"Omen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it does so visibly, just where Pembury is. I take it as an omen. In your diary to-morrow you may write down in the business column that you have had a business letter from me, or as near to one as I can go:—chiefly for that it requires an answer on this matter of "outside importance," ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... and delight. But Mr. Bob Blagdon was wondering what little Miss Blythe would think and say, and he thought it unkind of her, under the circumstances, to be the last to arrive. Unkind, because her doing so was either a good omen or an evil one, and he could not ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... always reminds us of seclusion and retirement. Sometimes he wanders away from the wood into the precincts of the town, and sings near some dwelling-house. Such an incident was formerly the occasion of superstitious alarm, being regarded as an omen of some evil to the inmates of the dwelling. The true cause of these irregular visits is probably the accidental abundance of a particular kind of insects, which the bird has followed from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent on the scene, had sped the Josephine so gaily on her way home to England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... concerned here with the ending of a book, but with its beginning; and I say that the beginning of any literary thing is hard, and that this hardness is difficult to explain. And I say more than this—I say that an interminable discussion of the difficulty of beginning a book is the worst omen for going on with it, and a trashy subterfuge at the best. In the name of all decent, common, and homely things, why not begin ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... in he had a bite before he could get his second hook baited, and the prize was a good pound fish, a beauty that made him exclaim with delight, and consider it a good omen. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... alone in the great crowd. Thus every year did these crows of ill omen carry off from Paris no fewer than 20,000 children, who were never, never seen again! Ah! that great question of the depopulation of France! Not merely were there those who were resolved to have no children, not only were infanticide and crime of other ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... his feet as if moved by an electric shock. A second shot, and then through the depths of the quarry rang the cry, quivering on the wings of the bird of ill-omen, "To arms!" ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... abandoned the position which it had taken up respecting the armistice with Hungary, to revert to it shortly afterward.[133] The joy with which the upshot of this revolt was hailed by all the lesser states was an evil omen. For their antipathy toward the Supreme Council had long before hardened into a sentiment much more intense, and any stick seemed good enough to break the rod of the self-constituted governors of ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... produced great consternation in the mind of good-wife Louder. To have seen the man with the book was an evil omen, and to sign this book was the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... us gravely, and I could not but take it as a good omen when, in his pride of wealth and family and tradition, he laid bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Willard. It was clear that in this family there was one word that stood above ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... For his dear sovereign's health; And hoped to have them heard, In long increase of years, In honour, fame, and wealth: Guiltless of greatness thus he always pray'd, Nor knew nor wish'd those vows he made, On his own head should be repaid. Soon as the ill-omen'd rumour reach'd his ear, (Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace,) Who can describe the amazement of his face! Horror in all his pomp was there, Mute and magnificent without a tear: And then the hero first was seen to fear. Half unarray'd he ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... it WAS Arabella!" cried Sue, covering her eyes with her hand. "And I am so miserable! It seems such an ill omen, whatever she may have come for. You could not possibly ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... and this morning, when the first light spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderful distinctness, like strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figure stirred me as it had never done before and seemed a good omen for ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... original werewolf, howling in the wintry blast, is a kind of psychopomp, or leader of departed souls; he is the wild ancestor of the death-dog, whose voice under the window of a sick-chamber is even now a sound of ill-omen. The swan-maiden has also been supposed to summon the dying to her home in the Phaiakian land. The Valkyries, with their shirts of swan-plumage, who hovered over Scandinavian battle-fields to receive the souls of falling heroes, were identical with the Hindu Apsaras; ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... He went with his pickaxe and shovel at the appointed time to the supposed lucky spot, having his confidence strengthened by a dream he happened to have about money, which he considered a favourable omen of the wealth he was soon to receive. Of course he met no Gipsy; she had fled another way with the property she had so wickedly obtained. While waiting her arrival a hare started suddenly from its resting-place ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... they went forth from the monastery doors it seemed to them a good omen that the last words echoing in their ears were those of the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... one element yet wanting to assure the right usage of all this wealth of material, intellectual, and ecclesiastical power. This was what the slaveholding aristocracy saw at once to be the fatal omen for their cause, and nicknamed 'Abolitionism.' Abolitionism, as recognized by the Slave Power, is nothing more nor less than the religious reverence for man and his natural rights. This moral respect for the nature ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for that matter, for the two nights before that again, and he was not going to get any chance to make it up now. A distant echo of his name from somewhere up the sap brought a swift awakening. It was an evil omen, portending the worst fatigue. He decided to follow the lazy course of action, namely, to avoid it ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned with all the symbols of imperial greatness. The monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed without hesitation the will of Heaven. The day which gave birth to a city or a colony was celebrated by the Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition: and though Constantine might omit some rites which savoured too strongly of their ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... madame had started for Paris. Birotteau returned home, shattered in mind and body. When he related his wild-goose chase to his wife and daughter he was amazed to find his Constance, usually perched like a bird of ill omen on the smallest commercial mishap, now giving him the tenderest consolation, and assuring him that ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... remarkable prophecy, or it had brought with it the endowments it promised. She had lost, or, in her own more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to whom she had given the names, at once of cheerful omen and melodious effect, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the lover's presents,—the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the fruits,—the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not eat,—she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, nor daring to approach ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... glowering. "As I recall it, all that went on that list was the names of people who were slated to have their heads chopped off by Ko-Ko. Better watch your step, Shorty. It may be a back-handed omen. Maybe all those workers you're puttin' ticklers on to pump them full of adrenaline so they'll overwork without noticin' it will revolt and come out some day choppin' ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... dead; it is buried in a cloister, and in a cloister it will be born again; it is a good omen; have confidence in our Lord and ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... gentry at the Spring, who have denounced him as a coward and no gentleman.—What to think of the business myself, I know not; and I much want your assistance to see what can have become of this fellow, who, like a spectre of ill omen, has so often thwarted and baffled my best plans. My own confinement renders me inactive, though my wound is fast healing. Dead he cannot be; for, had he been mortally wounded, we should have heard of him somewhere ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "A bad omen, coming as it does as he enters the house," replied the soldier in the same low tone, tinged with the superstition of his race. "I pray God," he continued, "that he turn out ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... tents lay silent in the moonshine, but wayward lights flickered in the sumptuous dusk, and the quiet of the hills hung like a canopy over the bivouac of the little army. No token of misfortune came out of this peaceful encampment, no omen of disaster crossed the long lane of drowsy fires and huge amorous shadows. The sense of doom was in the girl's own heart, not in this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ill omen in the light reply. "Why, as to that, my Lord," said Law, "if you should think my poor service useful, your servants might get trace of me at the Green Lion—unless I should be in prison! No man knoweth ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... happened to sneeze.[41] Immediately the whole army around shouted with one accord the accustomed invocation to Zeus the Preserver; and Xenophon, taking up the accident, continued—"Since, fellow-soldiers, this omen from Zeus the Preserver has appeared at the instant when we were talking about preservation, let us here vow to offer the preserving sacrifice to that god, and at the same time to sacrifice to the remaining gods as well as we can, in the first friendly ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... had burst into flames, as the escaping petrol caught fire. Jack considered that a good omen for ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."—But those are words of bad omen.—"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped" (Epictetus, ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... come of the Cornish part of the Celtic movement remains to be seen, but it is not without good omen that this book is published at the “Sign of ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... had harnessed them in their dread armour, they set forth to go, and left there all the best of the host. And to them did Pallas Athene send forth an omen on the right, a heron hard by the way, and they beheld it not with their eyes, through the dark night, but they heard its shrill cry. And Odysseus was glad in the omen of the bird, and prayed to Athene: "Listen to me, thou child of aegis-bearing Zeus, that ever in all toils dost stand ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... indulgent to the royalists, disapproved of the condemnation of the two women, who had only been convicted of a crime by which neither of them had profited. The reprieve granted to Mme. Acquet, "whose declaration had deceived no one," seemed a good omen, indicating a commutation of her sentence. The nine "brigands" condemned to death received no pity. Lefebre was not known in Rouen, and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sympathy; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, and only interested ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... city over those dead bones, And, after her who first the place selected, Mantua named it, without other omen. ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... spring grass, now tender and nutritious, was cropped with avidity by the horses, and after a halt of two hours, they again pursued their journey. They soon found the first buffalo they had seen since the preceding autumn, and they hailed the sight of them as an omen of good. About sunset, Whirlwind had the good fortune to kill one, and they deemed it prudent to encamp, as it would be impossible for them to reach the boundary of the prairie that night. Steaks constituted the chief feature ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... which endured some moments. It lay upon me like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... many days' journey from our own place that we might fight with men of war, nomads in way of life, and whose civil polity was like our discipline in war-time. Therefore, as one who by God's help shall to-morrow conquer—nay, conquer again if needful (for I would say nothing of bad omen) I commit to thee the care of my children: for it is fitting that thou, their uncle, shouldest carry over ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... thoughts, and had almost overtaken his head, when behold! at a sudden turn in the road there stood Miss Rachel Doolittle, picking barberries from a wayside bush. "My sakes! If she ain't right here, like Rachel in the Bible!" ejaculated Captain Ben, taking heart at the omen. ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... exclaimed, "we are not a party of terrified old women to shiver on the edge of a worn-out omen! Fill your glasses, signori! More wine, garcon! Per bacco! if Judas Iscariot himself had such a feast as ours before he hanged himself, he was not much to be pitied! Hola amici! To the health of our noble ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... omen if a Master-Card, in the Practical Affairs of life, business, society, or art, or one of them. Influenced by a like suit, in a Commercial thing; a Meeting wished; an influence desired. By a Heart, a wealthy and superior, or happy Marriage. By a Club, a Communication of importance or good. By ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... name is an omen, and carries in it rules of conduct. The root idea of 'saint' is 'one separated to God,' and the secondary idea which flows from that is 'one who ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... very superstitious and my wife is a Roman. If you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must spit on the ground to keep away the jettatura. Three priests together is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well in Rome, because we see three and up to ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... at this genial season of the year, when a new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate the birth of that divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest knowledge into the humblest places, and whose great system comprehended all mankind. I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at this time of the year, when many scattered friends and families are re-assembled, for the members of this institution to be calling men together from all quarters, with a brotherly view to the general good, and a view to the general ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... Asaph, disregarding Wolsey's candidate and the opposition of the clerical party at Court, who detested Standish for his advocacy of Henry's authority in ecclesiastical matters, and dreaded his promotion as an evil omen for the independence ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... between civilized nations, although as yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it possible, or necessarily desirable, to invoke arbitration in every case. The formation of the international tribunal which sits at The Hague is an event of good omen from which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind may flow. It is far better, where possible, to invoke such a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... It was of ill-omen to me, one of its earliest incidents being my only brother's death; but Dickens had a friend's true helpfulness in sorrow, and a portion of what he then wrote to me I permit myself to preserve in a note[95] for what it relates of his own sad ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... clasped the youth to his heart, and then held his hands and looked long into his face. All indecision, all mournful forebodings were over; he felt again as the head of his house should feel. Before him stood, blooming in youth and health, the future of his family. He took it as an omen, as the voice of fate to him in the hour of decision. "And now," said he, "come home; there is no further need for ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... hailed the success at Bethel as an omen of the future; but rather that it tested the spirit of the troops and their ability to stand fire, than from any solid fruits of the fight. They understood that it was scarcely a check to the great advance to be made; and though perhaps not ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... that great catch, as here in this far land it is my habit to do upon everything, however small, that happened to me in my youth before I became a wanderer and an exile, I seem to see in it an omen. For has it not always been my lot in life to be kissed of fortune and to gather great store, and then of a sudden to lose it all as I was to lose that rich ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... fairy, is a favorable omen to all classes, as it is always a scene with a beautiful face portrayed as a ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... up the bundle of books and ran away with it; and though the boy ran after it, he failed to catch the jackal and had to go and tell his father how he had lost his school books. The Raja told him not to mind, as it was a very good omen and meant that he would grow up as clever as a jackal; and so the matter ended as far as the boy was concerned; and his father bought him a new ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... rays waxed hot, the King gave up the chase, and set forth with the Princes to their house; and as they drew nigh thereto the cadet pushed forwards and sent word to the Princess that the Asylum of the World was coming in all good omen. Accordingly, he hastened to receive him and stood waiting his arrival at the inner entrance; and after, when the King rode up to the gate and dismounting within the court stepped over the threshold of the house-door, she fell down at his feet and did worship. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... eye was attracted by the sight of some heartsease that peeped through the rocks. I caught at it as a good omen, and going to preserve it in a letter that had not conveyed balm to my heart, a cruel remembrance suffused my eyes; but it passed away like an April shower. If you are deep read in Shakespeare, you will recollect ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... war, they drive us utterly away, what they will do next can only be conjectured. If a new monarchy is erected, they will want a KING. He who first takes into his hand the sceptre of America, should have a name of good omen. WILLIAM has been known both as conqueror and deliverer; and perhaps England, however contemned, might yet supply them with ANOTHER WILLIAM. Whigs, indeed, are not willing to be governed; and it is possible that KING WILLIAM may be strongly inclined to guide their measures: but Whigs have been ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... praise of the Redeemer of mankind! A short time previously the mention of that name with honour in that place would have exposed him who uttered it to a violent death. The incident was very cheering as an omen of the dawn to benighted India, when, through the tender mercy of our God, Jesus the light of the world shall shine into the hearts of its teeming population, and raise them ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... him;" but though we had not spoken of his majesty, we certainly alluded to the crew; and whether D——, their representative, bears any affinity to that mighty potentate, I have never heard; yet certain it is, the said D——, with a countenance of ill omen, came into the cabin, and regretting that he should disturb us at such a ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... victorious garlands I make a happy omen. For we, as thou well knowest, are tossing in a storm of war with the Greeks, and great is the hazard of Thebes. The king Eteocles has therefore gone forth adorned with his armor already to battle with the Argives. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... wherefore her lovers became known at once by their unnatural tastes, and any respectable man who met her in the public streets turned away, and made haste to avoid her, lest his clothes should be soiled by contact with such an abandoned creature, for she was a bird of ill-omen, especially for those who saw her early in the day. As for her fellow-actresses, she always abused them most savagely, for she was ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... were followed and flanked by quite a number of their neighbors, who gazed on the festal scene with an impressive curiosity that can not be described. Pale-faced, wide-eyed, statuesque, their presence, interpreted by a vivid imagination, might have been regarded as an omen of impending misfortune. They stood on the outskirts of the wedding company, gazing on the scene apparently without an emotion of sympathy or interest. They were there, it seemed, to see what new caper the townspeople had concluded to ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Calli, Quauhtli.] At the north, which they call Teutletlapan, which signifies the place of the gods, they placed the other five signs which were wanting to complete the twenty. The first was a tiger, which is a very ferocious animal, and accordingly they considered the echo of the voice as a bad omen and the most unlucky of any, because they say that it has reference to that sign. The second was a skull or death, by which they signified that death commenced with the first existence of mankind. The third sign was a razor or stone knife, by which are ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... to draw me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro—those birds of infinite ill omen—she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly—her eyes questioning my face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was gray because the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me. She had asked me to ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... omen to the girl that she should have had such an encounter on the day that Robin came back. Like all persons who dwell much in the country, a world that was neither that of the flesh nor yet of the spirit was that in which she largely moved—a world of strange ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... his gate, watching the dawn flame into incandescence and looking more frail and helpless than ever. The cruiser towered beyond, blotting out half the dawn sky like a sinister omen. A faint, deep hum was coming from it as the drive went into the preliminary ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... hope it is. 'The wine-dark sea' and the 'rosy-fingered dawn' are all I remember; though I'm glad you know what comes next. It's a good omen. But look at the ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... work day after day, and in a short time found a fissure in the rock, which enabled them to pass far with very little obstruction. This Rasselas considered as a good omen. "Do not disturb your mind," said Imlac, "with other hopes or fears than reason may suggest; if you are pleased with the prognostics of good, you will be terrified likewise with tokens of evil, and your whole life will be a prey to superstition. ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... But their conversion was doubted, they were subjected to constant espionage, and the least suspicion of indulging in their old worship exposed them to the dangerous charge of heresy, a word of frightful omen in Spain. It was to punish these delinquent Jews that in 1480 the Inquisition was introduced, and at once began its frightful work, no less than two thousand "heretics" being burned alive in 1481, while seventeen thousand were "reconciled," a word of mild meaning elsewhere, but which in Spain ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... full of infinite significance—the snapping of a dry twig among the shadows; a sound that made the ensuing silence but the more profound, a breathless quietude which, as moment after moment dragged by, grew full of deadly omen. And now, even as Barnabas turned to front these menacing shadows, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... killed, and his body barbarously mutilated.(257) The king, who was in the earl's camp, only saved himself by crying out in time "I am Henry of Winchester, your king." Whilst the battle was raging the city was visited with a terrible thunderstorm—an evil omen of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the conduct of Father Francis, believed his silence to be a bad omen to him; and that he had nothing else to expect but an unhappy death, and a more unhappy eternity. In this thought, he went with all diligence to find the Father, and falling down before him, "Your silence," ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... nearly she rode El Capitan out to some part of the work, and the men who were toiling for more than wages learned to know her and to hail her presence as a good omen. Many a rough fellow, dreaming of wife or sweetheart and the home he would make for them in the desert as he drove his team and held the bar of his Fresno, worked the harder for a cheery word from the daughter of ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... So they consulted the omen, but it was not favorable, and they were starting home when the brother-in-law asked Lumawig to create some water, as the people ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... looked gloomy and discontented. Though victorious, the army was depressed: the first town taken by assault, burnt before them by the determined hatred of its defenders, seemed to the soldiers a sinister omen. They were all tired of a war which imposed upon them unheard-of efforts without any glory coming to console them with its accustomed intoxication. "The war is not a national one," said Count Daru recently at Vitebsk; "the importation of a few English goods into Russia, or even the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... erect,—envied by the bravest even. On an occasion when General Walker was attacking the Costa-Ricans in Rivas, the dog entered the plaza ahead of the rest, and, finding there one of his own species, he forthwith seized him, and shook him, and put him to flight howling,—giving an omen so favorable, that the greasers were driven out of the town with ease by the others. Even his every-day life was sublime, and elevated above the habit of vulgar dogs. He allowed no man to think himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... his march into Germany, he was every where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected, at his entrance into the town, a triumphal arch, with the inscription, "Salvatorem expectamus;" and all hailed, as a sure omen of victory, the presence of the champion whose very name had become a byword of terror among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was, meanwhile, cheered by frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine, whose emissaries, selected for their knowledge of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Douglas badge is indeed a heart—but it is a bleeding heart. God avert the omen, and keep this young man safe—for though many love him, there be more that would ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... said it appeared strange, and somewhat like a bird. A committee of the wise men were called to inquire into, and if possible to ascertain the meaning of, the strange phenomenon. They feared that it might be the omen of some disaster. Some thought it a precursor of good, others of evil; and some supposed it to be the star spoken of by their forefathers as the forerunner of ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... is given due official prominence; but as soon as we penetrate anywhere near the heart of the festival, Dionysus and his brother gods are quite forgotten, and all that remains is a great ritual for appeasing the dead. All the days of the Feast were nefasti, of ill omen; the first day especially was es to pan apophras. On it the Wine Jars which were also Seed and Funeral Jars were opened and the spirits of the Dead let loose in the world.[17:1] Nameless and innumerable, the ghosts are ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... the fertilising flood of which was attributed to the influence of this beautiful star. It is believed that the Mazzaroth in Job is an allusion to this brilliant orb. Among the Romans Sirius was regarded as a star of evil omen; its appearance above the horizon after the summer solstice was believed to be associated with pestilence and fevers, consequent upon the oppressive heat of the season of the year. The dies caniculares, or dog-days, were ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... foreshortened in the bas-relief overhead. March absently lifted his eyes to it. It was suddenly strange after so many years' familiarity, and so was the well-known street in its Saturday-evening solitude. He asked himself, with prophetic homesickness, if it were an omen of what was to be. But he only said, musingly: "A fortnightly. You know that didn't work in England. The fortnightly is published once a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... propounded (not, I am bound to add, by you) at Manchester,[181] appear to me to be most mournful delusions; and their re-issue, for their real parentage is elsewhere, from the bosom of the party to which we belong, an omen of the worst kind if they were likely to obtain currency under the new sanction they have received. It is most easy to complain as you do of laissez-faire and laissez-aller; nor do I in word or in heart presume to blame you; but I should sorely blame myself ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... may gaze, and a fond hope to which he may cling. Artificial life, whether in the select school or the select party, tends to weaken our faith in humanity; and a want of faith in our race is an omen of ill-success in life. Teachers should have faith in humanity, and should labor constantly to inspire others with the belief that the true law of our nature ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... of clearest omen were the great birds of prey—hawks, "Apollo's swift messengers," and eagles, "the birds of Zeus." It was a good omen if the birds flew from left to right, a bad omen if in the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... vessel, which was now slowly moving from the shore. It alarmed her, and impressed her mind with a sad and mournful sense of the dangers of the elements to whose mercy she was now to be committed for many days. "What an unhappy omen is this!" she exclaimed. She then went to the stern of the ship, looked back at the shore, then knelt down, and, covering her face with her hands, sobbed aloud. "Farewell, France!" she exclaimed: "I shall never, never see thee more." Presently, ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... beheld drops of blood oozing from the torn roots. Though horrified at the sight he plucked another bough, and again blood oozed out as before. Then praying to the gods to save himself and his people from whatever evil there might be in the omen, he proceeded to tear up a third shoot, when from out the earth at his feet a voice ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... Napoleon. "Do not those warlike Austrians see that that is their death-knell, and that it is a bad omen for them that Gentz had to blow the war-trumpet? Is it not the same Gentz who drew up the high-sounding manifesto for the King of Prussia, previous to the battle ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... haunted by the angels of Rob's visions—the lovers, taking leave only of the mother, stole away to walk through the heavenly sapphire of the still night, up the hills and over the rushing streams of the spring, to the cave of their rest—no ill omen but lovely symbol to such as could see in the tomb the porch of paradise. Where should true lovers make their bed but on ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of scene even his gloom left him; his bosom's lord sat lightly in his throne. St. Cleeve was not sufficiently in mind of poetical literature to remember that wise poets are accustomed to read that lightness of bosom inversely. Swithin thought it an omen of good fortune; and as thinking is causing in not a few such cases, he was perhaps, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... person." On the other hand without freedom of individual development, the organisation of life becomes the death of the soul. Prussia has shown how the psychology of the crowd can be skilfully manipulated for the most sinister ends. It is a happy omen for our democracy that both these complementary movements are combined in the new life of the schools. To both appeals, the appeal of personal freedom, and the appeal of the corporate life, the British child is peculiarly responsive. Round these two ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... wind might creak the wood, or rattle the latch, but could not speak with a child's voice, nor knock with the soft plain blows that a plump fist gives. And the strange unusual howl of the wolf-hound was an omen to be feared, be the rest what it might. Strange things were said by one and another, till the rebuke of the house-mistress quelled them into far-off whispers. For a time after there was uneasiness, constraint, and silence; then the ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... whom the successorship had fallen, and was surrounded as soon as he appeared. Keeping silence, and turning his eyes on all sides, he fixed them for a moment on Blecourt, then looked in another direction, as if seeking some one else. Blecourt interpreted this action as a bad omen. The Duc d'Abrantes feigning at last to discover the Count d'Harrach, assumed a gratified look, flew to him, embraced him, and said aloud in Spanish, "Sir, it is with much pleasure;" then pausing, as though to embrace him better, he added: "Yes, sir, it is with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... journey with uncertainties ahead. And the delay was more than compensated for by the new spirit which now seized this poor, fugitive remnant of the Tribe of the Little Hills. The speedy and spectacular triumph over a foe so formidable as the giant bull urus was unanimously accepted as an omen of ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... felt but could never avoid. I leased proven properties, only to find that the pay ceased without reason. I did this so frequently that owners began to refuse me and came to consider me a thing of evil omen. Once a broken snow-shoe in a race to the recorder's office lost me a fortune; at another time a corrupt judge plunged me from certainty to despair, and all the while my time was growing shorter and I ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... where I stand to the sun is a pathway of sapphire and gold, Like a waif of those Patmian visions that wrapt the lone seer of old, And it seems to my soul like an omen that calls me far over the sea— But I think of a little white cottage and one that ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... storm today with great crashing waves, then everything grew calm under a golden sunset. I take this as a good omen. I feel happier already. The infinite peace of Nature is quieting my soul. I love the sea. I can almost say my prayers ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... father had forgotten her, friends had overlooked her, but the stepmother, the traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of her, and wanted to include her in the love afloat. This little circumstance made a deep impression on the three witnesses. It was a good omen for Leam, and promised what indeed her new mother did honestly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... strike breakers! Ruth knew that name well, and what the arrival of the man of evil omen foretold. It promised violence, riot, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... had fled and gone, For nothing had been left to eat. Only an owl was brooding there, Uttering its cry of evil omen. ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... teaching the young novices. And now she was free, if she chose, to leave the Temple service, and even to marry. But Fabia had no intention of taking a step which would tear her from the circle in which she was dearly loved, and which, though permitted by law, would be publicly deplored as an evil omen. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... distance a black figure seated on the portico, and she hastened her steps. She recognized the familiar squat, black-clothed person of Mrs. Ducharme. There, in the sunlight between the broken pillars, this gloomy figure seemed of ill omen. Alves regretted that she had turned back from ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick |
