, "Augury," which some of us were reading the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... king. Night fell and the carnage was not stayed. Two days yet and two nights the city was a prey to the ministers of death, and some Catholics, denounced by personal enemies, were involved in the massacre. The resplendent August sun, the fair sky and serene atmosphere were held to be a divine augury, and a white thorn in the cemetery of the Innocents blooming out of season was hailed as a miracle and a visible token from God that the Catholic religion was to blossom again by the destruction of ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... he did reverence and thought it a great matter that his offence had turned out for his profit and moreover that he had been invited to dinner with happy augury; 127 and so he went to his house. And having entered it straightway, he sent forth his son, for he had one only son of about thirteen years old, bidding him go to the palace of Astyages and do whatsoever the king should command; and he himself being ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... made on Tuesday for the better protection of our cattle. The quadrupeds, Dutch and English, were on the best of terms—a happy augury, surely, for the amity which would unite the bipeds of the land when the war was done. We had a batch of natives employed digging trenches for the cattle-guards. A patrol was at hand to nip in the bud any interference with ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the bog of Civil Service Reform, described as "Spinney's Walk-Over" (a happy blending, as Nick called it, of serious principle and humorous suggestion), I appeared on the door-steps and delivered a few halting sentences of gratitude and augury for success, which were received with loud plaudits and the rattle of the drum corps. Thereupon I invited the battalion to enter and partake of a little simple hospitality, which they hastened to do to the number of two hundred, including a dozen ward heelers in citizens' raiment, ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... of a slavish fear to combat Youth, strength, or cunning; but for that I durst not Engage the goodness of a cause on fortune By which his name might have outfaced my vengeance. Oh, Tecnicus, inspired with Phoebus' fire! I call to mind thy augury, 'twas perfect; Revenge proves its own executioner. When feeble man is lending to his mother The dust he was first framed in, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... for Fort Dauphin, in the south-eastern end of Madagascar. The Salisbury and Exeter arrived soon afterwards, and getting no news either of Matthews or the pirates, sailed for Bombay. These proceedings were not of happy augury for the success of the expedition. The pirates had information of the squadron being in the Indian seas, and were doubtless kept henceforth informed, from time to time, of its movements through their various sources of intelligence. Taylor, ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... the nature of the spirit, and similarly if they refer to the intellectual or physical worlds. Thus a pair of scales would denote Divine Justice in the spiritual sense, judgment in the intellectual sense, and obligation in the material sense. If the scales were evenly balanced the augury would be good. But if weighed down on one side it is Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, "Thou art weighed and found wanting"; it shows a corrupt judgment, a wrong conclusion, an unbalanced mind, failure in one's obligations, injustice, etc. And if a sword should lie across the ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... making eight hours a day's work in the navy yards of the United States. This was the beginning of the eight hour agitation in Congress. I had not given much thought to the necessity for such legislation in this country, but the proposed measure seemed to me an augury of good to the working classes, as the Ten Hour movement had proved itself to be twenty years before. It could plead the time laws of England as a precedent, enacted to protect humanity against the "Lords of the Loom." These laws recognized labor as capital endowed ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... principle identical with those of the second class, where the inquirer himself coperated, or was not entirely passive; cases such as those which the Jews called Bath-col, or daughter of a voice, (the echo [1] augury,) viz., where a man, perplexed in judgment and sighing for some determining counsel, suddenly heard from a stranger in some unlooked-for quarter words not meant for himself, but clamorously applying to the difficulty besetting him. In these instances, the mystical word, that carried ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... taken as a sort of augury referring rather to certain other men about to set forth to do their work in the world, than to my father, who, except in the department of jurisprudence (of which indeed rumour says that he was a master), never let his mind take in aught ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Herr Freudenberg replied, grasping the hand which had been offered to him, "are a happy augury. When we meet again, I shall be able to prove the coming of the things of ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... erroneous theories of mankind have often found their way into popular speech, and their terms have remained there long after the rejection of the beliefs they embodied: as—lunatic, augury, divination, spell, exorcism: though, to be sure, such words may often be turned to good account, besides the interest of preserving their original sense. Language is a record as well as an ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Returned to us who sought his oracle, The messengers have doubtless told thee—how One course alone could rid us of the pest, To find the murderers of Laius, And slay them or expel them from the land. Therefore begrudging neither augury Nor other divination that is thine, O save thyself, thy country, and thy king, Save all from this defilement of blood shed. On thee we rest. This is man's highest end, To others' service all his powers ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... struggling through the gloom, Facing the storm, a mighty ship seeks room On the open sea, whose rage it seems to court, Flying the dangerous pity of the port. The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry, Give fatal augury Of the impending stroke. Death hesitates, For each already dies who death awaits. With portents the whole atmosphere is rife, Nor is it all the effect of elemental strife. The ship is rigged with tempest as it flies.* It rushes on the lee, The war is now ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... seen that Petrarch left Naples foreboding disastrous events to that kingdom. Among these, the assassination of Andrew, on the 18th of September, 1345, was one that fulfilled his augury. The particulars of this murder reached Petrarch on his arrival at Avignon, in a letter ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... meaning of this? Does it not throw a light on the intention of the Queen? She, who was guided by augury, and magic, and superstition, naturally chose a time for her resurrection which seemed to have been pointed out by the High Gods themselves, who had sent their message on a thunderbolt from other worlds. When such a time was fixed by supernal wisdom, would it not be the height of human ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... clasped, loving each other, if possible, better than ever. He now and then repeated some loving greeting which she was to bear home; and she tried to restrain her tears, at the separation she was forced to rejoice in, a parting which gave no augury of meeting again, the renewal of an exile from which there was no present hope of return. Harry looked at Dr. Bathurst to intimate it was time to be gone. The clergyman came close to the brother and sister, and instead of speaking his own words, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... motto, "Ma Vie et ma Mie." It would have been thought unladylike, if not unscriptural, to open the lips in church; yet, for all her silence, good Betty was striving to be devout and attentive, praying earnestly for her little sister's safety, and hailing as a kind of hopeful augury this verse ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whit; we defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. [55] If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... Pindar, that a swarm of bees settled upon his lips, and fed him with honey, when he was left exposed upon the highway. It probably had some foundation in fact, whatever may be thought of the implied augury of the special favour of the gods which is said to have been drawn from it at the time. In any case, the picture of the strayed child, sleeping unconscious of its danger, with its hands full of wild- ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... brother Adrastus gave her, had not discovered where he was. Discovered in his retreat, Amphiaraues accompanied the Argives, and while, according to the rules of the soothsaying art, he was observing a flight of birds, in order to derive an augury from it, his horses fell down a precipice, and he lost his life. Statius and other writers, to describe this event in a poetical manner, say that the earth opened and swallowed up ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... gentleman, who sings a good song, sees much company, and is played by that convivial genius Paul Bedford. Ottocar is introduced amongst other friends to a "speaking spirit," who, being personated by Miss Terrey, utters a terrible prediction. We could not quite make out the purport of this augury; nor were we much grieved at the loss; feeling assured that the next two acts would be occupied in fulfilling it. The funny bravoes present themselves in the next scene, and exit to stab one of two brothers, who goes off evidently for that purpose, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... perhaps rather a smuggler of the Pays Bleu than of the British Channel, but she is sufficiently in place in a story not intended to be too slavishly faithful to life. Morrison, the sailing-master, with his augury of the blue pigeon, is real, and nothing can be more consistent with human nature than that he should have cursed the bird when he did finally find himself in prison. As for the adventures, they belong to the region of the fantastic, which does not pretend to be ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... was the Emperor as War Lord, but Lieutenant General Helmuth van Moltke, chief of the General Staff, was the practical director of military operations. General van Moltke was a nephew of the great strategist of 1870, and his name possibly appealed as of happy augury for repeating the former ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... blackened with great splashes of water, and the soaked parts clung tightly to his breast. At the neck it was already open, and they both thought they could see at this moment a quick contraction of the throat. An additional augury was found in the fact that Alf simultaneously had succeeded in dribbling some of the brandy between Pa's teeth, and although some of it ran out at the corners of his mouth and out on to his cheeks, some also was ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... it as a thing Of signal augury, and one which bodes Heaven's confidence in me and in my line, That I should rule as King in such an age!... Well, well.—So this new march of Bonaparte's Was ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... beats; I see from a distance the soldiers at their posts; I rush on; I cry with a failing voice. It was too late. When twenty yards from the outpost I see the first drawbridge going up. I tremble as I see in the air those terrible horns, sinister and fatal augury of that terrible fate which was at that moment beginning ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Caius, the senile insensibility of a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... and sunlight were playing some wonderful game of follow-my-leader; a hawk hung poised on tilting wings; and on the veil of mist that was the spirit of the brook where it cast itself from the ledge curved the arch of a rainbow. The man pointed to the augury. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... forces. Tizoc therefore promptly wheeled our little force aside into an open space, and so made a way for the struggling crowd to sweep past us. We noted, as the stream of terror-stricken men flowed by, that their officers were not with them; from which Tizoc drew the hopeful augury that the officers, being all trained soldiers, had drawn together into a rear-guard that sought to cover this wild retreat. And presently we found that Tizoc was right in his inference, for soon the crowd began very perceptibly to grow thinner, and the sound of loud cries and the rattle ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... loved her shape, and kiss'd her feet, Shown to their insteps proud and lithe, She approach'd, all mildness and young trust, And ever her chaste and noble air Gave to love's feast its choicest gust, A vague, faint augury of despair. ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... attention paid to him by the down-at-heels servant—it was good augury for the success of the interview. He lowered his voice to a deep bass whilst asking for Miss Feverel, and he fixed his eyeglass at a more strikingly impressive angle. He looked at women from four points of view, and he had, as it were, a sliding ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... no more complete defeat was ever recorded. Such at half-past eight in the morning was that memorable Sunday of the 2nd July, 1600, big with the fate of the Dutch republic—the festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, always thought of happy augury ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... national enterprise known as the North Pacific Railroad, on which already the iron horse has commenced his race, and which is being rapidly and determinedly carried forward, giving augury of a successful and speedy conclusion. This road passes through the central zone of the State, and, with its briearian arms, must cumulate untold wealth and power, only to be emptied into this "lap ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... Adrienne, to encourage him, showed him Frisky, and said to him gayly: "This poor little animal, to which I am very much attached, will always afford me a lively remembrance of your obliging complaisance, sir. And this visit seems to me to be of happy augury; I know not what good presentiment whispers to me, that perhaps I shall have the pleasure of being useful to you in ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Tommy and I—and Bilkins, whom I had begged of my father at the eleventh hour—stepped off the train at Miami, stretched our arms and breathed deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an augury of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he started off well laden with a portion of our ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Privy Council Order, been extended for a further period. My story may not go beyond fifty years, but this I may say, that what Hunt and I were able to accomplish in the first six months of our novel regime was an augury of what we have accomplished since, and that a grateful public throughout the district of North-West Donegal, which the Burtonport Railway serves, does not stint its praise. Trains are punctual now, engines do not break down, carriages are comfortable, goods traffic is well ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... given for the internecine war which was to follow between Rome and Elizabeth. And it was the first great public event which Spenser would hear of in all men's mouths, as he entered on manhood, the prelude and augury of fierce and dangerous years to come. The nation awoke to the certainty—one which so profoundly affects sentiment and character both in a nation and in an individual—that among the habitual and fixed conditions of life is that of having a ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... America, who found the habit to be in common use amongst the aboriginal tribes. The Greeks and Romans certainly had a similar habit, but far from attaching any ill-omen to the sneeze they regarded it as of good augury. Thus Catullus assures us that when Cupid upon a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Rocroi, and thanksgivings were uttered that the threats of a once dreaded enemy had resulted in his own shameful defeat; that the regency was strengthened, France calmed, and a reign which was to be so illustrious begun by an augury so auspicious. The army led in thanksgiving; all France followed; the first venture of the Duc d'Enghien was lauded to the skies. Praise sufficient to render others forever illustrious; but for him it was but the first ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... evil!" said Beauvallon, gayly. "Your rosy lips belie your gloomy augury. No, Eulalie, this dark cloud cannot forever overshadow the land—even now I think I can see glimpses of the blue sky. Le bon temps viendra,—the good time is coming,—and then, Eulalie, be sure that I ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... one of the noblest usages of chivalry, has now something of ludicrous about it; so too has 'doughty'; they belong to that serio-comic, mock-heroic diction, the multiplication of which, as of all parodies on greatness, and the favour with which it is received, is always a sign of evil augury for a nation, is at present a sign of ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... of life which to Brian's fancy haunted the highway, Kenny had delightful substitute, fairies quaffing nectar from flower-cups of dew or riding bridle paths of cloud on bits of straw. In everything he chose to find an augury, from the night of birds to the way of the wind, the curl of smoke or the color of a cloud. Thirsty he longed for the drinking horn of Bran Galed or better still of Finn, for Finn's horn held whatever you wanted. And for a pattern in moments of diversion, there was always the fairy Conconaugh, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... was only one explanation possible. This continual shifting of the Colonel, ever under the charge of those rascally dragoons, commanded now by a man whose familiarity with Tixall was an evil augury, meant one thing only. Soon, perhaps within an hour or two, there would be fighting, and under cover of that a stab in the back or a bullet in the head would clear the Colonel out of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... on, and one of the proud Claudius family was in command at Trepanum, in Sicily, when the enemy's fleet came in sight. Before a battle the Romans always consulted the sacred fowls that were carried with the army. Claudius was told that their augury was against a battle—they would not eat. "Then let them drink," he cried, and threw them into the sea. His impiety, as all felt it, was punished by an utter defeat, and he killed himself to avoid ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... compassion. "Adieu, Monsieur d'Artagnan," she said; and she ran to join Raoul, who was waiting for her at a little distance from the door, very much puzzled and thoroughly uneasy at the dialogue, which promised no good augury for him. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... however they might differ as to the nature of the superhuman agency by which such mysteries had been made known to mankind. And we may observe, with Herbert, a modern learned dignitary of our Church, how remarkably this augury was fulfilled. For, "if to the twelve centuries denoted by the twelve vultures that appeared to Romulus, we add for the six birds that appeared to Remus six lustra, or periods of five years each, by which the Romans were wont to number their ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... island that, many years ago, had formed the turning post of the great sledge race in which his passenger had been the fair Leyden heiress, Lysbeth van Hout. Ramiro could see her now as she was that day; he could see also how that race, which he just failed to win, had been for him an augury of disaster. Had not the Hollander again beaten him at the post, and that Hollander—Lysbeth's own son by another father—helped to it by her son born of himself, who now lay there death-stricken by him that gave him ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... The vessel, too, though it lay now in harbour and had not yet been proved by the buffets of the elements on the great ocean, had made a good trial trip, and got well through stormy weather, as the records of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No augury could be hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal severe, the Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a Spring! But, bright as it was, the baronet relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... often imitations of the practices of men, make use of the spittle. When playing at games of chance, such as odds or evens, something or nothing, etc., before the player ventures his guess he consults an augury, of a sort, by spitting on the back of his hand, and striking the spittle with his mid-finger, watching the direction in which the superfluous spittle flies, from him or to him, to right or left, and therefrom, by a rule of his own, he determines what shall be his guess. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... province of Astura, Cicero's villa at Atellanae, fabulae. See Fabulae Atellanae Atrium sutorium, Vestae Atticus house of, wealth of, as money-lender, the sister of, the slave of, Cicero's letters to, passim, Augury Augustus alleged proposal of, to remove the capital, attitude of towards plebs urbana, water-supply under, the grandfather of, as a social reformer, marriage laws of, furthers public comfort, restoration ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... with a more than human sagacity. He held it in awe and in reverence as a deity, as the Greeks of old held their streams. It would have drowned the child, he thought, if she had been an evil creature or of evil augury. But he did not say so, for he did not care to provoke Don Silverio's fine ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... meet and contend. As Dias saw it, so he named it, 'The Cape of Storms'. But his master, John II, seeing in the discovery a promise that India, the goal of the national ambition, would be reached, named it with happier augury 'The Cape of Good Hope'. No fitter name could have been given to that turning-point in the history of mankind. Europe, in truth, was on the brink of achievements destined to breach barriers, which had enclosed and diversified ...
— Progress and History • Various
... to your hut, and wait until I send for you!" answered Umbulazi, making a grimace from which Denis drew no favourable augury. He thought it ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... replied the astrologer, 'believe me, that in considering the consequences of this invention, I read with as certain augury, as by any combination of the heavenly bodies, the most awful and portentous changes. When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us; how difficult to be obtained by those ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for shyness; and Hilary led the way to the drawing-room with recovered equanimity. She had only had time for a quick hand-shake with the other visitor, but the glance which had been exchanged between them was delightful in its memory of past meetings—its augury of ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... court was detained at Calais for a further fortnight by violent gales in the Channel. In the excited state of public feeling, events in themselves ordinary assumed a preternatural significance. The friends of Queen Catherine, to whom the meeting between the kings was of so disastrous augury, and the nation generally, which an accident to Henry at such a time would have plunged into a chaos of confusion, alike watched the storm with anxious agitation; on the king's return to London, Te Deums were offered in the churches, as if for his deliverance from some extreme and imminent ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... circumstance, Sir, of happy augury for the motion before the House, that almost all those who have opposed it have declared themselves hostile on principle to Parliamentary Reform. Two Members, I think, have confessed that, though they disapprove of the plan now submitted to us, they are forced to admit the necessity of a change in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... agree with you; I regard it, on the contrary, as a favourable augury that my little beauty has retired. Don't you know that when the soldier hides himself behind the battlements of the tower, it signifies that the besieger's arrow has hit him? I tell you she has mine now, sticking in under her left wing; that kiss will force her to think of me all night, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... transported to Pittsburg on pack-horses, and thence taken down the Ohio River in flat-boats and distributed among the settlements on its banks. Country stores, land speculators, and paper money made their appearance, affording a clear augury of the future activity of the West in ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... over their lovely petals. You wish me a rose-strewn itinerary, all conceivable forms of 'good luck'; as though you stood on tip-toe and shouted after me: 'Gluck auf.' As a happy augury, I accept it. Like the old Romans, you have offered up for me a dainty sacrifice to propitiate Domiduca—the goddess who grants ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... generosity of the King of Navarre. For by chance I knew the youth to be one of the royal pages; a saucy fellow who had a day or two before cried 'Old Clothes' after me in the street. I was very far from resenting this now, however, nor did he appear to recall it; so that I drew the happiest augury as to the contents of the note he bore from the politeness with which he presented ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the First." In deference to the Emperor's well-known wishes, if not at his request, the Hamburg-Amerika line of steamers christened one of their ocean greyhounds Wilhelm der Grosse. The mere fact that people discuss the question in his lifetime is of happy augury for the Emperor. Perhaps some other epithet will be found for him. "Puffing Billy" is one of his titles among English officers, taken from the name given locally to Stephenson's first locomotive. But history has many ranks in her peerage and many epithets ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon, and of Delphi, the Persian Magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers, the Sibyl herself, are described as still discharging their prophetic functions, and celebrating the natal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... Midsummer May; grows in Otterbourne Park, and a large bunch on the Romsey Road. An old woman described having tried the augury, having laid the plants in pairs on Midsummer Eve, naming them after pairs of sweethearts. Those that twisted away ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... foretelling the weather, which is so important to the farmer. As I write this on a December day I recall the fact that I have myself within the last week successfully foretold a spell of cold after observing a great arrival of winter thrushes from the north. This particular branch of augury is, in fact, neither so inadequate nor so absurd as most others. Von Jhering may turn out to be right in his notion that at least some forms of divination have their origin in practical needs and in the skill of uncivilised man in discerning ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... fortune-seekers, and its pushing men and women of every description. And the result was an odd blend of classes and individuals worthy, it may be, of the new democratic era, but unprecedented. It was welcomed as of good augury, for instance, that in the stately Hotel Majestic, where the spokesmen of the British Empire had their residence, monocled diplomatists mingled with spry typewriters, smart amanuenses, and even with bright-eyed chambermaids ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... or, if he is not content with such a victory, he will then feel some sort of divine inspiration prompting him to desire greater things. For there is a deep philosophy implanted by nature in this man's mind." This was the augury which Socrates forms of him while a young man. But Plato writes it of him when he has become an old man, and when he is his contemporary, and a sort of attacker of all the rhetoricians. And Isocrates is the only one whom he admires. And let those men ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... emptied at all the Whig mass meetings; and as the canvass gained momentum and vehemence a curious kind of music added its inspiration to the cause; and after the Maine election was over, with its augury of triumph, every Whig who was able to sing, or even to make a joyful noise, was roaring the inquiry, "Oh, have you heard how old Maine went?" and the profane but powerfully accented response, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... painted the figures of two jolly gentlemen, one in kilts and the other in breeches, shaking hands cautiously across a running brook. The meal of all meals is a paulopost-meridian breakfast. The rosiness of the combs of these strapping hens is good augury;—hark, a cackle from the barn—another egg is laid—and chanticleer, stretching himself up on claw-tip, and clapping his wings of the bonny beaten gold, crows aloud to his sultana till the welkin rings. "Turn to the left, sir, if you ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... till the water reached their belts. They climbed aboard their boats, and raised the sails. And soon a line of great white wings was vanishing into the mist, madly rushing seaward through the white caps, under a sky already lowering with tempest and black with the scowl of fateful augury. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a good night and woke with new sinews. I saw that the sun was shining and the sky untroubled. A squaw brought me broth, and I drank it hungrily and tried to see no evil augury in the fact that I was served by a woman. I flattered her, and asked her ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... age knew and believed in these legends and omens, however they might differ as to the nature of the superhuman agency by which such mysteries had been made known to mankind. And we may observe with Herbert, a modern learned dignitary of our Church, how remarkably this augury was fulfilled; for "if to the twelve centuries denoted by the twelve vultures that appeared to Romulus we add, for the six birds that appeared to Remus, six lustra or periods of five years each, by which the Romans were wont to number their time, it brings us precisely ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... demolished dreams realized in the triumphs of their children. When little Nathan creeps to the piano and quite without the help of his elders picks out the song he has heard his mother sing,—all the neighbors in Odessa know it the next day. "A wonder child perhaps!" Oh happy augury of fame and fortune! Little Nathan shall have the best of instruction. His mother will teach him at first, of course. She will shape his little fingers to the keyboard. She will sing sweet folk melodies in his ear,—songs of labor, struggle, exile. She will count laboriously ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... was intended to evoke. The gray, clear morning was, ere long, enlivened with a radiant sunrise. As the great light burst in full splendor above the horizon, sending brilliancy over the scene, many a man thought of the great conqueror's augury and pointed in exultation and hope to the "Sun of Shiloh." Breckinridge's division went into the fight last, and, of course, saw or heard a great deal of it, before becoming itself actively engaged. Not far ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... better; but again Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply fulfilled. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... last story was only the fore-runner of mischief to follow; and from a cloudy morning she foretold a bad day. But Zoza, meanwhile, began to enchant all around her with the sweetness of her words, relating her sorrows from first to last, and beginning with her natural melancholy, the unhappy augury of all she had to suffer. Then she went on to tell of the old woman's curse, her painful wanderings, her arrival at the fountain, her bitter weeping, and the treacherous sleep which had been the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... his plaid. He tended him like welcome guest, Then thus his further speech addressed:— 55 "Stranger, I am to Roderick Dhu A clansman born, a kinsman true; Each word against his honour spoke, Demands of me avenging stroke; Yet more,—upon thy fate, 'tis said, 60 A mighty augury is laid. It rests with me to wind my horn, Thou art with numbers overborne; It rests with me, here, brand to brand, Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand: 65 But not for clan, nor kindred's cause, Will I depart from honour's laws; To assail a wearied man were shame, And stranger is a holy name; ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... associate with their actions at least the appearance of moral right. However distorted may be their conceptions of virtue, however feeble their efforts to attain even to their own ideals, it is a pleasing feature and a hopeful augury that they should wish to be justified. No community embarks on a great enterprise without fortifying itself with the belief that from some points of view its motives are lofty and disinterested. It is an involuntary tribute, the humble tribute ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... at Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet, which made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred and two, as of good augury ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... will not live more than twenty-four hours. But he is only dying to see you, now. Your coming may revive him. We sent for you this morning by Jonas, hoping you might escape and come in some way. But Jonas could not get his message to you. Some angel must have brought you. It is an augury of good." ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... 'I am superstitious, and have recollected that memorials with a point are of less fortunate augury; I will, therefore, request you to accept, instead of the pin, the enclosed chain, which is of so slight a value that you need not hesitate. As you wished for something worn, I can only say, that it has been worn oftener and longer than the other. It is of Venetian manufacture; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... had recognized the young Saxon, and the pleasure which her face evinced when her father proposed to purchase him from Bijorn angered him still more. In his heart he cursed the horse whose welcoming neigh had in the first instance saved Edmund's life, and the trial by augury which had confirmed the first omen. After the banquet was over Siegbert requested Edmund to ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... opinion which they ventured to express of his genius,—seconded as it was by that inward dissatisfaction with his own powers, which they whose standard of excellence is highest are always the surest to feel,—mortified and disturbed him; and, being the first sounds of ill augury that had come across his triumphal career, startled him, as we have seen, into serious doubts ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... citizens, under a government which they abhorred. In justice to the old gentleman who has favored us with his discontented musings, we must remark that the state of the country, so far as can be gathered from these papers, was of dismal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule. It was pardonable in the conservative of that day to mistake the temporary evils of a change for permanent diseases of the system which that change was to establish. A revolution, or anything that interrupts ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him, and Philip stole round and round the tree, the latter, happening to look across the paling, saw the dim outline of a man's figure in the lane, who appeared watching them. A thrill shot across his breast. These Beauforts, associated in his thoughts with every evil omen and augury, had they set a spy upon his movements? He remained erect and gazing at the form, when Sidney discovered, and ran up to him, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... resembles that which a King hath over his subjects. The same St. Basil, in his Homily de St. Mamme Martyre has, concerning David, who was taken from following the ewes great with young ones to feed Israel. The Romans, the worthiest and greatest nation in the world, sprang from shepherds. The augury of the twelve vultures plac't a scepter in Romulus's hand, which held a crook before; and ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... mourning, but presented himself serenely and made a profound bow, even though the visit of the friars had not appeared to him to be a good augury. The Captain-General ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... civilization, the pioneer, the primitive. And to emphasize and give the suggestion point, here was an example of the finest feminine beauty left to this degenerating world, beauty such as the Greeks knew, large-limbed, deep-bosomed, clear-eyed, product of a vigorous past, full of splendid augury for the future. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... he was taken from his cell. Steve counted it a good augury that a saddle horse was waiting for him to ride. Last night he had limped across the plaza on his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... suddenly, some augury, some flash Showed him a coming promise, a strange hint, Which, though he played with it, he scarce believed; Strange as in some dark cave the first fierce gleam Of pirate gold to some forlorn maroon Who tiptoes to the heap and glances round Askance, and dreads to hear what erst ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... a thankworthy augury in his ears. It is not triumph, but danger and death that lead generous spirits each to step ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... omen. If Marie Antoinette had herself expressed any wish to be her husband's partner in the solemnity, it would certainly have been complied with, and their subsequent fate would have been regarded as a confirmation of the evil augury. But she was indifferent on the subject, and quite contented to behold it as a spectator. It took place on Sunday, the 11th of June, in the grand Cathedral at Rheims. The progress of the royal family, which had quit Versailles for that city ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Voltaire of Habbakuk and another agnostic Frenchman of the Prophet Zerubbabel. This was indeed high praise considering the Saturday's sympathy with and affection for the dead level, for the average man; but as an augury of ill it was a brutum fulmen. No. iv. (August 30, '87) was, strange to say, in tone almost civil and ended with a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... of parents and a sister, which for me was a sweet augury at my departure, greeted me no more at ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... things which still gave a salutary cheek to the more radical tendencies; but the second generation there could hardly have shown equal, certainly not the same, character." A confirmation of this augury is the fact that the cast of the community became decidedly more Fourieristic before it disbanded; and it is not impossible that another generation might have decolorized and seriously deformed human existence among them. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... This boulder was carried to its present position by the goddess herself, the monument and bridges were built to detain it where it lay, and the temple afterwards erected to commemorate an event of such happy augury for the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... D'Artagnan, from being himself on all great occasions extremely concise, did not draw from the general's conciseness a favorable augury of the result of his mission. Now, as D'Artagnan had plenty of time for reflection, he battered his brains during this time in endeavoring to find out how Athos had seen King Charles, how he had conspired his departure with him, and lastly, how ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the fact that here, at last, is an action of unseen, uncomprehended forces which can be made the subject of actual experiment. Nay, more, the very fact that in this special direction experiment turns out to be possible, is in itself an augury that we are on a true scientific track; for it involves a remarkable coincidence between a theoretical ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... they came out and went home again. Florence took its name from one Fiorino, marshal of the camp, in the Roman army, who was killed in the battle of Fiesole. As he was the flower of chivalry, his name was thought of good augury; the more so, as roses and lilies sprang forth plenteously from the spot where he fell. Hence the fragrant and poetical name which the City of Flowers has retained until our days; and hence the cognizance of the three flowers-de-luce which it has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... presages of future events; which introduced ceremonies founded on a mistaken knowledge of antiquity, the most childish and ridiculous, and which were performed with all the air of solemnity and sanctity of devotion. Augury, or divinations founded on the flight of birds, were not only considered by the Egyptians as the symbols of the winds, but good and bad omens of every kind were founded or rather derived from the flying of the feathered tribe. The birds at ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian |
