"Ominous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ominous juncture of stars as is now weighing on Egypt happened first during the XIV. dynasty, when the Hyksos kings captured and plundered this country. It will come for the third time in five or six hundred years ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... An ominous murmur of displeased astonishment broke from the natives. Surely, they asked, they had a right to these three men. Why should three of their own people lie dead with gaping wounds and the man-eaters escape without punishment? Would that ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... of four thousand men, were beheaded in the forum at Rome. But they, in the first place, did not put themselves under the direction of Atrius the Umbrian, scarcely superior to a scullion, whose name even was ominous, but of Decius Jubellius, a military tribune; nor did they unite themselves with Pyrrhus, or with the Samnites or Lucanians, the enemies of the Roman people. But you made common cause with Mandonius and Indibilis, and intended also to have united ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... he spoke, there came a thunderous sound of knocking at the outer door and the sharp grounding of arms—a noise as ominous as it ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... passionately to the impatient cob, 'where're your manners, you idiot? I say, Nora, I doubt I shall be late for tea—half-past six. Tell Milly she must be in. The others too.' He gave these instructions in a lower tone, and emphasised them by a stormy and ominous frown. Then with an injured 'Now, Dain!' he got into the equipage of his legal adviser and departed towards Hanbridge, trailing ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... rescuers approached the camp of the exiles. There was an ominous quiet; no creature was to be seen; but the smoke which ascended into the air in perpendicular columns assured them that some, at least, were still alive. The party happened to reach first the teepee of the poor old woman who had been so faithfully ministered to by the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of the great Chinese river, in the filthy yamens of barbarous mountain towns, in the forts of hill-robbers who practiced extraordinary cruelties. He had fought his way through rapids whose very names were ominous—"The King of Hell's Slide," the "Last Look at Home," the "Place Where the Soul Itself Is Lost." He had sat with the free people of Nosuland, the enemies of the Chinese, eating from bowls of camphorwood raw sheep's heart minced with pepper, sometimes expecting permission ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... ominous in all this, except when the "sacrificial sword" fails to sever the head of the goat from the trunk at one deadly stroke. As this bodes ill the householder to appease the deity, to whose wrath such ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... picture was made from a drawing done by a friend of my father's four months before I was born. My old nurse told me that he was invalided from the war; that my father had asked him to make the drawing upon his return to London. Perhaps my father had ominous dreams of her ordeal soon ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... strange thing happened. From the opposite stupendous cliffs, draped in snow, bejeweled with icicles, frowning and desolate, an ominous black shape flung itself furiously, and made straight for the eagle, barking hoarsely with rage as it came. Another hollow bark followed, and a second evil ebony form hurled down from the tottering cliff-top, and flapped towards ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the river trending too much westerly, they crossed to a tributary of the Oakover and thence passed easterly through a small range. Here he was confronted by a most unwelcome sight. Before him were the hills of drifted sand, the barren plains and the ominous red haze of the desert. So far he had encountered fewer obstacles and made more encouraging discoveries than had fallen to the lot of any other Western Australian explorer; and now, the desert had drawn its forbidding ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... you know, we are on the eve of a great conflict. Tomorrow the pick of our athletic young manhood does battle with the brawny horde of Yale. Defeat looms ominous above—upon the horizon, but the unconquerable spirit of Harvard arises triumphant and—er—flaps its ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... bumping noise that came from the "Provision Room" that sounded ominous, and then a smothered sound of words, followed by a scuffling over the ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... stopped, beat the air with both hands, as if seeking some support, then staggered and fell forward, striking his head against the marble mantelpiece, rolled on the carpet, and remained motionless. There was an ominous silence. A stifled cry from M. de Camors broke it. At the same time he threw himself on his knees by the side of the motionless old man, touched first his hand, then his heart. He saw that he was dead. A thin thread of blood trickled down ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... plot, the reviewer might say, you have hidden it rather successfully. I have certainly done my best to hide it. For although the personalities of the villain and his legal spouse crop up periodically, with ominous insistence, from the first chapter onwards, they are always swallowed up again. The reason is given in the penultimate chapter, where the critic might have found a resume of my intentions and the key to this plot—to wit, that a murder under those particular ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... becomes installed as the king of kings in heaven. That person who, at sunrise, makes a gift of gold according to the ordinance and with proper Mantras, succeeds in warding off the evil consequences foreshadowed by ominous dreams. The man who, as soon as the sun has risen, makes a gift of gold becomes cleansed of all his sins. He who makes a gift of gold at midday destroys all his future sins. He who with restrained soul, makes a gift of gold ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... eastward, harnessed and taut, Like a scimitar, shining and keen, Gleaming out of that ominous gloom, Old France's ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... perception that she became resolved to speak and clear her mind at the first opportunity; so she tarried behind, when Cecily went up, under Maria's delighted guidance, to take off her bonnet, and accosted Mervyn with the ominous words, 'I want ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Banditti, but the Banditti were not on their usual hunting-ground. An ominous silence answered the accustomed war-cry, uttered in an unsteady falsetto, and the ruins had a more than usually dejected look, as though they had suddenly lost all hope of themselves. He called again, and this time, like an earth-sprite, Frances Wilmot rose up from a sheltered ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... ominous roar of the Big Cascade. At quarter past four we reach the head of the swirling fall. The underlying cause of the Big Cascade is a limestone ledge which cuts the channel diagonally and makes ugly-looking water. We ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... with a sudden bitter coldness that had fallen upon her like one of the masses that became displaced from the great trees, and she could not keep her teeth from chattering. Then, in her ears, began to boom a strong continuous sound that was ominous, threatening. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... the stages of Madrid and of London (where one critic had called it "a very beautiful composition"), while French approval had been practically unanimous. Nay, a game had been founded thereon, and—crowning, but perhaps rather ominous honour—somebody had actually published ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... her toilet. The final glance at herself in the little mirror was depressing. She looked fresh for her new surroundings and for her new class. But in comparison with what she usually looked, already there was a distinct, an ominous falling off. "I'm glad Rod never saw me looking like this," she said aloud drearily. Taking a roll for lunch, she issued forth at half-past six. The hour and three-quarters she had allowed for dressing and ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... arose over the Nebraska Act was ominous of the future. Public meetings in New York and other great cities of the North were held, where it and slavery were denounced. The clergyman from the pulpit, the orator from the rostrum, and the great press of the North vehemently denounced the measure. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... said. "I've got an idea that you and me will meet again." There was an ominous threat in his voice as he continued: "Shooting you wouldn't half pay you back. Mark that, young man—shooting you wouldn't half ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... mounted. Colonel Broadwood was despatched to verify the startling report, and to bring in further particulars. Meantime the preparations on our side for an advance were suspended, and guns, Maxims, and infantry moved up and wheeled into positions upon the firing line. Ominous was that silent march of six paces to their front made by the British infantry to get close to the zereba and the clearing for action of Maxims and cannon, and the examining of the breeches of the Lee-Metfords. For the first ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... for there was an ominous silence among the fishermen, who had been at work all this while apparently for nothing. Then all at once there was a loud cheer, for the shoal, a very large one, suddenly appeared at the top again, fretting ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... spot, when a whip-poor-will whirred through the air, and, perching on the snowy brow of the Aphrodite, began his plaintive night-hymn. In childhood Guy Hartwell had been taught by his nurse to regard the melancholy chant as ominous of evil; but as years threw their shadows over his heart, darkening the hopes of his boyhood, the sad notes of the lonely bird became gradually soothing, and now in the prime of life he loved to listen to the shy visitor, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. "Come, no nonsense," said he. "Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... earliest impression of his charge, the proportion between the destructive and constructive parts of it is ominous; if it sums up his experience it is less than the truth. Though he sowed the most fruitful seeds in the fields of Israel's religion, none sprang in his lifetime. For his own generation he built nothing. Sympathetic with the aims and the start of the greatest reform in Israel's history, he ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... Things now were ominous of evil. Wittenberg was filled with consternation. If Luther obeyed, it was evident he would perish like so many faithful men before him; if he refused, he would be charged with contumacy and involve his ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a formidable opposition to Lenin's policy was growing. On the night of November 17th the great hall was packed and ominous for ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... blanke verse, why they were neuer so truely turned ouer and ouer as my poore selfe in loue: marrie I cannot shew it rime, I haue tried, I can finde out no rime to Ladie but babie, an innocent rime: for scorne, horne, a hard rime: for schoole foole, a babling rime: verie ominous endings, no, I was not borne vnder a riming Plannet, for I cannot wooe in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... light heart that Hamish set about this thing; and Christina forthwith filled a hamper with tinned meats, and bread, and whisky, and what not. And fuel was taken ashore, too; and candles, and a store of matches. If the gales were coming on, as appeared likely from this ominous-looking evening, who could tell how many days and nights the young master—and the English lady, too, if he desired her company—might not have to stay ashore, while the men took the chance of the sea with this yacht, or perhaps ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... warmly debated. Besides this opposition there were, outside of the House, ominous utterances threatening the rejection of the scheme. Mr. Gladstone, referring to these hostile murmurings, said that hitherto the attitude of the government had been, in Shakespeare's words, "Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... the crowd assembled in the square before the palace. The seeming prince accepted the invitation, and with the disguised ladies was conducted to a gorgeous pavilion, open on all sides, to view the ceremony. The ominous bird being loosened from his chain, soared into the air to a great height, then gradually descending, flew round and round the square repeatedly, even with the faces of the spectators. At length it darted into the pavilion, where the lady and her companions were seated, fluttered ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... force. And now the vessels having their complement of men, and Pericles being gone aboard his own galley, it happened that the sun was eclipsed, and it grew dark on a sudden, to the affright of all, for this was looked upon as extremely ominous. Pericles, therefore, perceiving the steersman seized with fear and at a loss what to do, took his cloak and held it up before the man's face, and, screening him with it so that he could not see, asked him whether he imagined there was any great hurt, or the sign ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... came over us a universal consciousness of undeveloped strength,—the feeling of a powerful man, who knows nothing of "the noble art of self-defence," at finding himself suddenly confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... an instant with an intentness that suggested a mingling of perplexity and malice; then, all at once, I saw a light flash in his eyes, which forthwith began to twinkle in a manner that struck me as ominous. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... a tallow candle, smoking and spluttering, throws a weird light, and more weird shadows, on the faces of clerks and President, on blank walls and ominous devices. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the ominous low growl of a dog that can kill, and Ercole growled at him in turn, making a sound intended to impose silence. There was no reason why Nino should growl at Marcello. But Nino rose slowly upon his quarters, as ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... steadily out of those mournful eyes. Now I took his other hand, and compared the two, line by line, mount by mount, noting the short square fingers, the heavy thumb, with amazing willpower in its upper joint, and gazing again and again at that ominous sign on Saturn. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... room seemed to have completely changed during the last few minutes. Wingate was no longer the conventional and casual caller. His face had hardened, his eyes were brighter, his manner ominous. He was the modern figure of Fate, playing for a desperate stake with cold and deadly earnestness. Dredlinton was simply panic-stricken. He was white to the lips; his eyes were filled with the frightened gleam ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... weather. Was this another piece of bravado, then—undertaken to produce a favorable impression in a certain quarter—or had the hunter's hunger really got hold of him? On the evening before the appointed raid, even the foresters looked glum; the western hills were ominous and angry, and the wind that came howling down the strath seemed to foretell a storm. But he was not to be daunted; he said he would give up only when Roderick assured him that the expedition ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... speculations of the Antiquary were of a more melancholy cast, and were partly indicated by the ejaculation of cito peritura! as he turned away from the prospect. Lovel, roused from his reverie, looked at him as if to inquire the meaning of an exclamation so ominous. The old man shook his head. "Yes, my young friend," said he, "I doubt greatlyand it wrings my heart to say itthis ancient family is going fast ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... measures of embargo, non-intercourse, and war. Sir, when the love of peace degenerates into fear of war, it becomes of all passions the most despicable." It was not the first time the word "War" had been spoken, but the occasion made it doubly significant and ominous; for it was the requiem of the measure upon which the dominant party had staked all to avoid war, and the elections had already declared that power should remain in the same hands for at least two years to come. Within four weeks Madison was to succeed his leader, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... ominous pause here, in which I ventured to say something like, "Yes, very trying," and then asked at what hour the church service was to be. "Eleven o'clock," Mr. Bowman said with a heavy sigh. "Ah, you won't have ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... be as to Germany's ripeness, there can be none as to the utter unripeness of all the other European countries with the single exceptions of France and Belgium,—and surely none as to Russia, that ominous cloud to the East, well styled the modern Macedon to the modern Greek States of the nations of Western Europe. Though there is no "District of Columbia" in Europe, the masses would be mobilized from the surrounding hives of the Cimmerian Darkness of feudo-capitalism, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... factitious than actual, stood the three contending and opposing forces. The thought came and went like a flash, for it was not a time for meditation, but for hurried and desperate action. The sense of something vast and ominous seemed to hang over the darkness, where, for a second or two, the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... favourites of the students who are as well known as the professors themselves to every inhabitant of a university town in Germany. And the Doctor stroked the beautiful head and listened for steps upon the stairs. Before long he heard an ominous stumbling, as of some one unfamiliar with the dark and narrow way, and in a moment more a young man stood in the doorway, dazzled by the flood of the evening sunshine that ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... early history of Sparta expresses the prevailing spirit of early Hellenic civilization. Ανα τε εδραμον και ευθενηθησαν {Ana te edramon kai euthenêthêsan}: 'They shot up and throve.' But there is another phrase in Herodotus which announces the second act—an ominous phrase which came so natural to him that one may notice about a dozen instances of it in his history. Εδει γαρ τω δεινι γενεσθαι κακως {Edei gar tô deini genesthai kakôs}: 'Evil had to befall so-and-so, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was as if an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him the intangible shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of foreboding. Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in the air. He gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could not understand. Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No, Matt had the nicked cup, and he had certainly put the poison in ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... which had swept on their course, under various denominations, in rapid and stormy succession, were now followed by one which, like Aaron's rod, was to swallow up the rest. Its approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance. At length, however, the moment for the meeting of the States General at Versailles arrived. Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of forlorn hope of better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in his ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... had enough of it and I dragged Mr. Bundercombe away. We drove back to Prince's Gardens in somewhat ominous silence. Mr. Wymans would have taken his leave, but Mr. Bundercombe begged him to ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... after 12 Senator Langdon and Secretary Haines were still undisturbed by any move on the part of Peabody and Stevens, who maintained a silence that to Haines was distinctly ominous. His experience at the Capitol had taught him that when the Senate machine was quiet it was time for some one to get ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... one; the next day's sun went down, and still she had decided upon nothing. She went about her household duties as usual, sweeping the kitchen, attending to the cows, making the soup. No word fell from her lips, and rising ever amid the ominous silence she preserved, her hatred of Goliah grew with every hour and impregnated her nature with its poison. He had been her curse; had it not been for him she would have waited for Honore, and Honore would be living ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... thus disquieted by the conduct of the Northern powers, ominous signs began to appear in a very different quarter. It had, from the first, been no easy matter to induce sovereigns who hated, and who, in their own dominions, persecuted, the Protestant religion, to countenance the revolution which had saved that religion ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in wild delight, for all children took immediately to Betty. But, lo and behold! one of the dogs gave an ominous growl. Was not his idol devoting herself to some one else? In one instant the brute might have sprung upon poor little Deborah had not Betty turned and laid her hand on his forehead. Instantly he gave a sound between a groan and a moan, and crouched ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... significant. It is pleasant to find such a ring of sincerity in a European Orientalist, though it does seem quite ominous for Indian archeology. The initiated Brahmans know the positive dates of their eras and remain therefore unconcerned. What the "Adepts" have once said, they maintain; and no new discoveries or modified conjectures ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... rose and fluttered Edna's scarlet scarf like a pirate's pennon, and the low moan became a deep, sullen, ominous mutter. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Oxford still further exasperated the country, which rang with the cry, "No George, but a Stuart." The peaceable accession of the first monarch of the Brunswick line has been greatly insisted upon by historians; but that stillness was ominous; it was the stillness of the air before a storm; and was only indicative of irresolution, not of a diminished dislike to the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... would be condemned, for mediaevalism dies hard in Spain. But the incident was portentous, and the Archbishop and his keen secretary heard in it an ominous echo. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... said Mrs. Dallas, while her husband kept an ominous silence, 'you have always led a most blameless life. I think you judge yourself too hardly. You have been a good son, always!' and her eyes filled, partly with affection and partly with chagrin. To what was all this tending? 'You have always ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... his armor threw himself upon the Prince and was struck dead by his mace. It was the Duke of Athens, Constable of France, but none had time to note it, and the fight rolled on over his body. Looser still were the French ranks. Many were turning their horses, for that ominous roar from the rear had shaken their resolution. The little English wedge poured onward, the Prince, Chandos, Audley and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if it crossed the path, it was a bad omen, and a sign to retreat. Others saw their village god in the rainbow, others saw him in the shooting star; and in time of war the position of a rainbow and the direction of a shooting star were always ominous. ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... hear the muffled roar of rocket motors as the three finalists tuned up their ships, preparing for the greatest space race in history. And it seemed to Strong that with each blast there was a vaguely ominous echo. ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... stillness was ominous to King. He would have welcomed a Niagara of importunity and imprecations; he was bursting with impatience to express himself; it seemed as if he would die if he were silent an hour longer under that letter. Of course the usual American relief of irritability and impatience suggested itself. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sat on the little cretonne-covered box beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place. Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on carne flacca. 'Purvis does his ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... gave force and urgency to these questions. The people began to clamor more boldly for the good time which had been promised by the kind-hearted king. The murmur swelled to an ominous roar. Thousands were at his very palace gates, telling him in no unmistakable terms that they were tired of smooth words and fair promises. What they wanted ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... returned from his journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped, on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the colony. There was no hope ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Surprize, was awakend the next Morning by the Thunder of a Set of Drums. These warlike Sounds (methinks) are very improper in a Marriage-Consort, and give great Offence; they seem to insinuate, that the Joys of this State are short, and that Jars and Discord soon ensue. I fear they have been ominous to many Matches, and sometimes proved a Prelude to a Battel in the Honey-Moon. A Nod from you may hush them; therefore pray, Sir, let them be silenced, that for the future none but soft Airs may usher in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... day rising without prejudice, either to my body or spirits, I went, tho' I fear'd the place was ominous, to the same walk, and expected Chrysis to conduct me to her mistress; I had not been long there, e're she came to me, and with her a little old woman. After she had saluted me, "What, my nice Sir Courtly," said she, "does your stomach begin to come ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... on, "because it seems to me that I can hear, at times like this, when one is alone, the sound of what one of your writers called footsteps amongst the hills, footsteps falling upon wool, muffled yet somehow ominous. There is trouble coming. I know it. I am sure ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now occurred which impressed Mozart with an ominous chill. One night there came a stranger, singularly dressed in gray, with an order for a requiem to be composed without fail within a month. The visitor, without revealing his name, departed in mysterious gloom, as he came. Again the stranger called and solemnly reminded Mozart of his promise. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... discovered. The members of the Congress, although they were ostensibly devoting themselves to the common affairs of the United Colonies, were really intriguing each for the interests of his special colony or section. Washington thought this an ominous sign, as indeed it was, for since the moment when he joined the Revolution he threw off all local affiliation. He did his utmost to perform his duty, clinging as long as he could to the hope that there would be no final break with England. Throughout ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... hardly spoken before the ominous sound was heard, and Bull reached for his gun. For all his bulk of hand and unwieldy arms, the gun came smoothly, swiftly into his hand. He would have had an ordinary man covered, long before the latter had his gun muzzle-clear of the leather. But Pete Reeve was no ordinary ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... looked and saw another ominous slip of parchment in the mother's hand, which she was rolling up and down in a tremulous manner ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the house without speaking. It seemed to Steve that invective would have been better than this ominous silence. He looked ruefully at her retreating back ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... region';—men of palsied imaginations and indurated hearts; in whose minds all healthy action is languid, who therefore feed as the many direct them, or, with the many, are greedy after vicious provocatives;—judges, whose censure is auspicious, and whose praise ominous! In this class meet together the two extremes of best ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... so tired, working," Gratian said: He knew she meant it kindly but that she should say it at all was ominous. He got up at last, having lost hope of seeing Noel again, conscious too that he had answered the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pointed to the playful cloudlets of smoke as they issued from the mouth of the crater and apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper, pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to certain experiences ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... act; your silence will give consent to any question that is asked of you. Are you willin' that these twelve men should thry Valentine M'Clutchy and his son for their lives; and that the sentence is to be put in execution on them?" To this there was a profound and ominous silence. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... have endeavored here, without losing that Irish character, which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Only one taper burned in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... the father declared, earnestly. "I'm—right fond of 'Bob,' and I wouldn't like to see her team up with a man she couldn't be proud of. I wouldn't take it easy." Mild as were these words, coming from Tom Parker they had the ominous effect of ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... assume. Full and deep upon the still night air rang out the tolling of the mysterious bell. To the anxious watcher, its tones no longer rang full and sweet as upon the previous evening, but sounded slow and threatening, as if freighted with an ominous meaning. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... A week of ominous silence regarding the festival succeeded in Santa Ana. The local paper gave the fullest particulars of the opening of the hotel, but contented itself with saying: "The entertainment concluded with a dance." Mr. Brooks, who felt himself compelled ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... melt the snow. The furious tempests in these regions exceed any idea that can be formed of them, and can only be conceived by those who have witnessed them. Some of these mountain districts have acquired an ominous character for storms; Antaichahua is one of the places to which this sort of fearful celebrity belongs. For hours together flash follows flash, painting blood-red cataracts on the naked precipices. The forked lightning darts its zig-zag flashes ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... crew were collected in little groups, generally talking of the sights they were to see. In the waist were Shuffles, Monroe, and Wilton, all feuds among them having been healed. They appeared to be the best of friends, and it looked ominous for the discipline of the ship to see them reunited. Shuffles was powerful for good or evil, as he chose, and Mr. Lowington regretted that he had fallen from his high position, fearing that the self-respect which had sustained him as an officer would desert him as a seaman, ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... you had gone to the President of the Boorioboola-Gha Sewing-Circle, or to the Tract-Society Rooms, or to the clergy, and inquired whether the city's richest man was charitable, you would have received an ominous shrug in reply. Vainly have they gone to him for any such charities. Vainly did they go to him for some "poor, but worthy and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... in the day of their unbroken pride, when she felt that none greater than herself dwelt upon the globe. But with inevitable tread approaches the universal moral which points the tale. The measured step of the godlike hero echoeth along the corridors. The royal maiden, hearing the ominous tramp, is cognizant of an unwonted thrill and a sensation unfelt before. Her prophetic instinct telleth her too truly that her wild independence is concluded, that the day of bondage and of fetters has dawned, that the inexorable One, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... him, ere he parted thence, a son Much like his father, but his mother more, Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named: Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, At last betakes him to this ominous wood, And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, Excels his mother at her mighty art; Offering to every weary traveller His orient liquor in a crystal glass, To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste (For most do taste through fond intemperate ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... her quake, for she felt as though he had the gift of reading hearts, or much practice in it, and his presence must surely be as icy as the air of this dank street. Was the dull, sallow complexion of that ominous face due to excess of work, or the result of ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... nearly turned to the chair where the attorney was sitting, said nothing; but he gave an ominous look round, which showed that he had heard what had passed. But it did not show that he by any means approved ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... This ominous beginning was followed by a train of disasters. His associates abandoned him; the merchants on whom he depended for supplies would not send them, and he found himself, in his own words "destitute of everything." ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... old sailor rather a shock. He abandoned the study of Mr. Dickens and took off his spectacles. Then he scratched his head—always an ominous sign. His first instinct was to go and open the door; then he remembered that the new-comer was a nobleman who lived in a palace, and that he himself was indirectly a gentleman, inasmuch as he lived in the same house as a lady—his ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... the singular speech that fell from the lips of the sailor, and with an accent that proclaimed it ominous. And why ominous? Why should the presence of that embarkation—known to them as the "big raft"—cause apprehension to the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... re-lighted it with Lucifer matches in Register offices; and out it soon goes, leaving worse than Egyptian darkness in the dwellings of the poor—the smell of its brimstone indicative of its origin, and ominous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... took no notice of these little changes, but they were particularly irritating to Miss Prunty, who was, after all, only four years older than the signorino. That lady had, indeed, become more than usually sharp and foreboding. She received the signorino's gay effusions in ominous silence, and would frown darkly while Madame Petrucci petted her "little bird," as she called Goneril. Once indeed Miss Prunty was heard to remark it was tempting Providence to have dealings with a creature whose very name was ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... Uzcoque, somewhat startled by the ominous coincidence between Marcello's words and the visions that had broken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... At times a hundred feet was all he could stagger, and then the ominous pounding of his heart against his eardrums and the sickening totteriness of his knees compelled him to rest. And his rests grew longer. But his mind was busy. It was a twenty-eight-mile portage, which represented as many days, and this, by all accounts, was the easiest part ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the setting sun the two thus went on their journey: Close he had wrapped himself round with clouds portending a tempest. Out from the veil, now here and now there, with fiery flashes, Gleaming over the field shot forth the ominous lightning. "May not these threatening heavens," said Hermann, "be presently sending Hailstones upon us and violent rains; for fair is the harvest." And in the waving luxuriant grain they delighted together: Almost as high ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... some living monster, vast, supernatural, rushing through the sky, and tearing and trampling the earth with fury. The mysterious swinging movement, the uproar, the gloom, the lightnings, were appalling. And now Lion set up a fearful, ominous howl. ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... nomenclature, nonchalant, non sequitur, nucleus, nugatory, obdurate, objurgation, obligatory, obloquy, obsequious, obsession, obsolete, obstreperous, obtrusive, obtuse, obverse, obviate, occult, octogenarian, officious, olfactory, oleaginous, oligarchy, ominous, onomatopceia, opacity, opaque, opprobrious, oracular, orthodox, oscillate, osculate, ostensible, ostentation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... which he spoke was ominous of what was to come. He led her off to his own quarters, and, sitting on the edge of a brass-bound table, looking uncommonly like a sea-gull, with her white tapering body and thin alert face, Mrs. Dalloway had to listen to the tirade of a fanatical man. Did she realise, to begin with, what ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... soup-ladle in her confusion. To that experienced lady there was something ominous about so unbroken a union of Madigans; she remembered with sorrow the few times any subject ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... be gone: and there ought to be, 1. More diligence in duties and approaching to God, because your case furnisheth more matter of supplication; and as matter of supplication groweth, prayer should grow. If necessity grow, and the cry be not according to necessity, it is ominous. And therefore David useth to make his cry go up according to his trouble. In a prosperous condition, though every thing might call a tender-hearted loving Christian to some nearness to God; yet ordinarily, if necessity press not, prayer languisheth and groweth formal. Sense of need putteth an edge ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... he saw Terry asleep under the open window, wrapped in his saddle blanket but without the protection of a mosquito net. He cursed, stopping midway in his vehement outburst to cock his head at the absurd angle in which men think their ears function best. As he heard the ominous drone of the insects his experience had taught him to fear more than wild beasts, he scrambled to ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... island, passing from city to city, and raising reinforcements of ships and men; and a second embassy had been despatched by the Syracusans, to carry the news of their victory to Corinth and Sparta, and ask for further help. Another ominous sign of coming events was the bustle and activity now visible in the dockyards of Syracuse and the waters of the Little Harbour; for the Syracusans had turned their attention seriously to their fleet, and thought ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... words, which Cora could see were earnest and important. At last Rose got up in some agitation and hurried out of the room. Then old Aaron Rockharrt came up to the young people and stood before them. There was something so ominous in his attitude and expression that his two grandchildren looked dismayed even ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... on my command. Truly an ominous commencement. Is this the promised protection? I read in the face of every child I pass; for the whole honour of the expedition redounds to me. But enough of this; more perhaps than you will thank me for. Webbers was of the party, and can give you a history. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the practically independent chieftains of this wild region for the safe passage of the party through the hilly country. As it advanced, however, ominous rumors of a projected attack by the hill savages and Chinese frontiersmen reached the ears of its members. Though these rumors were generally discredited, it was thought best to send forward Margary as a pioneer, he being well known to the people and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... swayed, the long, straight road grew less deserted. Here and there transport lorries by ones and twos, then whole convoys drawn up beside the road, often axle deep in mud, or lumbering heavily onwards; and ever as we went that ominous, stammering murmur beyond the horizon grew louder ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... Anglo-Japanese Treaty, and the Russo- Japanese War, were in his opinion "secondary events," however important, appearing to threaten the peace of Europe from time to time—very disquieting, no doubt, and ominous occasionally of yet worse things—but things such as diplomacy had conjured away before, and ought to be able to conjure away again. He did not think that Morocco, long regarded at the Foreign Office as a danger-point, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Relinquishing the momentary intention to land, the chief slowly pursued his course round the palisades. As he approached the moccasin, having now nearly completed the circuit of the building, he threw the ominous article into the canoe, by a dexterous and almost imperceptible movement of his paddle. He was now ready to depart, but retreat was even more dangerous than the approach, as the eye could no longer be riveted on the loops. If there was really any one in the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... meanwhile defrayed by the candidates without stint, brought out the electioneering expenses at the enormous sum of L100,000 for each candidate. Lord Harewood, to whose outlay was added the mortification of its uselessness, is said to have kept a card in his pocket from that day forward with the ominous figures L100,000 inscribed on it, and whenever he was asked again to contest the county, he would produce this as an unanswerable argument against his ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... to town I shall stay home," said Louisa in a cold, ominous tone that almost made Mary Isabel quake. If it had not been for that reassuring crackle of Tom's letter I fear Mary Isabel would have given in. "This house can't be left alone. If you go, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good breeding that it ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... really beginning to look dark for Miss Catheron. The superintendent of the district, Mr. Ferrick, was filling his note-book with very ominous information. She had loved Sir Victor—she had hated Sir Victor's wife—they had led a cat-and-dog life from the first—an hour before the murder they had had a violent quarrel—Lady Catheron had threatened to make her husband turn her out of the house on the morrow. At eight o'clock, Jane ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... has revealed to him the natures of all the creatures in their names, as Adam had. He luckily turns aside from that compendious study of natural history, which might have superseded Buffon, to his proper spiritual pursuits, only just hinting what a philosopher he might have been. The ominous passage is near the beginning of the Book. It is clear he means a physical knowledge, without trope or figure. Also, pretences to miraculous healing and the like are more frequent than I should have suspected from the epitome in Sewell. He is nevertheless a great ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... these serpents, they will suffer their women to be exposed during sleep to their performing the office of an infant. They are considered, in a house, emblematical of good, or prosperity, as their absence is ominous of evil. They are not often visible; but I have seen them passing over the beams of the roof of the apartments. A friend of mine was just retired to bed at Marocco, when he heard a noise in the room, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... strict enforcement of conditions mentioned in that ominous card. I was unacquainted with the Bohemian "song and dance" parlance in such extremities, and wondered would letting my secret come out let a dinner come in. Possibly, I may have often been deceived when appealed to, but that experience has often been fruitful ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... One of the most ominous signs of the times is, that good men stand aloof from politics. They do this either because they do not fully appreciate the importance of their influence, or from the false conviction that their votes will do no good, or, in many other ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... like an eternity of seconds. All the time the electric motors ran, almost noiselessly. The slight tremor imparted to the craft by the propeller shafts seemed like an ominous rumbling. Jack's voice had ceased. No one felt like talking. From time to time Skipper Jack glanced at his watch; his face, expressionless, gave no clue to the eagerly watching naval cadets. But at last young Benson's hand reached toward ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... stalking in the depths and, above, a brief sigh in the wind. In the growing stress these figures sing from opposite quarters, the sobbing phrase below, when suddenly the queenly melody stills the tumult. It is answered by a dim, slow line of the ominous motive. Quicker echoes of the earlier despond still flit here and there, with gleams of joyous light. The plaintive (dual) song returns and too the tender appeal, which with its sweetness at last wakens the buoyant spirit ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... out maps and discovered where 'The Bower'—ominous name—lay, and what tracks led thereto. Thither she would ride on the next hunting day and confront the girl, settle the matter with her husband, and put an end to his ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... end of the lane, where it met a cross street, and the street lamp flung out an ominous challenge, and, dim though it was, seemed to glare with the brightness of daylight, she faltered for a moment and drew back. She knew where Shluker's place was, because she knew, as few knew it, every nook ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... voice; and following the bushranger's words, we could hear the ominous clink of the muskets as they were ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... these filthy birds was more than ominous. It filled Von Bloom with apprehension. What could they be doing there? There ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid |
