"Ill-omened" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tombs of ages. All around Lies hushed and still, save with large, dusky wing The bird of night makes its ill-omened sound; Or moor-game, nestling 'neath th' flowery ling Low chuckle to their mates—or startled, spring Away on rustling pinions to the sky, Wheel round and round in many an airy ring, Then swooping downward to their covert hie, And, lodged beneath ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... ill-omened opening to a wedded life which brought nothing but unhappiness with it and which gave to the world some of the most degenerate women (in addition to a son who was almost an idiot) who have ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... was cutting loose from this ill-omened company and continuing my road Edinburgh-wards. We were lying in a wide trough of the Pentland Hills, which I well remembered. The folk of the plains called it the Cauldstaneslap, and it made an easy path for sheep and cattle between the Lothians and Tweeddale. The camp had been snugly ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... arranging a couch under the spreading arms of a huge oak, he invited her to lie down and rest. She was about to accede to his invitation, when they were startled by a shrill and discordant sound accompanied with a heavy flapping of wings, and presently a flight of dull ill-omened ravens issued from their solitary abodes, and hovered about, as if to dispute the possession of their ancient homes ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready to prove—neglect so outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wondered the plaintiff had not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had interposed as vainly—as vainly as Serjeant Rowland himself interposed in Court to prevent this case being made known—and with piteous outcries, in the name of outraged neglected woman, of castaway children pleading in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more than ordinary ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... his observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... tale was known to few, But now from lip to lip it flew:— A youth, the flower of all the band, Who late had left this sunny shore, When last he kist that maiden's hand, Lingering to kiss it o'er and o'er. By his sad brow too plainly told The ill-omened thought which crost him then, That once those hands should lose their hold, They ne'er would meet on earth again! In vain his mistress sad as he, But with a heart from Self as free As generous woman's only ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... new born thing, Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing; My mother died to give me birth: forlorn I came into the world, a babe of woe, Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn; Yet heir to what the idolators of show Deem life's good things, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... as Betsy was passing the open door at the time, called her in. The evening was falling quickly, the day had changed from a beautiful bright morning to a rainy gusty afternoon, tearing the leaves and blossoms from the trees, and whirling now and then a shower of snowy petals, beautiful but ill-omened snow, across the dark window. Beyond that the firmament was dull; the clouds hung low, and the day was gone before it ought. When Betsy came in she closed the door, not fastening it, but still, Reginald felt, shutting him out too much from the sick-bed, to which he might be called ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... discovered in the neighbourhood. This place must have stood rather lonely, away from the town, probably in the wood which then covered the whole of this county; but it is curious, is it not?" said the vicar, "that the tradition should have been handed down through all these centuries of its being an ill-omened place, long after any tradition of what the uses of ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... word. The men were awe-stricken. There was something despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet there was a savage grandeur in it, which bound their savage hearts still closer to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... is in terror lest ill news come from some of you; but I will run ahead and let her know the glad tidings. It is but five minutes since I left her, starting at every sound, lest it prove the foot of some ill-omened messenger." ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the colonies for mutual defence, at the breaking out of the French and Indian war, the inhabitants of Rhode Island bore their share in the defensive efforts, especially when the hostile savages hung along the frontiers of New York like an ill-omened cloud. The history of that commonwealth is identified with that of all New England, from the beginning of King William's war, soon after, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... intelligence, and all three passed down the steps together. The lady was disposed to take the cool air, and accompanied them to the garden-gate; but, in passing down the walk, Catalina noticed a second ill-omened sign that all was not right. Two glaring eyes she distinguished amongst the shrubs for a moment, and a rustling immediately after. 'What's that?' said the lady, and Don Antonio answered carelessly, 'A bird flying out ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... There she finds abundant food, so abundant that she cannot eat it all. I have already passed censure on this waste. (Cf. "The Mason-bees": chapter 10.—Translator's Note.) Now a little Osmia (O. cyanoxantha, Perez) makes her nest in the Mason's deserted cells; and this Bee, a victim of her ill-omened dwelling, also harbours the Dioxys. This is a manifest error on the parasite's part. The nest of the Chalicodoma, the hemisphere of mortar on its pebble, is what she is looking for, to confide her eggs to ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Issachar, "where the accursed woman would have offered sacrifice, and the priests struck me down because I prophesied to them of the wrath to come, and that is now at hand. An ill-omened spot, indeed, and an ill-omened tryst with the fiends for witnesses. Well, lead on, and I pray you to be brief as may be, for this place weighs down my soul, and I feel danger in it—danger to the body ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... were the same individuals. Circumstances, however, unfavourable to this idea, arose, and I turned from one conjecture to another, until I reposed, at length, in the belief that they were sinners—sinners of the deepest dye—such as their ill-omened looks betrayed—and that they sought the kind and ever-ready minister to obtain his counsel, and to share his prayers. At all events, this was a subject upon which I received no enlightening from their confidant. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two of its officers seized him all the same, and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... vestige of it remained. The little doctor's talk, above all the sight of his calm, thoughtful face and the aspect of his calm, satisfied room, gave the coup de grce to the uneasiness of a spurious and ill-omened excitement. When the power of wide medical knowledge is joined to the power of goodness and of umbrageous intellectuality, a doctor is, among all men, the man to lay the ghosts that human nature is perpetually at the pains to set walking in ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... murmured: "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of Fantomas a tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... flight. Ralegh, who, having for some time discarded the use of Manourie's ointment, had practically recovered his normal appearance, covering his long white hair under a Spanish hat, and muffling the half of his face in the folds of a cloak, came to Wapping Stairs—that ill-omened place of execution of pirates and sea-rovers—accompanied by Cotterell, who carried the knight's cloak-bag, and by Sir Lewis and Sir Lewis's son. Out of solicitude for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could not part from him until ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... forget the dismal appearance of the Cedar Barrens. The soil was nowhere more than two inches deep, and the trees which covered it by millions had all died as soon as they attained a height of fifteen or twenty feet. Swarms of ill-omened turkey-buzzards were the only living creatures visible "like foul lemures flitting ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... rayless, as if drowned in the ill-omened yellow clouds. The wind kept puffing and blowing at intervals. A few minutes' lull enabled us to collect a little grass, and then, seated side by side, we watched the approach of night, dark, desolate, and starless; but the comparative coolness of ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... the five acts of a portentous drama, full of shifting scenes and striking situations, on the issues of which depended the fortunes of France and of Germany; it was played out with ill-omened rapidity in nine days. In regard to the train of causes and consequences that brought France to the tremendous disaster upon which the curtain fell, diverse accounts have been given to the world by the leading actors—by M. de Gramont, by Bismarck, Benedetti, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's faults, an Italian should remember that it was he who first took up arms to the cry which was later to redeem Italy: independence from Alps to sea; and if he stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he need not refuse to uncover ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... a pale-faced young man, stared at us all in amazement He shrugged his shoulders; he smiled, and positively could not conceive what had happened to us, and why we were in such a state of excitement. He himself did not see an insect at all, did not hear the ill-omened whirr of its wings. ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... sea, great masses of cloud stood piled up and bathed in a mist of blood. A crimson crack like an open wound zigzagged between them, with a piece of dark red sun showing at the bottom. Heyst cast an indifferent glance at the ill-omened chaos ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... for instruction during the training cruise, like us boys on the lower deck each in our respective billet, gave out that we were in latitude 44 degrees 10 minutes north, and longitude 10 degrees 15 minutes west, thus showing that we were well to the westward of the ill-omened Cape Finisterre and now safely out of the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... running away? But the taking them, for all that, not so easy. One man shrinks from picking flowers, another from cutting down trees. And, it's curious that most of the forest tales and legends are dark, mysterious, and somewhat ill-omened. The forest-beings are rarely gay and harmless. The forest life was felt as terrible. Tree-worship still survives to-day. Wood-cutters... those who take the life of trees... you see a race of ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... she should cease to be a woman? Cannot you conceive the possibility that she should show any affection save the affection of a mother for her son? Ah! Pudentilla, you are unhappy in your offspring! Far better have been barren than have borne such children! Ill-omened were the long months through which you bore them in your womb and thankless your fourteen years of widowhood! The viper, I am told, reaches the light of day only by gnawing through its mother's womb; its ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... cold perspective and dry light of history. The bearing of the priest, perhaps, affected me. He smiled; he jested with the boy, the heir both of these feasters and their meat; he clapped his hands, and gave me a stave of one of the old, ill-omened choruses. Centuries might have come and gone since this slimy theatre was last in operation; and I beheld the place with no more emotion than I might have felt in visiting Stonehenge. In Hiva-oa, as I began to appreciate that the thing was still living and latent about my footsteps, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... disappeared as utterly beneath the Saracen flood as had its ill-fated King Roderick under the waters of the Guadalquivir; and fastened upon Christian Europe was a Mahommedan empire; an empire which all the combined powers of that continent have never since been able entirely to dislodge. From that ill-omened day in 709, when Tarif set foot on the Spanish coast, to this June of 1898, the Mahommedan has been in Europe; and remains to-day, a scourge and a blight in the territory upon which his cruel grasp ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... paid for in blood rather than money. Small as she was, her great speed and the fierce character of her master had made her a name of terror along the French coast, and many a bulky Eastlander or Fleming as he passed the narrow seas had scanned the distant Kentish shore, fearing lest that ill-omened purple sail with a gold Christopher upon it should shoot out suddenly from the dim gray cliffs. Now she was clear of the land, with the wind on her larboard quarter, every inch of canvas set, and her high sharp bows smothered in foam, as ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and shampoo[FN322] my feet." So he fell to rubbing feet and kneading calves, and found them softer than silk. Then said she, "Go higher with the massage;" and he, "Pardon me, O my lord, to the knee but no farther!" Whereupon quoth she, "Durst thou disobey me?: it shall be an ill-omened night for thee!"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... could be more propitious?—But such a pair of lovers! Not a nightingale sang to soothe us: the very gypsies who were encamped there during the fair, made no offer to tell the fortunes of such an ill-omened couple, whose fortunes, I suppose, they thought too legibly written to need an interpreter; and the gypsey children crawled into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us as we went by. For a moment I paused, and was almost tempted to turn gypsey, but the poetical ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... upon yourself by today's ill-doing." He darted back to the farmhouse, where he ordered half-wakened Waziri to pad barefoot after him to the wagon, rubbing his eyes. "Come, son," Musa said. "We must flee these ill-omened fields." Without another word to his host, the carpenter hoisted his boy into the wagon, mounted, and set off into the night. The hoofs of his horse padded softly ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... unlucky to certain tribes and counties. The men of Caithness alleged that their bands that wore this color were cut off at the battle of Flodden; and for this reason they avoided the crossing of the Ord on a Monday, that being the day of the week on which the ill-omened array set forth. This color was disliked by both those of the name of Ogilvy and Graham. The greatest precautions had to be taken against the Daoine Shi' in order to prevent them from spiriting away mothers ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... had for godfather neither prince nor priest, nor any cultured coterie. The sandy peninsula, on whose inner edge, at the cove called Yerba Buena, stood some hide and tallow stores and fur depots which drew to them the stragglers that passed that way, was about as ill-omened a spot as the one designated by the snake-devouring eagle perched upon an island cactus as the place where the wandering Aztecs should rest and build their city of Mexico. San Francisco's godparents were but common humanity, traders and adventurers, ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... she had nothing really to fear from him. He was too wise not to understand the gulf between them. To-morrow she would confront him flatly with his deceit; she would array the power of the authorities behind her race. She would sweep instantly from that ill-omened palace. There would ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... malignant type and to general demoralisation. And this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's expansive forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two at least ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... myself just at present," thought Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid glance round that ill-omened little cell!" ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... brush such follies away like cobwebs, and, turning back, consider who could have found his interest in such a deed. Against whom did the dead man urge him to be on guard lest Martin's papers should be spirited away? Was there some other claimant of that ill-omened peerage of whom he knew nothing, or was it—And Westray resolutely quenched the thought that had risen a hundred times before his mind, and cast it aside as ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... you not hold that comitia? Was it because a tribune of the people announced that there had been an ill-omened flash of lightning seen? When you have any interest of your own to serve, then auspices are all nothing; but when it is only your friends who are concerned, then you become scrupulous. What more? Did you not also ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... which many objects, somewhat foreign to the place and time, passed through his mind, when, chancing to look down, he saw a small funeral wreath, of mingled yew and cypress, lying at his feet, and a slight tremor passed over his frame, as he found he was standing on the ill-omened grave of Abbot Paslew. Before he could ask himself by whom this sad garland had been so deposited, Nicholas Assheton came up to him, and with a look of great uneasiness cried, "Come away instantly, Dick. Do you know where you ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the cause— Forget it not: when you lie down to rest, Let it be black among your dreams; and when The morn returns, so let it stand between The sun and you, as an ill-omened cloud, Upon a summer's day ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... mine intent he reviled me and smote me a buffet so sore that it caused me to swoon. However, inasmuch as the Treasury was to be opened only by means of me, O my mother, he could not descend therein himself, it being in my name and not in his; and, for that he is an ill-omened magician, he understood that I was necessary to him and this was his need of me."—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. When it was the Five Hundred and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... only on present success, had based all their political hopes on an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive, with that institution which Jefferson so eloquently denounced, and the existence of which awakened his most lively fears for the future of his country. And what has been the result of this ill-omened alliance? Precisely what might sooner or later have been expected. Precisely what might have been predicted from the attempt to unite the essentially incongruous ideas of Aristocracy and Democracy. For the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... was a grey and yellow garment worn and patched, an ill-omened rag thrown down at the foot of a tree. It bore the convict's original number at the Perth Penitentiary. The felon was not there, but his filthy garments betrayed his passage. This livery of crime, after having clothed some miscreant, was now decaying ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... This ill-omened happening broke up the wedding party. The marriage was cancelled. All the preparations had been for nothing. To this day the fate of the sisters is unknown. The bride and bridegroom-elect were married ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... state to reverse a fundamental policy deliberately adopted by the nation, is one of the worst among the offspring of revolution, and is almost, though not entirely, unknown to the history of England. Yet there is more than one reason why if the Home Rule Bill be carried, reaction should make its ill-omened appearance in the field of English public life. The policy of Home Rule, even should it be for the moment successful, lacks the moral sanctions which have compelled English statesmen to accept accomplished facts. The methods of agitation in its favour have outraged the moral sense of the community. ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... lavished upon her; neither the legitimation of the child which she soon afterwards bore, nor the clemency which the King—against the advice of his wisest ministers extended to her brother Auvergne, availing to expel it from her breast. How far she or that ill-omened family were privy to the accursed crime which, nine years later, palsied France on the threshold of undreamed-of glories, I will not take on myself to say; for suspicion is not proof. But history, of which ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... while Mrs. Jocelyn returned to her seat. In the young fellow's frank, honest face the judge found an agreeable contrast with the ill-omened visage of the floor-walker, whose good looks could ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... and a little later, when her mind is visible again, the memory of her up there on the mountain has quickened the eye of the onlooker. The images in her mind are not at all portentous now; she is among her friends, she is harvesting impressions; there is not a word of anything dark or distressing or ill-omened. But still, but still—we have seen Milly when she believed herself unseen, and it is certain that there is more in her mind than now appears, and though she seems so full of the new excitement of making friends with Kate Croy there must ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... "she must be stupid indeed. To drive away any one dear to her. And moreover, into an ill-omened wood. The forest and its mysteries might have waited long ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... it wore the expression like a mask, and he seemed ill at ease. He had been contending all the morning with Narcissa's freakishness, which he thought intensified by the presence of the valley man, who was returning the civility of that ill-omened visit, and who, by reason of the abnormal excitements of the day, had been received with scant formality, and was already upon the footing of a familiar friend. Selwyn stood smilingly in the way hard by, speaking to those ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with two thousand men, hoping to render himself as celebrated there as Lautaro had been formerly, by gaining an important victory over the Spaniards. Not dismayed by the misfortunes which had befallen his countrymen in that ill-omened place, the governor put himself at the head of a thousand Spaniards and a large auxiliary force of Indians, and marched without delay for Mariguenu, determined upon dislodging the Araucanians or of besieging them in their post. Having disposed his troops in order, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the doctor, and M. Plantat exchanged a significant look. What misfortune had befallen M. Courtois, this worthy, and despite his faults, excellent person? Decidedly, this was an ill-omened day! ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... daybreak was gloomy and ill-omened, through one of those white mists which are blown from the Atlantic over the flat lands of Western Poitou. The horses, looming gigantic through the fog, winced as the cold harness was girded on them. The men hurried to and fro with saddles on their heads, and stumbled over other saddles, and swore ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... ill-omened repast, when the air above us was darkened by two mighty shadows. The captain of my ship, knowing by experience what this meant, cried out to us that the parent birds were coming, and urged us to get on board with all speed. This we did, and the sails ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... instant all hands were in the water swimming about round and round the vessel. The boat was in the water on the starboard side. Murray, intending to bathe afterwards, was alone on deck. Suddenly he saw the ill-omened fin of a shark rising above the water at no great distance off, and then his snout appeared, and his wicked eyes were visible surveying the scene of action. Murray shouted to Adair and the rest of the people to come on board. No one lost an instant in attempting to obey ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... protection. Government was told by the lord-lieutenant, that the exhausted state of the public revenues rendered it impracticable to embody a militia, whence the people were given to understand that they might take measures to protect themselves. This was an ill-omened step for ministers to take, when the people of Ireland were everywhere displaying the feelings of rebellion. By it the serpent's teeth were sown, and they sprang up armed men. The Irish obeyed the call with alacrity. Volunteers were embodied, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he was aiming, and this he found in the word nevermore. He next invented a pretext for the frequent but varying use of nevermore. This word could not be spoken in the right tone by a human being; it must come from an unreasoning creature, hence the introduction of the raven, an ill-omened bird, in harmony with the main tone of the poem. He then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty. ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... it was! Zounds! I almost acquired a relish for benevolence. They caught me round the neck like madmen. The very girls seemed in love with my black visage, that's as ill-omened as the moon in an eclipse. Gold, thought I, is omnipotent: it makes even a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... had been intimated, were the trails made by wild animals on their way to the salt lick lying some distance on the other side of Rattlesnake Gulch. The pioneers were now quite close to that ill-omened spot, and the burden of the expedition rested wholly upon the shoulders of Weber Hastings, who maintained a position never less than fifty feet in ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... and his eyebrows bushy and overhanging. Once that vigour, afterwards this horror. She shook away from her last vision of him but it returned again and again, hanging about her over her shoulder like an ill-omened messenger. And all the life between seemed to be suddenly wiped away as a sponge wipes figures off a slate. After the death of her mother she had made the best of her circumstances. There had been many days when life had been unpleasant, and in the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... she loved me, could she join with the marchesa against me? Was I not induced by my love for her to pay her aunt's debts? Answer me that, my father. Why did she insist upon this ill-omened marriage?—a proceeding ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the law of the land, and the whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,—their motto the famous ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the dynasty; ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... doubts enmesh me if I try, 70 Each Liliputian, but, combined, Potent a giant's limbs to bind. This world and that are growing dark; A huge interrogation mark, The Devil's crook episcopal. Still borne before him since the Fall, Blackens with its ill-omened sign The old blue heaven of faith benign. Whence? Whither? Wherefore? How? Which? Why? All ask at once, all wait reply. 80 Men feel old systems cracking under 'em; Life saddens to a mere conundrum Which once Religion solved, but she Has ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... ill-omened journal, I could not forbear a muttered quotation: "The day looks dark for England." Nevertheless, I drove on straight from Frederick, determined to prove what the morrow would bring forth. It was late when we reached the small roadside hotel, on the ridge of the South ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... her ill-omened physiognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "Wilt thou go with us to-night? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... however, before the tall chief, whose ill-omened appearance and conduct we have noted, again darted out into the opening; when, with a quick, wild glance around him, and a yell of fiendish triumph, he rapidly whirled his arm aloft, and, the next instant, the glittering tomahawk was seen, like a shooting gleam of light, swiftly ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... no immediate reply, but was studying the ill-omened grove with his glass. After a moment he said, "I do not think there will be any further pursuit. The enemy are retiring from the grove. My explanation of their conduct is this: There is some large decisive ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... affected to hold himself dishonoured if not provided at once with the regular salary. 'Brahim was wholly beardless, and our Egyptians quoted their proverb, Sabah el-Kurud, wa la Saban el-'Ajrud—"Better (see ill-omened) monkeys in the morning than the beardless man." As the corruption of the best turns to the worst, so the Bedawi, a noble race in its own wilds, becomes thoroughly degraded by contact with civilization. I remember a certain chief of the Wuld Ali tribe, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... shall fare forth, comrades for evermore. Though the ill-omened bird Time loves to bear Has brushed this cheek and left an impress there I shall be fierce and dauntless as of yore, Free as a bird o'er the wide world to rove, And strong and fearless, O ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... curious to hear what this ill-omened personage could have to say to me, so I told him to shew him in. After giving me a profound bow, with his hat in his hand, Signor Bargello told me that he had come to offer me his services, and to assure me that I should ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... past, sister,' said Fergus; 'and you may wish Edward Waverley (no longer captain) joy of being freed from the slavery to an usurper, implied in that sable and ill-omened emblem.' ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Bodhisattva, free from low-feeling, with hearts undisturbed by passion, moved by pity towards him and commiseration, came in a body to behold the Bodhisattva, so calmly seated and so undisturbed, surrounded with an uncounted host of devils, shaking the heaven and earth with sounds ill-omened. Bodhisattva silent and quiet in the midst remained, his countenance as bright as heretofore, unchanged; like the great lion-king placed amongst all the beasts howling and growling round him so he sat, a sight ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... themselves on the outside of the Blacquernal Palace. The passage which Achilles found for their exit, was closed by a postern which a single Varangian shut behind, them, drawing, at the same time, bolt and bar with an ill-omened and jarring sound. Looking back at the mass of turrets, battlements, and spires, out of which they had at length emerged, Hereward could not but feel his heart lighten to find "himself once more under the deep blue of a Grecian heaven, where the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... himself have explained the feeling that was this morning at work within him. It was the first time he and the dowager had met since the marriage, and she brought before him all too prominently the ill-omened past: her unjustifiable scheming—his own miserable weakness. If ever Lord Hartledon felt shame and repentance for his weak yielding, he felt it now—felt it in all its bitterness; and something very like rage against the dowager was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... youth, turning white to the gills, "thou art an ill-omened sorcerer!" And he slunk off—shortly afterwards, as it chanced, to meet this very fate. For he was sent on ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of midnight ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... "Sundry remarks of this ill-omened individual will afford you a clear indication of his abject views and pernicious purpose. Speaking of the patriotic tribunal now called upon to punish him, he declared insultingly,—'The Revolutionary Tribunal is like a play ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... The Emperor determined that it should adorn the dome of the invalids, at Paris. During the work it was remarked that a great number of ravens kept flying round this cross, and that Napoleon, weary of their hoarse croaking, exclaimed, that "it seemed as if these flocks of ill-omened birds meant to defend it." We cannot pretend to tell all that he thought in this critical situation, but it is well known that he was accessible to every ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... died before the reign of Nero, between 50 and 60 C.E. In Jewish history his life covered the reigns of King Herod, his sons, and King Agrippa, when the Jewish kingdom reached its height of outward magnificence; and it extended probably up to the ill-omened conversion of Judaea into a Roman province under the rule of a procurator. It is noteworthy also that Philo was partly contemporary with Hillel, who came from Babylon to Jerusalem in 30 B.C.E., and according to the accepted tradition was president of the Sanhedrin till his death in 10 C.E. In ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... after the Autumnal Equinox, the malign influence of the venomous Scorpion, and vindictive Archer, and the filthy and ill-omened He-Goat dragged him down toward ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... word made the painter's blood run cold. The horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... most noted peace-officers of the country; he had been shot four times in pitched fights with red marauders and white outlaws. There was Lieutenant Ballard, who had broken up the Black Jack gang of ill-omened notoriety, and his Captain, Curry, another New Mexican sheriff of fame. The officers from the Indian Territory had almost all served as marshals and deputy-marshals; and in the Indian Territory, service as ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... said Egerton, starting back at that ill-omened sound; "we shall ne'er be rid o' this pestilence!" He attempted to spring aside from the object of his abhorrence; but in a moment his horse was holden by the bridle with almost more than human strength; and the malicious creature set up an exulting and triumphant laugh that was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... having sexual pleasure with mothers. The trees in the forests are exhibiting unseasonable flowers and fruits. Women quick with child, and even those that are not so, are giving birth to monsters. Carnivorous beasts, mingling with (carnivorous) birds, are feeding together. Ill-omened beasts, some having three horns, some with four eyes, some with five legs, some with two sexual organs, some with two heads, some with two tails, some having fierce teeth, are being born, and with mouths wide open are uttering unholy cries. Horses with three ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... who had formerly been "down upon his luck." We saw him one day in the tribune, pale, stammering, but daring. He had a long bony face, and a distrust-inspiring jaw. His theatrical name was Florivan. He was a strolling player transformed into a trooper. He died Marshal of France. An ill-omened figure. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... hunter Hickman Holt, and his visitor Joshua Stebbins, the schoolmaster of Swampville. The personal appearance of the latter has been already half described. It deserves a more detailed delineation. His probable age has been stated—about thirty. His spare figure and ill-omened aspect have been alluded to. Add to this, low stature, a tripe-coloured skin, a beardless face, a shrinking chin, a nose sharp-pointed and peckish, lank black hair falling over the forehead, and hanging down almost low enough to shadow a pair of deep-set weazel-like ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... whether Madame de Longueville could have so far forgotten herself; but it is not impossible that she may have imagined, as well as her brother, that the fortunes of their house, having emerged more brilliant than ever from so rude a tempest, had no longer to dread the recurrence of further ill-omened shocks. ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... concealment, he told her what he had heard. As he had anticipated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her mute with dismay, for it at once brought a cloud over the future, which to her eye was dark with portents. Elwood himself was also obviously considerably disquieted by the news, showing no little uneasiness and excitement,—an excitement, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... he would refer the major to his mother for a full explanation of the circumstances. Those odious bills must be removed from every barn-door and wall in the county. At the present moment his anger against his son was chiefly directed against his ill-judged haste in having put up those ill-omened posters. Then he paused to consider what must be his wish as to the verdict of the jury. He had pledged himself to abide by the verdict, and he could not but have a wish on the subject. Could he desire in his heart that Mr Crawley should be found guilty? ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... "Why, many wait three years and many go to the grave still waiting; bigger men than you, Egyptian, though I hear you do claim to be of royal blood yonder on the Nile. But talk not of arrows flying towards the most High, for surely it is ill-omened and might earn you another honour, that of the string," and he made a motion suggestive of a cord encircling his throat. "Man, leave your bow behind! Would you appear before the King armed? Yes, ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... afar Pointed for us the dusky way. Once more within the moonlight do I see That fair form sink upon my breast; No more of that! Alas, I never guessed Whither my fate was leading me. The angry gods some victim craved, I fear, At that ill-omened time, Since they have punished me as for a crime, For trying to be ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... assistance might, moreover, at any moment give place to a democratic faction which already harassed it within the Cortes, and which, in its alliance with the populace in many of the great cities, threatened to throw Spain into anarchy, or to restore the ill-omened constitution of 1812. But above all, the attitude of the three Eastern Powers bade the ruler of France hesitate before committing himself to a military occupation of Spanish territory. Their sympathies ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... has a right to do it, willingly resign what ought to have been yours without your unfortunately illegal act. Your secret is perfectly safe with me. Time will heal the wounds you have inflicted on yourself and enable you to forget. Leave this ill-omened document with me; it is safer than in your hands. Indeed there is ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... the officer of his bodyguard, saying, "Lay hands on him, and take him to see the tombs wherein they lie." And I said unto him, "Far be it from me to look upon such [ill-omened] things! As concerning the messengers of Kha-em-Uast, the men whom he sent unto thee as ambassadors were merely [officials] of his, and there was no god with his ambassadors, and so thou sayest, 'Make haste to look upon thy colleagues.' ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... gave a whisk with his tail, and disappeared in an instant. The young officers breathed more freely when their ill-omened companion had gone. Almost immediately afterwards a boat belonging to a large merchantman, lying at the mouth of the harbour, ready for sea, passed them under all sail. Her crew of eight hands had evidently taken a parting ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... female ills indites, Studying alone not what, but how he writes, The ladies, as his graceful form they scan, Cry, with ill-omened rapture,—"Killing man!" ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... seem to proceed from anywhere within the library, but from some distant room, far away overhead. A musical sound it was, but breaking in upon the silence of that ill-omened house, its music was the music of terror. In a faint and very sweet cascade it rippled; a ringing as of tiny ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... a portent occurred. A cloud of 56 ill-omened birds[152] flew over his head and its density obscured the daylight. To this was added another omen of disaster. A bull broke from the altar, scattered the utensils for the ceremony, and escaped so far away that it had to be killed instead of being sacrificed according to the proper ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... grass, Calvary clover, blood-red anemones, and pale yellow amaryllis, only showed their arid brown or gray remnants. The moat had become a deep waterless cleft; and beneath, on the accessible sides towards the glen, clustered a collection of black horsehair tents, the foremost surmounted by the ill-omened crescent. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cackled after him in derision from a grove of young timber; a magpie, the joy of the morning, and most mirthful of birds, whistled for him sweet notes of hope and good cheer; then a number of carrion crows beheld him, and approached with their long-drawn, ill-omened "croank, croank," the most dismal note ever uttered by any living thing. They murder sick sheep, and pick out the eyes of stray lambs. They made short straggling flights, alighting on the ground in front of the miserable man, inspecting his condition, and calculating how soon he ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... ill-omened birds of prey Through the unpeopled mansions rove: Quench'd is that eye's inspiring ray, And lost the breezy lip ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth |
