"Futurity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he would always seek Lois, entreating her, as of old, to marry him—sometimes pleading his love for her, oftener speaking wildly of his visions and the voices which he heard foretelling a terrible futurity. ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... amused with some gentle exercise of the mind. If a suspected letter comes, throw it aside till your health is reestablished; keep easy and cheerful company about you, and never try to think but at those stated and solemn times when the thoughts are summoned to the cares of futurity, the only cares ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... large spendour yet imparts The' Almighty Ruler; but when they approach Or actually exist, our intellect Then wholly fails, nor of your human state Except what others bring us know we aught. Hence therefore mayst thou understand, that all Our knowledge in that instant shall expire, When on futurity the portals close." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... sovereign, thou crown'st to-day The fervent wishes of thy people; now We can rejoice in the propitious days Which thou bestowest upon us; and we look No more with fear and trembling towards the time Which, charged with storms, futurity presented. Now, but one only care disturbs this land; It is a sacrifice which every voice Demands; Oh! grant but this and England's peace Will be established now ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Reverend Gentlemen proceed in their divine Mission, when, by some visible Provision for the proper Objects of their present Cares and future Concern, they should, in a great Measure, be released from domestick Anxiety, from gloomy Apprehensions, and alarming Prospects, into the temporal Futurity of those, for whom they must be necessarily affected ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a beautiful young being, the most human of all, gazing into vacancy or futurity. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... characters are singularly free from self-pity, and accept their fate as righteous; they never forgave themselves, they show no sign of having forgiven one another; even God's forgiveness is left under a shadow in futurity. They have sinned against the soul, and something implacable in evil remains. The minister's dying words drop a ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... care of his back than his bet," said Dick as he followed the squire to the hall-door, where his horse was in waiting for him, under the care of the renowned Andy, who little dreamed of the extensive harvest of mischief which was ripening in futurity, all from his sowing. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... immense influence it might have had on the happiness of the whole human race—my indignation and horror, as an honest man and a Christian, are excited against that abominable Company, whose black plots nipped in their bud all those great hopes, which promised so much for futurity. What remains now of all these splendid projects? Seven tombs. For my grave also is dug in that mausoleum, which Samuel has erected on the site of the house in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Francois, and of which he remains ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... said, "that prophetic gloom which dives into futurity, to extract sorrow from days and years to come, and which considers its own unhappy visions as the decrees of Providence. We know nothing of to-morrow: our business is to be good and ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy. "You can discern," they say, "objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. Let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity." This day, I trust, the reign of political protestantism will commence. We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... predilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame that, according to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retaining office to be better than those of my democratic brethren. But who can see an inch into futurity beyond his nose? My own head was the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this project was one of futurity. There never were such people as the Shimerdas for wanting to give away everything they had. Even the mother was always offering me things, though I knew she expected substantial presents in return. We stood there in friendly silence, while the feeble minstrel ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... believes, and to predict what he expects. His predictions are the mirrors which photograph his own moods of mind, rather than views through a telescope directed to the distant cloud-capped mountains of futurity. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... reasoning power to discover that if it is a very fine thing to be mother-in-law to a very magnificent three-tailed bashaw, it presupposes that the wife who makes the connection between the two parties is in harmony with her mother. And so far had Mrs. Gibson's thoughts wandered into futurity. She only wished that the happy chance had fallen to Cynthia's instead of to Molly's lot. But Molly was a docile, sweet creature, very pretty, and remarkably intelligent, as my lord had said. It was a pity that Cynthia preferred making millinery to reading; but perhaps that ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of mine, look out and see My bride, my bride that is to be! Reach out with mad, impatient hands, And draw aside futurity As one might draw a veil aside— And so unveil her where she stands Madonna-like and glorified— The queen of undiscovered lands Of love, to where she beckons me— My bride—my bride that ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... intermixed with scorn. Yet the idea strangely forced itself upon me, that there was a sort of familiarity between these two companions, necessarily the result of an intimate love,—on Zenobia's part, at least,—in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself into as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As they passed among the trees, reckless as her movement was, she took good heed that even the hem of her garment should not brush against the stranger's person. I wondered whether there had always been a chasm, guarded so religiously, betwixt ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Sharpe, and found that treasure of nurses ready and waiting. All through the long drive she sat by his side in his light wagon, never opening her discreet lips except to respond to his questions, and gazing straight ahead through her green glasses into the world of futurity, for all ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessels contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. However as the state of mind in which we are, generally gives the colouring to events, when the imagination is suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself to me was a most pleasing one. Entertaining as I do the most confident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a darling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... way, with careworn face, Abstracted eye, and sauntering pace, May pass one such as he, Whose mind heaves with a secret force, That shall be felt along the course Of far Futurity. ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the park, and entered the smooth space, on which the trees stood alone and at rarer intervals, while the red clouds, still tinged with the hues of the departed sun, hovered on the far and upland landscape,—like Hope flushing over Futurity,—a mellowed yet rapid murmur, distinct from the more distant dashing of the sea, broke abruptly upon my ear. It was the voice of that brook whose banks had been the dearest haunt of my childhood; and now, as ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... misfortunes; now that link after link bound me as it were by a spell, to feel for those round me, and to belong to them, my cheerfulness was over. The mother turned her eyes from me with a shuddering sigh, and gazed on the dear circle of little ones as if she sought to penetrate futurity and guess which of the young things, now rosy in health, was to follow her long lost and still lamented one. The doting father pressed the arm of his pale consumptive girl nearer to his heart, as he passed me: friends who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... despair. He went on repeating the word 'sealed.' I began to realise that the wine had clouded his brain. No wonder! Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he still was. I urged him to eat at any rate some bread. It was maddening to think that he, who had so much to tell, might tell nothing. 'How was it all,' I asked, 'yonder? Come! ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... twelve he wrote to an American friend: 'I contemn the groveling condition of a clerk to which my fortunes condemn me, and I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... My youth excludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity.' You see the yeast was stirring, even in ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... occurrence produced a dreamy effect of memory, as if I had experienced it before. This frame of mind was more annoying than painful, for I even at times felt a faint pleasure in it, and strove to anticipate events that were lodged in the womb of futurity: but my efforts were vain; I could not penetrate the mist; I could only recognise the objects as it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... according to religious law, and what is incumbent on them in respect of satisfactory speech and manners. Know then, O King, that all men's works tend either to religious or to laical life, for none attaineth to religion save through this world, because it is the best road to futurity. Now the works of this world are not ordered save by the doings of its people, and men's doings are divided into four divisions, government, commerce, husbandry and craftsmanship. Now government requireth perfect administration with just ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... fine savage (who in some miraculous way also possessed the grace of a courtier). Franz Hals, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Botticelli were all men of fierce appetites and heroic physiques. They had animality plus that would have carried them across the century-mark, had they not drawn checks on futurity, in a belief that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... these tamperings with the future, even where we are convinced of the fallacy of the prediction. It is singular how willingly the mind will half deceive itself, and with what a degree of awe we will listen even to these babblers about futurity. For my part, I cannot feel angry with these poor vagabonds that seek to deceive us into bright hopes and expectations. I have always been something of a castle-builder, and have found my liveliest pleasures to arise from the illusions which fancy has ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... honour of having attacked the pillars of the Romish hierarchy in days more dangerous. I may boast of being the first German who raised a fermentation on the Upper Rhine and in Austria, so advantageous to truth, the progress of the understanding, and the happiness of futurity. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Sam Patch, who jumps no more, This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead! The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore Of dark futurity, he would not tread. No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed; Nor with decorous woe, sedately stepp'd Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed— The mighty river, as it onward swept, In one great wholesale sob, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Master Richard Watts objected to the levying of this blackmail; or he may in his walks have been subjected to the proctors' importunities, and consequently in his will rigorously debarred them in all futurity from any share in ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... he hesitate to break that official seal which glares up at him so broadly. Were the gift of futurity his, and could he see mirrored before him the dread panorama of events that are inevitably linked with that innocent-looking missive, he would fling it with horror-stricken hands into the coal-fire that burns ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... soul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of decadence—which, perhaps, feels itself most at ease there; a real, genuine token of the German soul, which is at the same time young and aged, too ripe and yet still too rich in futurity. This kind of music expresses best what I think of the Germans: they belong to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow—THEY HAVE AS YET ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... despise this chimera, which has been the thick rind of the sacred fruit on which we live. This fantastic kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit after a city of God, which has constantly preoccupied Christianity during its long career, has been the principle of that great instinct of futurity which has animated all reformers, persistent believers in the Apocalypse, from Joachim of Flora down to the Protestant sectary of our days. This impotent effort to establish a perfect society has been ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... made us to feel; and though you may wish us to be mere electrical machines, yet your gases and your ethereal disengaged matters will never explain the gift we possess of looking into futurity." ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... of her father rendered the fortunate efforts of her husband tenfold delightful. They mutually exulted in that futurity that should enable them to set the unkind rector at defiance; and Hugh often boasted he would prove, though but a farmer, that the blood in his veins was as warm, and perhaps as pure, as that of any proud ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... destroy slavery." "ULTIMATELY!" What meaneth that portentous word? To what limit of remotest time, concealed in the darkness of futurity, may it look? Tell us, O watchman, on the hill of Andover. Almost nineteen centuries have rolled over this world of wrong and outrage—and yet we tremble in the presence of a form of slavery whose breath is poison, whose fang is death! If any one of the incidents ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... but an equal measure being extended to all. It is no novelty that mankind do not distinctly foresee their own changes, and that their sentiments are adapted to past, not to coming ages. To see the futurity of the species has always been the privilege of the intellectual elite, or of those who have learnt from them; to have the feelings of that futurity has been the distinction, and usually the martyrdom, of a still rarer elite. Institutions, books, education, ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... plants, maintained itself. It is as little to be doubted that an essentially similar state of nature prevailed in this region for many thousand years before the coming of Caesar; and there is no assignable reason for denying that it might continue to exist through an equally prolonged futurity except for ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... Anarchists."[17] The Internationale, as we saw, emphasized trade unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition to the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade union and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business" unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it became a non-political revolutionary ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... separation from other men, to lead an unnatural life under the strained and artificial conditions of prison?" The change is so violent, it comes so suddenly, the unknown possibilities are so terrible, the sufferings naturally implied are so inevitable, that had any one gifted with a knowledge of futurity shown me that such experience was to be mine I would have thought it utterly impossible that such horrors could ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... have" (in any sense, God speaking in the Bible) "then, of all passages, it is in these, which treat so confidently of futurity, that we must recognize His voice; if we have it not in these passages, then, where are we to listen for it ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... shore, Far from Ilion's hoary wave, Agamemnon's bridal slave Speaks Futurity no more: Death is busy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brightened in his eye. Nor knew he why he hoped; but though despair The Enthusiast's heart may madly grasp, and glare Even on his soul, it may not long remain A dweller on his breast, for hope doth reign There as o'er its inheritance; and he Lives in fond visions of futurity. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... desired me to show her the North Pole, or the meaning of a melodrama:—any or all of these I might have accomplished. But to request me to define my dinner—to inquire into its latitude—to compel me to fathom that sea of appetite which I now felt rushing through my frame—to ask me to dive into futurity, and become the prophet of pies and preserves!—My heart died within me at ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... staring Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fixed on futurity. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... appointed to some great honor, somewhere, but had been too modest to mention the fact. If she had seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to be gazing darkly into futurity, it might have thrown some light upon the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the picture in ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... It is not for his sake—why should I?-that I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I believe—he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity—a feeble visionary. I am not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage—sacred but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... by—men of the widest and most brilliant faculties, whether constructive or speculative, that the world till then had seen; men whose acts became the romance, whose thoughts the wisdom, and whose arts the treasure, of a thousand years of futurity. ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... fairy fiction drest. In buskined measure move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... darkens air and earth, or settling loads every tree with sable fruitage, are you your own augur, equally as when one raven lifts up his hoary blackness from a stone, and sails sullenly off with a croak, that gets fiercer and more savage in the lofty distance? Does the leaf of the forest twinkle futurity? the lonely lichen brighten or pale its lustre with change? Does not the gift of prophecy dwell with the family of the violets and the lilies? The prescient harebells, do they not let drop their closing blossoms when the heavens are niggard of their dews, or uphold them ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... torture to remain passive—to feel that prudence, virtue, genius avail them not—that while rapid ideas pass in their imagination, time moves with an unaltered pace, and compels them to wait, along with the herd of vulgar mortals, for knowledge of futurity. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... themselves in the future, and contemplating the possible of moral and intellectual advance towards perfection. Thus we live by hope and faith; thus we are for the most part able to realize what we will, and thus we accomplish the end of our being. The contemplation of futurity inspires humility of soul in ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... shadowy and indistinct as one of Ossian's heroes," replied Angila, laughing; "something very distinguished in air and manners, with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity," she added, gayly. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... eked out by thine appropriate receptacle, recals raptures past—bids us appreciate joys present—and enjoins us duly to reverence thee, if we hope for joys in futurity. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... follow, that a Christian, who as he is commanded, aims at perfection, is a useless member of the community, useless to his family, and to all around him. He is an idle dreamer, who thinks of nothing but futurity; who has nothing in common with the interests of the world, and according to Tertullian "has no other business but to get out of it as ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... rejoices in the daylight, is depicted there, in the shadow that obscures the Book, in the scowl that is fixed upon the Book-diffuser;—that sombre, musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the beauty of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend, looking far and anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing there what antagonism was about to be created to the schemes of secret crime and unrelenting force; the chivalrous head of the accomplished Rivers, seen but in profile, under his helmet, as if the age when Chivalry must defend its noble attributes in steel was already ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grot. The oak and birch, with mingled shade, 635 At noontide there a twilight made, Unless when short and sudden shone Some straggling beam on cliff or stone, With such a glimpse as prophet's eye Gains on thy depth, Futurity. 640 No murmur waked the solemn still, Save tinkling of a fountain rill; But when the wind chafed with the lake, A sullen sound would upward break, With dashing hollow voice, that spoke 645 The incessant war of wave and rock. Suspended ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Odin was now all-wise, he was sad and oppressed, for he had gained an insight into futurity, and had become aware of the transitory nature of all things, and even of the fate of the gods, who were doomed to pass away. This knowledge so affected his spirits that he ever after wore a ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... light without Enters with her, veiled about; Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, Please themselves with silken wear; Shadows point to what shall be In the dim futurity. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... which she brought in the word "futurity" almost sublime. Hedvig was loudly applauded, and her uncle went all round the table to kiss her. I had a very natural objection on the tip of my tongue, which she might have found difficult to answer, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... investigations fully supported the charges.] Gould also knew that every year immigration was pouring into the West; that in time its population, agriculture and industries would form a rich field for exploitation. By the well-understood canons of capitalism, this futurity could be capitalized in advance. Moreover, he had in mind other plans by which tens of millions could be stolen under ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... the prophet Zeuramaund, and said, "I perceive, O mighty Sultan, the dark clouds of evil are gathering to disturb the hours of futurity; the spirits of the wicked are preparing the storm ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the thrill of a man holding the key to fretting shackles. One week of life with the future eliminated; one week with no reckoning to be made at the end; one week with every human fetter struck off; one week in which to ignore every curbing law of futurity and abandon himself to the joy of the present! The future—even the narrow bounds of an earthly future—holds men prisoners. A few careless dogs, to be sure, live their day, blind to the years to come, but that is brute stupidity. ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... After a life of virtue and glory, Theodoric was now descending with shame and guilt into the grave; his mind was humbled by the contrast of the past, and justly alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One evening, as it is related, when the head of a large fish was served on the royal table, [102] he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and his mouth armed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Dieu dispose. Without the directing mind and sustaining arm of the source of all wisdom and power, in vain is the labor of man. Ruin and disgrace shall overwhelm all undertakings not founded on the Rock of Ages. With what great events teems the bosom of futurity? O, that my eyes could pierce the misty distance; that my dim presaging soul could behold the stately advance of the coming centuries, whose sounding feet I fancy that I can hear! Bear they in their hands weal or woe to humanity? Hath the creative ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Disorders beforementioned: I mean the great Increase of Popery in this Kingdom. When Men have lost all Principles of Religion, and are lost to all Sense of Morality, they are prepared to receive any Superstition, whenever the Decay of Health, or the cross Accidents of Life revive the Fears of Futurity; which may be stifled, but cannot be extinguished; such Persons not able to digest the wholesome Food of Repentance, by which their spiritual Condition might be gradually mended, greedily swallow the high Cordial of Absolution, ...
— A Letter from the Lord Bishop of London, to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster; On Occasion of the Late Earthquakes • Thomas Sherlock
... disgusted with mankind, he feared that, if he attempted to seize the sceptre again, he should involve France and himself in new troubles; and, without abandoning his expectation of re-ascending the throne, he resolved to allow his resolutions to be guided by futurity. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... swaying of the veil of futurity, under the straining hands of our guardian angels? Is it the faint shadow, the solemn rustle of their hovering wings, as like mother birds they spread protecting plumes between blind fledglings, and descending ruin? Will theosophy ever explain and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has every where inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shewn, in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... individuality of the States, each for itself—the moneymakers, Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever, pulley, all certainties, The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands, O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I putting it at random in these songs, become a part of that, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... habit of reversing the judgments delivered upon creative artists by their contemporaries; yet to trim deftly one's convictions in the hope that they may elastically conform to any one of a number of possible verdicts to be expected from a capricious futurity, is probably as dangerous a proceeding as to avow, without equivocation or compromise, one's precise beliefs. It will therefore be understood that the critical estimates which are offered in the following pages have been set ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... wild desire.' At the age of seventeen she 'was one of the Great Maker's masterpieces . . . a living likeness of the Dresden Madonna.' One rather shudders to think of what she may become at forty, but this is an impertinent prying into futurity. She hails from 'Maryland, my Maryland!' and has 'received a careful, if not a superior, education.' Need we add that she marries the heir to an earldom who, as aforesaid, has had himself perforated by a ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance, but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... doubting that my addition merely completes your half-approved idea, the image of the young artist would for the present recede into the background and remain for a few years to come in modest perspective, the finishing point of a vista stretching a considerable distance into futurity. Fanny may feel sure of this: if she intends to be an artist's wife she had better try an apprenticeship with Fortune as a governess first; she cannot undergo a better preparation for that honourable (honourable if rightly considered) but certainly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... them in a cave upon the heath, where they, who knew by foresight of his coming, were engaged in preparing their dreadful charms by which they conjured up infernal spirits to reveal to them futurity. Their horrid ingredients were toads, bats, and serpents, the eye of a newt and the tongue of a dog, the leg of a lizard and the wing of the night-owl, the scale of a dragon, the tooth of a wolf, the maw of the ravenous salt-sea shark, the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... an ear-witness of his wonders, but also an ear- witness of his prophecies concerning futurity. For that drought which came, and the great dearth of that year, and the famine and pestilence which followed together, he foretold two years before, saying that he saw a rod which was laid on man, stripes which would be inflicted by it. Moreover, he at ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... sensitive, and his mother thinks she can't begin to guard him too early." Miss Ambient's head drooped a little to one side, and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then suddenly there was a strange alteration in her face; she gave a smile that was more joyless than her gravity—a conscious, insincere smile, and added, "When one has children, it's a ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... from such an impeachment and declares that their language "combines wealth, grace, strength, and gentleness. It has expressions for abstract ideas, for Futurity, Eternity, and Existence, and enough numerical terms to express all possible combinations of our numerals." It might be noted in passing that it was these same Brazilian natives that the Portuguese settlers sought to decimate by spreading smallpox and scarlet fever amongst them, as the English ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... and live with us," he added half abstractedly. He was trying to see his way through a sudden confusion of ideas. Confusion was rare to him, and his senses, feeling the fog, embarrassed by a sudden air of mystery and a cloud of futurity, were creeping to a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and agitated, by the recollection of what I have passed through; and by night, and by day, I have little peace of mind, and few periods of calm and pleasant reflection. Futurity also appears uncertain. I know not what reception this little work may meet with; and what will be the effect of its publication here, or in Canada, among strangers, friends, or enemies. I have given the world the truth, so far as I have gone, on subjects of which I am told they ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... anxiously wished to discuss with you. The project is yet in its infancy, hardly peeping from its shell; and whether it will ever come out a fine full-fledged chicken, or will turn addle and die before it cheeps, is one of those considerations that are but dimly revealed by the oracles of futurity. Now, don't be nonplussed by all this metaphorical mystery. I talk of a plain and everyday occurrence, though, in Delphic style, I wrap up the information in figures of speech concerning eggs, chickens etceatera, etcaeterorum. To come to the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... transgressor, admonishing him to consecrate his remaining hours to the exercise of Christian virtues. All minds were directed to the contemplation of futurity; and children, who manifest the more elevated feelings of the soul without alloy, were frequently seen, while labouring under the plague, breathing out their spirit with prayer and ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... what remaynes of thee, AElla, the darlynge of futurity, Lett thys mie songe bolde as thie courage be, As everlastynge ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... the origin of the phrase "To kick the bucket," the tradition among the slang fraternity is, that "One Bolsover having hung himself to a beam while standing on the bottom of a pail, or bucket, kicked the vessel away in order to pry into futurity, and it was all UP with him from that moment—Finis!" Our Querist will find a very humorous illustration of its use (too long to quote) in an article on "Anglo-German Dictionaries," contributed by De Quincy to the London Magazine for April, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... indignantly recedes. Yet here, ev'n here, with pleasures long resign'd, Lo! MEMORY bursts the twilight of the mind: Her dear delusions sooth his sinking soul, When the rude scourge presumes its base controul; And o'er Futurity's blank page diffuse The full reflection of her vivid hues. 'Tis but to die, and then, to weep no more, Then will he wake on Congo's distant shore; Beneath his plantain's antient shade, renew The simple transports that with freedom flew; Catch the cool ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... politics to give zest to a life already replete with pecuniary indulgences, as those in the "sere and yellow leaf" are wont to take to religion as a solacing comfort against things that are past, and pave the way to a very desirable futurity. But now, politicians are of no peculiar class or condition of citizens; the success of a champion depends not so much upon the matter, as upon the manner, not upon the capital he may have in real estate, bank funds ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... either say, with well-bred hypocrisy, she ought not to keep Fanny any longer from her mother—and so get rid of her; or would interpose, and give some reason or other. What that reason would be, Fanny had no precise idea. She was sure it would not be the true one; but there her insight into futurity and females ceased. Now, Zoe was thoroughly fascinated by Severne, and Fanny saw it; and yet Zoe was too high-bred a girl to parade the village and the neighborhood with him alone—and so placard her attachment—before they were engaged, and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... greeted with addresses and public demonstrations. The settlers, with a manly consistency, despite the threatened scarcity of labor, adhered to their flag and responded with cheers to those who predicted a temporary struggle and a bright futurity. But the agents of the convict department endeavored to rekindle the last embers of jealousy and hate. To the employers they predicted ruin; to the houseowners, desolation and emptiness; to the publicans the reign of puritanism; to the emancipists the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... went upon that mountain top, But sought for knowledge; and Sikander hoped When he had reached its cloudy eminence, To see the visions of futurity Arise from that departed, holy man! And soon he heard a voice: "Thy time is nigh! Yet may I thy career on earth unfold. It will be thine to conquer many a realm, Win many a crown; thou wilt have many friends And numerous foes, and thy devoted head Will be uplifted to the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... go out from me, Leave this silence-haunted room, Full enough of darkness keepeth In the chamber of his tomb. Full enough of shadow lieth In that dim futurity— In that wedding night, where, meekly, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... brute creation, but I don't affect cats. Nor can I say that I greatly enjoy their music. I heard the very best bands of tom-cats every night during my sojourn in Moscow, and consider them utterly deficient in style and execution. It belongs, I think, to the Music of Futurity, so much discussed by the critics of Europe during the past few years—a peculiar school of anti-melody that requires people yet to be born to appreciate it thoroughly. The discords may be very fine, and the passion very striking and tempestuous, but it is worse than thrown ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... despised, and would not have to be alone their king; that they had been contriving these things from the very day that they came out of Egypt; that however in no long time they would sorely repent of what they did, which repentance yet could not undo what was thus done for futurity; that they would be sufficiently rebuked for their contempt, and the ungrateful conduct they have used towards me, and towards thy prophetic office. "So I command thee to ordain them such a one as I shall name beforehand to be their ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... proverb that "He who sows thoughts will reap acts, habits, and character," for destiny itself is determined by thinking. Life is won or lost by its master thoughts. As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood. It was said of John Keats that his face was the face of one who had seen a vision. So long had his inner eye been fixed upon beauty, so long had he loved that vision splendid, so long had he lived with it, that not only did his soul take on the loveliness ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... can be foreseen, probably may affect, the international relations of the country. Its existence at all and its size are, or should be, the reflection of the national consciousness that in this, that, or the other direction lie clear national interests—for which each generation is responsible to futurity—or national duties, equally clear from the mere fact that the matter lies at the door, like Lazarus at the rich man's gate. The question of when or how action shall be taken which may result in hostilities, is indeed a momentous one, having regard to the dire evils of war; ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... up stairs toward the magnificent nursery, which had been prepared months before, with a loving eagerness of anticipation, and a merciful blindness to futurity, for the expected heir of the Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope of the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. It lay in a cradle resplendent with white satin hangings and lace curtains, and ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... no abiding-place, we all hasten toward futurity!" said the old preacher. "Strengthen yourself now with meat and drink! The body cannot suffer like the soul. We have accompanied him to His sleeping chamber; his bed was well prepared! I have prayed the evening ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... have reference to the times of the day, the seasons of the year, and the periods of human life. The last, that which turns the attention upon age and death, was the author's favourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets. His preference was probably just, I wish, however, that his fondness had not overlooked a line in which the zephyrs are made ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... to the value of those attainments, by which we can, as it were, fly from world to world, and gaze on all the glories of creation; by which we can glide down the stream of time, and penetrate the unorganized regions of uncreated futurity? My heart burns while I write. Although literature presents the highest objects of ambition to the most refined mind, yet I consider health, in comparison with other temporal enjoyments, the most bountiful, and highest gift ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... gravity, Donald," she stated, "and you keep treating it with levity. Sandy, do you really own Tapwater? He's the colt who won the Monmouth Futurity, isn't he?" ...
— Lighter Than You Think • Nelson Bond
... will my friend survey The book of Nature with unheeding eye; For never beams the rising orb of day, For never dimly dies the refluent ray, But as the moralizer marks the sky, He broods with strange delight upon futurity. ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... departed—they had borne her over the threshold of her home, and laid her remains in the narrow house where all must one day repose—a plain head-board alone marking the grave in which slumbered what was once Eliza Williams. Like others, she had died sincerely mourned by many—like others, futurity would leave no memorial to tell that she had ever existed. Decay, and rude hands, and careless feet, after the lapse of years, would mar her last resting-place, as many in the grave-yard had already been marred, but the form below could never know nor feel the injury—she slept, and would sleep, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... in that city; and secondly, Peggy, as Roberta well knew, was not adapted by nature to be her maid, or the maid of any one else. Peggy's true vocation in life was to throw her far-away gaze into futurity, and, as far as in her lay, to adapt present circumstances to what she supposed was going to happen. It would have delighted her soul if she could have been the adept in conjuring, which she firmly believed the Widow Keswick to be; but, as she possessed no such gift, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... suffer a common fate! We burst as germs into organization, we swell by a common progress into maturity, and we learn to measure by motion what we call Time, till, our motions and our time ceasing, we are thus laid side by side, generation after generation, serving as examples of a similar futurity to those who spring from us, and ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... events, for times and seasons and events often produce moods which infect a whole people. We have examples of this in the moral influence of the festivals of the Christian year. They were wise men who, for all futurity, connected with certain dates the outstanding events of the sacred history, the memory of great saints, confessors and martyrs. Probably we of the Nonconformist pulpits might here learn a lesson in homiletic tactics from our friends of the Roman and Anglican churches. ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... the regulations which were ever suggested to the mistaken tyranny of selfishness, none perhaps to this day have surpassed the despotism of those which undertake to bind not only body to body but soul to soul, to all futurity, in despite of every possible change which our vices and our virtues might effect, or however numerous the secret corporal or mental imperfections might prove which a more intimate acquaintance should bring ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... O sacred maid, inspired to see The event of things in dark futurity! Give me, what heaven has promised to my fate, To conquer and command the Latian state; To fix my wandering gods, and find a place For the long exiles of the Trojan race." DRYDEN, AEneid, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... chance only he granted, urged to do so by an irresistible impulse, which how often comes we know not wherefore, till the event marks it as the whisper of some guardian angel, who has looked into the futurity concealed from us. The hour of the execution had been originally fixed for the sixth hour of the morning; it ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... things, as the future ability of a giant over a dwarf is delineated in his features while an infant. How far providence, to accomplish purposes which no human wisdom could foresee, permitted such extraordinary errors, is still a secret in the womb of time, and must remain so till futurity shall ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... from the morrow of our lives A glowing hope has stolen away, A something from the sun has fled, That dims the glory of the day. More earnestly we look beyond The present life to that to be; Another influence draws the soul To long for that futurity. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... felisto. Furrow (wrinkle) sulko. Furrow tersulko. Further plie. Further plimalproksima. Fury furiozo. Fury (mythol.) furio. Fuse fandi. Fusilade pafado. Fusion fandigxo. Fustian fusteno. Futile vana. Future estonta. Futurity ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... The word requires definition. But looking into futurity, it seems to me that the ultimate tendency of the change is to substitute the worse for the better race; the Negro for the Red Indian. The Red Indian will not work for a master. No ill-usage will make him. Herein he is the noblest specimen of humanity that ever walked the earth. Therefore, the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... loneliness. And, after all, the liberty to live for self alone becomes in time a weary bondage. Then I realised that I had condemned him also to this hard desert life. I came down and took counsel of the old Sphinx. Those calm, wise eyes, looking on into futurity, seemed to say: 'They only live who love.' That evening I resolved to give up the Nile trip, return home immediately, send for Garth, admit all to him, asking him to let us both begin again just where we were three years ago in the moonlight on the terrace at Shenstone. Ten ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... a better example of English wisdom on this subject—one which Lord Rosebery has consigned to a distant date in futurity, foreseeing that if the Opposition are to be handicapped with Home Rule they will not stand a forty to one chance at ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... "How paradoxical is the signification of the term!" How vast, when we consider that each hour hastens the end of our pilgrimage! How insignificant in comparison with futurity! A single drop in the boundless deep of eternity! Oh Time! thou greatest of all anomalies! Friend yet foe, "preserver and yet destroyer!" Whence art thou, great immemorial? When shall thy wondrous mechanism be dissolved? When shall the "pall of ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... may again Exist, and be a member of his love, Whom I, with all the office of my heart, Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd. If my offence be of such mortal kind That nor my service past, nor present sorrows, Nor purpos'd merit in futurity, Can ransom me into his love again, But to know so must be my benefit; So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content, And shut myself up in some ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... the disturbing influence of the atmosphere—or the uncertain twilight of the chamber that produced before me, in the stygian darkness of the recess, the vacillating and indistinct outline of something luminous, and horrid? I would gladly have risked futurity to have looked elsewhere—I could not. My eyes were fixed—I was compelled to gaze ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... a class of prophets in those days called by a name which has been translated soothsayers. These soothsayers were able, as was supposed, to look somewhat into futurity—dimly and doubtfully, it is true, but really, by means of certain appearances exhibited by the bodies of the animals offered in sacrifices These soothsayers were consulted on all important occasions; and if the auspices proved unfavorable when any great enterprise was about ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... prophet; nor was it better to be deluded by a foolish one. Happiness as of Heaven itself she no longer craved; it would only have disturbed her peace. But she was the last person to think ill of the young, whose life still lay before them, if they longed to look into futurity. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the greatest proof of all is, that nature herself gives a silent judgment in favour of the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as all are anxious, and that to a great degree, about the things which concern futurity;— ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... hopes are with the dead; anon My place with them will be. And I with them shall travel on Through all futurity: Yet leaving here a name, I trust, That will not perish in ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... information concerning present objects, the next cause of solicitude and inquiry to the mind of man, is to penetrate a little into the secrets of futurity. The same tutelary gods who bestowed their care, and exerted their powers to procure present pleasure and happiness for mankind, were supposed not averse to grant them, in this respect also, a little indulgence. Hence the famous oracular responses of antiquity; ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur, denoted any person who foretold futurity, or interpreted omens. There was at Rome a body of priests, or college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell future events, chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and from other appearances. They were of the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Oaths were sacred only through the temporal judgments supposed to overtake those who insulted the Gods by summoning them to witness a false contract. But this would have been only part of the evil. So long as men acknowledged higher natures, they were doubtful about futurity. This doubt had little strength on the side of hope, but much on the side of fear. The blessings of any future state were cheerless and insipid mockeries; so Achilles—how he bemoans his state! But the torments were real. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage baron's heart, though hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into the waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the impatience and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture of the newly-awakened feelings of horror combating with the fixed and inveterate obstinacy of his disposition—a fearful state of mind, only to be equalled in those tremendous regions ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... perhaps, than the actual and present importance of the circumstances might seem to require; but I have done so under the impression that in developing the traits and lineaments of the native character, I am laying the foundation for a more accurate estimate of them and their bearing upon futurity. The difference between the Malay and the Chinese, between the sea and the land Dyak, and even between one tribe and another, presents a variety of elements out of which a consistent whole has to be compounded, and a new state of things to be established ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... worshiped this Bonaparte Dream Book of his; and was fully persuaded that between those red covers, and in his own dreams, lay all the secrets of futurity. Every morning before taking his pills, and applying his hair-oils, he would steal out of his bunk before the rest of the watch were awake; take out his pamphlet, and a bit of chalk; and then straddling ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found more correct than theirs, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fair Hearing. Some have even thought fit to apply to it in the first Instance; and to decline Acquaintance with the Public till Envy and Prejudice had quite subsided. But, of all the Trusters to Futurity, commend me to the Author of the following Poems, who not only left it to Time to do him Justice as it would, but to find him out as it could. For, what between too great Attention to his Profit as a Player, and too little to his Reputation as ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice, prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax and Manchester, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed, with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at this temporary separation, frequently ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... repeat, on my account. My present situation is happier than the rest of the world can afford. I tell you I have done repining. I have done sending forth my views into an earthly futurity. Anxiety, I hope, is now ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... read his Naufragium, or "Shipwreck," did you? Of course not; for, if you had, I don't think you would have given me credit—or discredit—for entire originality in that speech of mine. That men are cowards in the contemplation of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary antics of many on board the sinking vessel; that they are fools, by their praying to the sea, and making promises to bits of wood from the true cross, and all manner of similar nonsense; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... has always been considered as of no ordinary importance, and rendered the supposed possessors objects of reverence and fear. The belief in astrology, or the power to read in the stars the knowledge of futurity, from time immemorial has been considered as the most difficult of attainment, and important in its results. And by the aid of a little supernatural machinery, both magicians and astrologers exercised the most unlimited influence over the understandings of their adherents. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... are fortunate, considering and comparing themselves with the various regions who enjoy no parallel felicity. I confess my reflections are couleur de rose at present. I did not much expect to live to see peace, without far more extensive ruin than has fallen on us. I will not probe futurity in search of less agreeable conjectures. Prognosticators may see many seeds of dusky hue; but I am too old to look forwards. Without any omens, common sense tells one, that in the revolution of ages nations ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... creed. I have, therefore, devoted a few pages to the subject, which I presume no one will think misapplied. Hearne says, "Religion has not as yet begun to dawn among the Northern Indians—I never found any of them that had the least idea of futurity."—(Hearne's Journey to the Northern Ocean.) And Colden, in his History of the Five Nations, says, "It is certain they have no kind of public worship, and I am told they have no radical word to express God, but use a compound word signifying the Preserver, Sustainer, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... before. He has dreams in plenty—his heroes are always dreaming; he has fevered descriptions of the over-excited imagination—a very favourite resource of modern novelists; he has his moral enigmas; and of course he has a witch (Fulvia) who tells fortunes and reads futurity, and reads it correctly, let philosophy or common sense say what it will. His Fulvia affords his readers one gratification; they find her fairly hanged at the end ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... fortune equalled his expectations, her beauty gratified the pride of his connexions, and the endearing qualities of her mind and heart won their entire approbation and regard. Their marriage was solemnized; and never was there a day of greater happiness, or one which opened more brilliant prospects for futurity. De Courcy conveyed his bride immediately to a favorite estate, which he possessed in Provence, whither I was permitted to accompany them; and six months glided away, in the full enjoyment of that felicity which their romantic hopes had ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... employment of a mind unburdened with care, and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at leisure to derive gratification from the prospect of posterity. He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. It may be soon ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... I have no name, has taken possession of my soul —a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter consideration is an evil. I shall never—I know that I shall never—be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since they have their origin ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... if truly reported, is one of those singular coincidences which occasionally appear, differing so widely from ordinary calculation, yet without which irregularities human life would not present to mortals, looking into futurity, the abyss of impenetrable darkness which it is the pleasure of the Creator it should offer to them. Were everything to happen in the ordinary train of events, the future would be subject to the rules of arithmetic, like the chances of gaming. But extraordinary ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... remains of Thee, Ella! the darling of futurity, Let this my song bold as thy courage be, As everlasting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... I could get my foot on the ladder, I would be beholden to no man, not even for a blanket. Perhaps even this very day I might commence an article on the "Crimes of Futurity," "Freedom of Will," or what not, at any rate, something worth reading, something for which I would at least get ten shillings.... And at the thought of this article I felt myself fired with a desire to set to work immediately and to draw ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... pronounced with a voice of such power, that its tones might have reached almost to the Briton's camp, and struck upon the ear of Howe as the prophetic inspiration of one whose keen eye had read from the dark tablets of futurity. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... poet's intuitions are false, how does it chance, he inquires, that he has been known, in all periods of the world's history, as a prophet? Shelley says, "Poets are ... the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present," and explains the phenomenon thus: "A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, the one; so far as related to his conceptions, time and place and number are not." [Footnote: A Defense of Poetry.] ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... amply detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as political, interests, can only result from a unity of government. There are other points of view in which this subject might be placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for a newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... after holiness and purity was sustained in the Zoroastrian system by the confident hope of a futurity of happiness. It was taught that the soul of man was immortal, and would continue to possess for ever a separate conscious existence. Immediately after death the spirits of both good and bad had to proceed along ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... tender sauciness). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious—and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... stages of society so advanced, would probably have shared by that time in the social changes; possibly would themselves form a barrier between the countries to the south and any ambitious prince in St Petersburg. Any direct action of Russia, therefore, flies before us like a rainbow as futurity expands. But in the mean time an indirect action upon India is open to Russia even at present. That action, which she is powerless to carry on for herself, she may originate through Persia. And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the city boasted. A new source of anguish added to the misery already sustained by the wretched Gonzago; his arm was paralyzed by the utter hopelessness of any attempt to emerge from the obscurity to which fate had condemned him; he brooded over the dismal futurity which opened before him; and, as a solace to these gloomy meditations, suffered his imagination to dwell upon the charms and graces of the lovely Giacinta, his kinsman's gentle bride. He saw her sometimes flitting through the myrtle groves which skirted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... nothing more agreeable, Madam, than all the great promises of these sublime sciences. To transform everything into gold; to cause people to live for ever; to cure with words; to make ourselves loved by whomsoever we please; to know all the secrets of futurity; to bring down from heaven, according to one's will, on metals, impressions of happiness; to command demons, to raise invisible armies and invulnerable soldiers—all this is delightful, no doubt; and there are people who experience no difficulty ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... capitulate to those Huns, those Vandals," said a grocer to me, with a most sand-the-sugar face, this morning, as he pocketed about ten times the value of a trifle—candles, in fact, which have risen twenty-five per cent. in the last two days—and folding his arms, scowled from under his kepi into futurity, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... sn. community of food—'lęggja m. sitt,' make their provision into a common store [matr; njōta]. mundu see *munu*. munnr sm. mouth. munr sm. difference—'þeim mun,' to that extent. munu swv. will, may (of futurity and probability). myndi see *munu*. myrkr sn. darkness. ...
— An Icelandic Primer - With Grammar, Notes, and Glossary • Henry Sweet
... beauty of peace. After the titles of the two august sovereigns, the monument proceeds: "These two wise, holy, spiritual, and accomplished princes, foreseeing the changes hidden in the most distant futurity, touched with sentiments of compassion towards their people, and not knowing, in their beneficent protection, any difference between their subjects and strangers, have, after mature reflection and by mutual consent, resolved to give peace to their people... In perfect harmony with ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... lively imagination of such minds, which in the very midst of joy can so vividly portray and realize pain, or it may be, indeed, the mysterious voice which links gifted man with a higher class of beings to whom futurity is revealed. Be this as it may, even while the youthful patriot beheld with, a visioned eye the liberty of his country, and rejoiced in thus beholding, there ever came a dim and silent shadowing, a whispering voice, that he should ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... volume entitled Le Livre des Esprits (Book of Spirits), by Allan-Kardec. I bought it, and read it through at a sitting. There was in it something unexpected, original, curious. Were they true, the phenomena therein recounted? Did they solve the great problem of futurity, as the author contended? In my anxiety to ascertain this I made the acquaintance of the high-priest, for Allan-Kardec had made of Spiritism a veritable religion. I assisted at the seances. I experimented and became myself a medium. In one of Allan-Kardec's works, called Genesis, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... distinctions of his sacred office. The consciousness of his backsliding had so far lessened the earthly, if not the spiritual, pride of the chaplain, as to induce him to relish the society of the rude master, whose years had brought him, at times, to take certain views of futurity that were singularly affected by the peculiar character of the individual. It might have been that both found themselves out of their places—but it was owing to some such secret sympathy, let its origin be what it would, that the two came to be fond of each other's company. On the night in question, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the first person, denotes not simple futurity, but determination: [I will ( am ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks |
