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Presage   /prˈɛsɪdʒ/   Listen
Presage

noun
1.
A foreboding about what is about to happen.
2.
A sign of something about to happen.  Synonyms: omen, portent, prodigy, prognostic, prognostication.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Presage" Quotes from Famous Books



... divination. When he vanished from among mankind, the priests kept his staff just like any other sacred object. That at such a time, when all the other holy things perished, this should have been preserved, gave them good hopes of Rome, which that omen seemed to presage would ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... adorn'd with every grace Of person and of mind; And happy in a starry race, Of that auspicious kind, As joyfully presage, No want of royal ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... steps leading to the garden. Fawning upon him, the dog thrust its pretty nose against his knee and looked up at him gravely with dark, questioning eyes. He gently stroked its soft, wavy coat. Overhead shone the silent stars. A sense of fear came over him, as the presage ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... on both cheeks. "I leave you to faithful guardians. Last night I dreamed of a garland of lilies, sure presage of a victory. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... has been extended by some, even to the gifts of nature; and an opinion has been long conceived, that quickness of invention, accuracy of judgment, or extent of knowledge, appearing before the usual time, presage a short life. Even those who are less inclined to form general conclusions, from instances which by their own nature must be rare, have yet been inclined to prognosticate no suitable progress from the first sallies of rapid wits; but have observed, that after a short effort they either loiter ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... of a martyr, the tragedy shew'd, As he trod the last stage; as he trod the last stage. And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood, As his words do presage; as ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... prelude she chose a piece of pure organ music—the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement—the presage of coming storm. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... at the murmurings of the whites, which seemed to presage a coming storm. A number of them sought to arm themselves, but ascertained, upon inquiring at the stores, that no white merchant would sell a negro firearms. Since all the dealers in this sort of merchandise were white men, the negroes had to be satisfied with ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... it with an opaque and gloomy screen; the mournful twittering of the warbling birds bespoke anxiety and alarm; the hoarse rushing of the wind threatened destruction to the woods; the flowers of the fields began to droop; the sun withdrew his light from the world beneath, and all seemed to presage a day of grief and bitterness—save in the home where the fair Sol arose, like another Circe, from her couch, and sallied forth, seeming to temper by her enchanting presence the angry frowns of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... for this important information to sink in. Several slight, little sighs of relief escaped the students, especially from the girls' side of the great room. This speech did not presage ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... cried in presage then The bodeful bondslave of the king of men, And might not win her will. Too close the entangling dragnet woven of crime, The snare of ill new-born of elder ill, The curse of new time for an elder time, Had caught, and ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the age in which you can judge of his character, he is respectable only from his rank, and valuable only from his wealth; if neither his head nor his heart will make him useful to our cause, suffer him to remain undisturbed in his prosperity here: but if, as I presage, he becomes worthy of the blood which he bears in his veins, then I conjure you, my brother, to remind him that he has been sworn by me on my death-bed to the most ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... sound, poured out in a tumult of joy; and, understanding that their young master was returned, raised such a peal of acclamation, as astonished the commodore and his lady, and inspired Julia with such an interesting presage, that her heart began to throb with violence. Running out in the hurry and perturbation of her hope, she was so much overwhelmed at sight of her brother, that she actually fainted in his arms. But from this trance she soon awaked; and Peregrine, having testified ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... died in his native city, without ever having traveled a hundred miles from it. He entered Harvard at the age of eleven, and took the bachelor's degree at fifteen. His life shows such an overemphasis of certain Puritan traits as almost to presage the coming decline of clerical influence. He says that at the age of only seven or eight he not only composed forms of prayer for his schoolmates, but also obliged them to pray, although some of them ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... will, the day decreed by fates; (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, Must see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore, Not all my brothel's gasping on the shore, As thine, Andromache! thy griefs ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... in the sharp, fresh morning, the Callow shone with radiant brown and silver, and no presage moved within it of the snow that would hurtle upon it from mountains of ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... mind these wanderers have been supposed to presage war, famine, pestilence, perhaps the destruction of the world. And little wonder. Here is a body which comes flashing out of boundless space into our system, shooting out a pyrotechnic tail some hundreds ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian history, and were embodied in a great work which was compiled for the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... the locality, and as a man of oracular pretension had a startling theory to account for its presence. This he confided to the editor of the local paper, and the next issue contained an editorial paragraph: "Our presage of a severe winter in the higher Sierras, and consequent spring floods in the valleys, has been startlingly confirmed! Mountain wolves have been seen in Blue Cement Ridge, and our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Ephraim ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... was whirling about him in almost blinding swiftness; the small windshield counted for nothing; it was only by leaning far outside the car that he could see to drive and then there were moments that seemed to presage ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... the thought of the absolute want of reason in the causeless jealousy, and the misery that these little bickerings made of his life, exasperated him beyond measure. The dinner proceeded in silence, and every slight remark was a presage of storm. Hubert hoped the girl would say nothing until the servant left the room, and with that view he never spoke a word except to ask the ladies what they would take to eat. These tactics might have succeeded if Mrs. Bentley had ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... can speak with rightful authority as to the facts or principles he has observed and verified. Truth and personality, thus coupled together, face practical duties and questions with the confident strength and heroic courage which presage victory. ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... strange the stars have grown; The presage of extinction glows on their crests And they are beautied with impermanence; They shall be after the race of men And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions, Entangled in ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. The night was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardens Domini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how he passed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and she fancied him ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... embarrassed by the fiscal question, as well as by difficulties attending the administration of the Education Act, the regulation of Chinese labor in South Africa, and a number of other urgent tasks, and the by-elections resulted so uniformly in Unionist defeats as to presage clearly the eventual return of the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... not. I think it is the heat or some presage of woe to come, not to me only, but to all men. Look, nature herself is sick," and she led him to the broad balcony of the chamber and pointed to long lines of curious mist which in the bright moonlight they could see creeping toward ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... was suddenly transfigured—radiant—with some great and glorious thought. I was glad at heart to see that the shadow had passed entirely away. Only for a moment could any presage of personal fear cloud the sweet serenity of the Maid's nature. And yet I went from her something troubled myself; for had I not reason to know what strange power she possessed of reading the future, and what did it mean, that confusion of battle, ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... no heed to these Fond cravings of love's breath, Then bearing on the burdened breeze Let sail that shadoweth, Of darkest dark, beshroud the bark, A presage of my death." ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... country but under a firm persuasion of immortality! Themistocles might have lived at his ease; so might Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and among the ancients for instances, so might I myself. But, somehow or other there clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists most firmly, and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and greatest souls. Take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his life amidst ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... bird of evil presage, To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... accomplish, tho the tables were ready drawn for it. About the same time, the first letter of his name, in an inscription upon one of his statues, was struck out by lightning; which was interpreted as a presage that he would live only a hundred days longer, the letter C denoting that number; and that he would be placed among the gods as AEsar, which in the remaining part of the word Caesar, signifies, in the Tuscan language, a god. Being, therefore, about dispatching ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... what once was called a hunch, a premonition, the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred feet away. It was a ten-foot, ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... deepens the darkness which is in front. We can see but little at a time, and heed that little far less than our apprehension of what we shall see next; ever peering curiously through the glare of the present into the gloom of the future, we presage the leading lines of that which is before us, by faintly reflected lights from dull mirrors that are behind, and stumble on as we may till the trap- door opens beneath us and ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... turned and left the temple. None stayed or hindered them, yet although they reached the chambers of Aziel in safety, their hearts, which should have been light, were still heavy with the presage ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... will bear a fruit more rich and permanent than any day of rejoicing could produce. "The evening and the morning were the first day." Light out of darkness is GOD'S order, and if sometimes our Heavenly FATHER can trust us with a trial, it is a sure presage that, if by grace the trial is accepted, He will ere long trust us ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor

... over decks. Many of the scurvy stricken had not been out of their berths for six weeks. The fearful depression and weakness, that forewarn scurvy, had been followed by the pains, the swollen limbs, the blue spots that presage death. A spongy excrescence covered the gums. The teeth loosened. The slightest noise was enough to throw the patient into a paroxysm of anguished fright; and some died on the decks immediately on contact with the cuttingly cold air. Others expired ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... religious feeling, different, but almost as intense as that of the primitive Italian painters. Throughout the many Madonnas on which the fame of Raphael is founded we feel that, through a certain variety of type, the research was always the same—a desire to realize the maid-mother, and to presage, in the lineaments of the child, his future character. This sentiment, everywhere present, is approached reverently, and the too short-lived painter in his work at least utters a constant prayer. With Bellini, ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... a providential appointment commonly preceded and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts and feelings in that direction toward which a change is to be made. And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass across the field of events. This was specially the case with Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of joy and gratulation and happy presage of the days ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... disappeared with the startling suddenness of tropic latitudes, and without twilight darkness fell over the sea and over his haggard face like a veil. The moon had not yet risen and he could see nothing. There were a few faint clouds on the horizon, he had noticed, which might presage a storm. It was very dark and very still, as calm and peaceful a tropic night as ever shrouded the Caribbean. Farther and farther away from him he could hear the rustle of the receding waves as the tide ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... early part of August 1796, Mornington sends a quatrain of Latin Elegiacs which he had composed at Dundas's house, on the exploits of Wurmser in relieving Mantua, of Davidovitch at Roveredo, and Quosdanovitch at Brescia (not Verona), which seemed to presage ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... James, in 1685, he was chosen for parliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of the Downfal of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king, on his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator, Fenton, that, in reading Tasso, he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the holy war, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... events in which Washington was to play such an important part began to blow on the eastern horizon of New England." From the ocean-bordered shores were faint streaks of light that ere long began to deepen into hues of a sanguine color that seemed to presage a tempest. At first the sound was like the faint lisping murmur of pines along the shore or the sobbing surf as it retreated from the charge it made; but ere long it broke forth in loud, angry tones like the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... like Canning, Peel, and Macaulay, was precocious in his attainments at school and college,—especially at Oxford, which has produced more than her share of the great men who have controlled thought and action in England during the period since 1820. But precocity is not always the presage of future greatness. There are more remarkable boys than remarkable men. In England, college honors may have more influence in advancing the fortunes of a young man than in this country; but I seldom have known valedictorians ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... an undeveloped one, and his prevision consequently very vague; in others he himself may see clearly, but may find his lower vehicles so unimpressible that all he can succeed in getting through into his physical brain may be an indefinite presage of coming disaster. Again, there are cases in which a premonition is not the work of the Ego at all, but of some outside entity, who for some reason takes a friendly interest in the person to whom the feeling comes. In the work which I quoted above, Mr. Stead tells us of the ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... with the idea that he is a master of the horrible jargon which all bright young fellows at that time innocently supposed to constitute eloquence. Thus, in February, 1800, he writes thus to his friend Bingham: "In my melancholy moments I presage the most dire calamities. I already see in my imagination the time when the banner of civil war shall be unfurled; when Discord's hydra form shall set up her hideous yell, and from her hundred mouths shall howl destruction through our empire; and when American ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Hopkinson borrowed for me. I perused the book in the hope of one day being able to do a little fortune telling. Harry Mac and Jack Kay had done very well out of the book, and their knowledge of it; but my object in learning to presage events, was not as a means of livelihood, but in order to appease my appetite for a bit of fun. It was while I was "reading, learning, and inwardly digesting" the contents of the book that Professor ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... anticipating a successful issue to his voyage; everything appeared to presage it, when an event occurred which was the first blow to his hopes. A hut next that in which he slept took fire, and the whole town was soon in flames. His interpreter, who had made several attempts ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... on one of those perfect mist-steeped summer mornings that presage a day of burning heat, French's force came in sight of the Boer laagers. As the mist cleared the enemy could be spied in large numbers about the station and the colliery buildings and over the yellow veldt. French ordered the Natal Battery to turn its little seven-pounder on ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm

... was shifting infinitely and rapidly; there were flashes that seemed to presage a thunderous roar of an explosion and were more bodeful because the hush aloft in the heavenly spaces remained unbroken; then the filaments and streamers of light made one mighty oriflamme across the skies, an expanse ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... events resulted cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the same seems to presage. The reflections arising out of the present crisis have forced themselves strongly upon my mind. You will join me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned or remembered. At all events, her presage ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of the cause of ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... asunder, the ceiling gave way and fell, burying every one beneath the ruins. Jacques de Bourbon, Seigneur de Preaux, died in consequence, several others were grievously wounded, but the king, by a good fortune, almost miraculous, escaped. This was a certain presage, that, after great danger, Divine Providence, in the end, would save him, and draw him forth from the ruins of his empire ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... goodnesse of the Deities, who still with grace preuents our ill presage, This groue was hallow'd to no Hiadres, but chast Diana, who with violent rage Discending from her towre of Christalline, To keepe the place still sacred and diuine: against her rites, brought with her thereupon white Poplar from the ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... Biron and his soldiers, elated with successes obtained in Ireland, had entertained the most profound contempt for the parliamentary forces; a disposition which, if confined to the army, may be regarded as a good presage of victory; but if it extend to the general, is the most probable forerunner of a defeat. Fairfax suddenly attacked the camp of the royalists. The swelling of the river by a thaw divided one part of the army from the other. That part exposed to Fairfax, being beaten ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... So burn the turrets of this cursed town, Flame to the highest region of the air, And kindle heaps of exhalations, That, being fiery meteors, may presage Death and destruction to the inhabitants! Over my zenith hang a blazing star, That may endure till heaven be dissolv'd, Fed with the fresh supply of earthly dregs, Threatening a dearth [107] and famine to this land! Flying dragons, lightning, fearful thunder-claps, Singe these ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... it were, a Presage in his own Breast, of the Misfortune impending from his accepting Laertes's Challenge, is beautiful; and we are to note, that our Author in several of his Plays, has brought in the chief Personages as having a sort of prophetick Idea of their Death; ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous

... his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew the ravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing the whish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visit did not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for he knew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms; yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which had never disturbed him before. They were birds of death, rapacious and evil-bringing, and they ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... has never forgotten the cause of its birth or the teachings of its youth, as is clearly evidenced from year to year by the various undertakings and publications which a careful observer can clearly see are not put forward with any presage of success when viewed entirely from a business standpoint. This lesson is constantly taught to the employes of the Library Bureau, and they are positively instructed that, regardless of the promise of ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... Individualists to opposition: and the tramways of London were held as a trench in the world-wide conflict between Socialism and its enemies, whose capture was hailed as an omen of progress by one side, and by the other deplored as the presage of defeat. ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux's lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare the engine was off the track. He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... Edith's voice when she again spoke, it might be from mere excitement or anger. At any rate Gus grew more and more uncomfortable. He had a vague feeling that Edith suspected his falseness, and that her seeming calmness might presage a storm, and he found it impossible to meet her full searching gaze, fearing that his face would betray him. He was bad enough for his project, but not quite ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... that they must needs have been very bad indeed, since even the beasts themselves would not touch them; which caused an extream sorrow to their Relations, they taking it for an ill boding to their Family, and an infallible presage of some great misfortune hanging over their heads, for they persuaded themselves, that the Souls which inhabited those Bodies being dragg'd into Hell, would not fail to come and trouble them, and that being always accompanied with the Devils, their Tormentors, they ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... moon flies from the heavens; black clouds conceal the hiding stars; the night is deprived of its fires. Thou, Icarus, dost conceal thy rising countenance; and {thou}, Erigone, raised to the heavens through thy affectionate love for thy father. Three times was she recalled by the presage of her foot stumbling; thrice did the funereal owl give an omen by its dismal cry. Yet {onward} she goes, and the gloom and the dark night lessen her shame. In her left hand she holds that of her nurse, the other, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... stars, which satisfied us, that, when our latitude was 59 deg. 44', our longitude was 121 deg. 9'. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the calm was succeeded by a breeze at S.E. The sky, at the same time, was suddenly obscured, and seemed to presage an approaching storm, which accordingly happened. For, in the evening, the wind shifted to south, blew in squalls, attended with sleet and rain, and a prodigious high sea. Having nothing to take care of but ourselves, we kept two or three points from the wind, and run at a good rate to the E.N.E. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... Biargey all that had happened, and took to his bed again, a poor, old, helpless, miserable man; but his wife, who saw her presage beginning to come true, kept up her courage, rowed out fishing every day, and guided the household ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... shore, was scarcely strong enough to ruffle the surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot, unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war—alike elemental and human; and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and resources ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... Professor Masson remarks, to a person observed to be in extravagantly high spirits, or in any mood surprisingly beyond the bounds of his ordinary temperament,—the notion being that the excitement is supernatural, and a presage of his approaching death, or of some other ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... Protective Tariff.—Moreover, it was henceforth to be well protected. For many years before the war the friends of protection had been on the defensive. The tariff act of 1857 imposed duties so low as to presage a tariff for revenue only. The war changed all that. The extraordinary military expenditures, requiring heavy taxes on all sources, justified tariffs so high that a follower of Clay or Webster might well have gasped with ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... already an Alliance for him, and was resolv'd on his Favourite's marrying Agnes, conjur'd her so tenderly to prevent these Persecutions, by consenting to a secret Marriage, that, after having a long time consider'd, she at last consented. I will do what you will have me (said she) tho' I presage nothing but fatal Events from it; all my Blood turns to Ice, when I think of this Marriage, and the Image of Constantia seems to hinder me from ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... yeast for miles around by the mighty rockings that portend its overturn, so the barbaric industrial and social system, which has come down to us from savage antiquity, undermined by the modern humane spirit, riddled by the criticism of economic science, is shaking the world with convulsions that presage its collapse. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... and mysterious association of Rosycrucians and Illuminati, with all their properties of black cowls, caverns, daggers, electrical machines, trap-doors, and dark-lanterns? Or if I had rather chosen to call my work a 'Sentimental Tale,' would it not have been a sufficient presage of a heroine with a profusion of auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace of her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the means of transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimes obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... while by various visions of the night Am I beset, since to Ionian lands With marshalled host my son went forth to war. Yet never saw I presage so distinct As in the night now passed.—Attend my tale!— A dream I had: two women nobly clad Came to my sight, one robed in Persian dress, The other vested in the Dorian garb, And both right stately and more tall by ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... at Cambridge, and now that he was just ready to step into a "living"—right in the line of promotion of which his beauty and intellect tokened a sure presage—he balked. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala: Be thou my witness that, against my will, As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set 75 Upon one battle all our liberties. You know that I held Epicurus strong, And his opinion: now I change my mind, And partly credit things that do presage. Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 80 Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted us: This morning are they fled away and gone; And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... Mr. Bradlaugh's daughters, Dr. Aveling, and myself, as science teachers. I summed up the position in the spring of 1882 in the following somewhat strong language: "This short-lived 'Parliamentary Declaration Bill' is but one of the many clouds which presage a storm of prosecution. The reiterated attempts in the House of Commons to force the Government into prosecuting heretics for blasphemy; the petty and vicious attacks on the science classes at the Hall; the odious and wicked efforts of Mr. Newdegate ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... scenes which were eliminated at this production of "Gtterdmmerung." The first is the prologue in which the Nornir (the Fates of Northern mythology), while twisting the golden-stranded rope of the world's destiny, tell of the signs which presage the Twilight of the Gods. The second is the interview between Brnnhilde and Waltraute, one of the Valkyrior, who comes to urge her sister to avert the doom which threatens the gods by restoring the baneful ring to the Rhine daughters. Both ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... Chaleur that had allured Jacques Cartier 265 years before, the might of the noble river and the glorious vista of the citadel and frowning heights of Quebec, where Wolfe and Montcalm fell—the ancient Stadacona framed in the sunset—amazed him. A presage of coming conflict crowded ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... fulfilled. I have derived monuments and epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. The invention of epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, 'proceeded from the presage of fore-feeling of immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... than their eyes, and they recognized that gray-coated figure on that familiar white horse. They could hear the beating of drums faintly. The bridges had not been broken. The fords were not guarded. The advance parties had failed. Presage ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... so much," I said nastily. (When people presage a remark by saying that they only say it because they love you, you may lay long odds that it's going to be disagreeable!) "It certainly sounds a gruesome prospect. Not even a choice between bankruptcy ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... election. Ignorant of the temper of the great mass of the Northern people, as loyal in reality to the Constitution as themselves, they were only too ready to be convinced that the denunciations of the abolitionists were the first presage of the storm that was presently to overwhelm them, to reduce their States to provinces, to wrest from them the freedom they had inherited, and to make them hewers of wood and drawers of water to the detested plutocrats ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of their death. It has been conjectured that ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... to the suspicion that was strong in my breast. Had I forecast, in the least degree, the result of my neglecting to pay heed to its warning, I should not have hesitated for a moment. But in the absence of such a presage, I felt rather indifferent about the matter. My predominant desire was to avoid the necessity of postponing the settlement of the issue between the duke and myself; and a delay to that must needs follow, if I took action ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... several others of my Acquaintance, who are as little pleased with the ordinary manner of spending one's Time as my self: And if a fervent Desire after Knowledge, and a great Sense of our present Ignorance, may be thought a good Presage and Earnest of Improvement, you may look upon your Time you shall bestow in answering this Request not thrown away to no purpose. And I can't but add, that unless you have a particular and more than ordinary Regard for Eleonora, I have a better Title to your Favour than she; since ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... off over the wild landscape, the distant buttes softened in the haze that seemed to presage the advance of autumn, considering much. When he looked into her face again it was with the harshness gone out ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... by the mouth of his vicegerent, such impression had these words on the mind and heart of Xavier. They inspired into him a divine vigour; and in his answer to his Holiness, there shone through a profound humility such a magnanimity of soul, that Paul III. had from that very minute a certain presage of those wonderful events which afterwards arrived. Therefore the most Holy Father, having wished him the special assistance of God in all his labours, tenderly embraced him, more than once, and gave him a most ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... mischievously to his forehead. He wears a flat, loose cap of yellow. There is a ruff about his neck, and a pair of fine buckles to his shoes, and he always dances. He has his back to the thunderclouds, but there is that in his eyes which tells us that he has seen them, and that he knows their presage. He is afraid. Yet he dances. Never, howsoever slightly, swerves he, see! from his right posture, nor fail his feet in their pirouette. All a' merveille! Nor fades the smile from his face, though he smiles through the tarnished ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... princes and nobles; the death of young Conradin had so shocked and disgusted men's minds in Germany that no one from that country would have consented to fight under the same banners as the King of Sicily. So black a crime, committed amid the preparations for a holy war, appeared to presage great calamities. In the height of their grief or indignation, people might fear that heaven would be angry with the Christians, and that its curse would fall upon the arms of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... re-christened New York in honour of the King's brother, afterwards James II. It would perhaps be straining the suggestion already made of the persistent influences of origins to see in the varied racial and national beginnings of New York a presage of that cosmopolitan quality which still marks the greatest of American cities, making much of it a patchwork of races and languages, and giving to the electric stir of Broadway an air which suggests a Continental rather than an English city, but it is more plausible to note that New York had ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... later, the two friends crossed the bridge to D—— to visit the Baileys. When they reached the end of the bridge they paused a moment to rest. The day was one of those warm, bright spring days which deceitfully presage an immediate summer. On the river-shore crawfishes were lazily creeping over the gravel. The air rang with the blue jay's chatter, a robin showed his tawny breast among the withered grasses, and a flicker on a dead stump ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... myself and (I can answer for it) with every one of my colleagues, will have their just weight. But at present these considerations all operate one way; at present there is nothing from which we can presage a favourable disposition to change in the French councils. There is the greatest reason to rely on powerful co-operation from our allies; there are the strongest marks of a disposition in the interior of France to active resistance ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... of affection for the king and queen regent, began to be tumultuous. Reports were whispered about, like certain sounds which announce, as they whistle from wave to wave, the coming storm—and when they pass athwart a multitude, presage an emeute. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... indeed, that it was begun, and some progress made in it, while Dante was yet in Florence—begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it—continued afterward in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the Queen of Angels. She ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... hope so, dearest. Yet this strange presage of coming evil, this shadow which I so often seem to see, appears so real, so grim, and ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... straitenedness, my coldness, and my parsimony. 19 July.—Was taken up inordinately with trash and hagg. Let not the Lord impute it! 9 Oct.—My heart challenged me that I could so freely lay out money on books, plenishing, clothes to myself, and was so loth to lay out for the Lord. Oh, what does this presage and witness but that I am of the earth and that my portion is not blessed, but that my goods are rather accursed! 4 Nov.—Neil Campbell staid with me. I found my niggardly nature still encroaching upon me, and made my ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... in ability to feel the pulse, or rather the innumerable pulses of his Chinese patient. This is the real criterion of his skill. The pulses of a Chinaman vary in a manner that no English doctor can conceive of. For instance, among the seven kinds of pulse which presage approaching death, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... dim upon earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. Therewithal many a warning of wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. In her sleep fierce Aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left by herself alone, ever going uncompanioned on a weary way, and seeking her Tyrians in a solitary land: even as frantic Pentheus sees the [470-503]arrayed Furies and a double sun, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... The causes of sickness are seated in us, and they produce certain signs of sickness to come, which physicians lawfully observe. Wherefore it is not unlawful to consider a presage of future events as proceeding from its cause; as when a slave fears a flogging when he sees his master's anger. Possibly the same might be said if one were to fear for child lest it take harm from the evil eye, of which we have spoken in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... infinitely happy in another state: so that though they are compassionate to all that are sick, yet they lament no man's death, except they see him loath to part with life; for they look on this as a very ill presage, as if the soul, conscious to itself of guilt, and quite hopeless, was afraid to leave the body, from some secret hints of approaching misery. They think that such a man's appearance before God cannot be acceptable to Him, who being called on, does not go out cheerfully, but is backward ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... Admiral Keppel, an event which reflects the highest honour on the good conduct and bravery of Monsieur d'Orrilliers and the officers of the fleet under his command; at the same time that it is to be considered, I hope, as the happy presage, of a fortunate and glorious war to his most Christian Majesty. A confirmation of the account I shall impatiently wait and devoutly wish for. If the Spaniards, under this favourable beginning, would unite their fleet to that ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... like a great artery, through the arid plains of the Adaiel, green and wooded throughout its long course, and finally absorbed in the lagoons of Aussa. The canopy of fleecy clouds, which, as mid-day dawned, hung thick and heavy over the lofty blue peaks beyond, gave sad presage of the deluge that was pouring between its verdant banks from the higher regions of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... just then, after generations of neglect, was once more lifting his voice above the crowd of minor singers. The mighty verse swept Odo out to open seas of thought, and from his vision of that earlier Italy, hapless, bleeding, but alive and breast to breast with the foe, he drew the presage ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch Her pleasant habitations, and dry up Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare, Yet would the living Presence still subsist Victorious, and composure would ensue, 35 And kindlings like the morning—presage sure Of day returning and of life revived. [B] But all the meditations of mankind, Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth By reason built, or passion, which itself 40 Is highest reason in a soul sublime; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... fanatic or fool, Thou Stoic of the modern school; Columbus-like, his aim Points forward with a true presage, And nations of a later age May rise to bless ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... descended on a blue stratus cloud which appeared along the edge of all other parts of the horizon, and eagerly watching any indication of a change, I drew even from this a presage of rain. Thermometer at sunrise, 88 deg.; at noon, 104 deg.; at 4 P.M., 106; at 9, 88 deg.;—with wet ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... the angry threatening gods Filled both the earth and seas with prodigies. Great store of strange and unknown stars were seen Wandering about the north, and rings of fire Fly in the air, and dreadful bearded stars, And comets that presage the fall of kingdoms; The flattering[634] sky glittered in often flames, And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven, Now spear-like long, now like a spreading torch; 530 Lightning in silence stole forth without clouds, And, from the northern ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... an eel so soon was looked upon as a lucky omen, to have lost it would have been a presage of ill-fortune for the rest of the day, and the incident put every one in high good humour. By this time the tide was flowing over the flatter parts of the reef and young bonito could be seen jumping out of the water in all directions. ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... was not "brutal," it was physical power obeying mental; and unless mental power can command physical, there is no way in which mental power can enforce its decrees in government. There are now facing us tremendous moral issues, which presage tremendous struggles; and a very notable example of the dangers that would attend woman suffrage is suggested by them. If women had the power to create a numerical majority when there was a majority of the law's natural and only ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... who heard these warlike sounds betook themselves to their weapons, as if they considered it useless to wait any longer for the signal of conflict. Hoarse voices, rude exclamations, the rattle of swords against their sheaths, or their clashing against other pieces of armour, gave an awful presage of an onset, which, however, was for a time averted by the exhortations of the bishop. A second flourish of trumpets having taken place, the voice of a herald made proclamation to the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... This was a presage of what we have seen happen since, when the whole Court was infected with heresy, about the time of the Conference of Poissy. It was with great difficulty that I resisted and preserved myself from a change of religion at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... of the visionary as he paused in his meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion—solemn as the presage of a disaster—terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence—the presence of an unseen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... his weight on to the stick, and they pulled up. Dorothy saw that they were now about half-way down—they must have dropped about three hundred feet in a matter of seconds. Then something that to Dorothy seemed to presage the end of all things happened. There was a roar as of thunder over their heads. Looking up as they still lay prone they beheld a terrifying spectacle. A huge rock was bounding down upon them from the heights above. It ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... the other hand, it is desired to do a man honour, how gladly, in like manner, is his name seized on, if it in any way bears an honourable significance, or is capable of an honourable interpretation —men finding in that name a presage and prophecy of that which was actually in its bearer. A multitude of examples, many of them very beautiful, might be brought together in this kind. How often, for instance, and with what effect, the name ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... warning us away troubled us much; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue; that for our ship, it was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case; so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger of their ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon

... just when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black patch on the earth's beauty, not, ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... seemed to fill the air from their mangled, bleeding country. And the dead leaves rustled in the paths as the wind swept them before it beneath the gloomy sky, and over the naked fields brooded a funereal silence, broken only by the cawing of the crows, presage of a bitter winter. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he recognised his error, though he tried not to admit it. The extra subjects had exacted too much of him; there was a limit to his powers. Within the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... malcontents outside the grove pressed closer upon the ring of Willamette warriors, who were still standing or squatting idly around it. More than one weapon could be seen among them in defiance of the war-chief's prohibition; and the presage of a terrible storm darkened on those grim, wild faces. The more peaceably disposed bands began to draw themselves apart. An ominous silence crept through the crowd as they felt ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... auspice, portent, prodigy, prognostic, augury, foretoken, presage; mark, token, indication, symptom, index, emblem, symbol; trace, vestige, ensign, signal, beacon; gesture, motion; signature. Associated Words: ominous, portentous, augurial, semeiology, semeiological, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... to feel Some rousing motions in me, which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts. If there be aught of presage in the mind, This day will be remarkable in my life By some great act, or of ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... Severinus' presage was strangely fulfilled. Feva had handed over the city of Vienna to his brother Frederic,—"poor and impious," says Eugippius. Severinus, who knew him well, sent for him, and warned him that he himself was going to the Lord; and that if, after his death, Frederic dared ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... but now as if it cursed, Dropt, a mere snowball, (till the people sank Their voices, though a louder laughter burst From the royal window)—thou couldst proudly thank God and the prince for promise and presage, And laugh the laugh back, I think verily, Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage To read a wrong into a prophecy, And measure a true great man's heritage Against a mere great-duke's posterity. I think thy soul said then, "I do not need A princedom and ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... destined to a swift and sudden fulfilment. The red glare was scarcely out of the west when the wind began to howl and whistle through our rigging with a presage of the tempest that was to come. What was of worse omen still, the long streamer on the main-mast, which hitherto had spread due eastward, now suddenly flapped to south- east, showing that the gale was coming upon us from the one quarter we had most cause ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... of those who were hurrying to wish the travelers God-speed, nor any of the band who were leaving their homes, but felt the thrilling promise and the presage of that new country toward which the emigrants were about ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... convention took place in the town of Liege St. Truyen, into which Brederode and Louis of Nassau had thrown themselves at the head of two thousand confederates. As the long delay of the royal answer from Madrid seemed to presage no good from that quarter, they considered it advisable in any case to extort from the regent a letter of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... D. 945, two male children were brought from Armenia to Constantinople for exhibition. They were well formed in every respect and united by their abdomens. After they had been for some time an object of great curiosity, they were removed by governmental order, being considered a presage of evil. They returned, however, at the commencement of the reign of Constantine VII, when one of them took sick and died. The surgeons undertook to preserve the other by separating him from the corpse of his brother, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... lull in the storm of unrest which has lately swept over India is happily beyond doubt. Does this lull indicate a gradual and steady return to more normal and peaceful conditions? Or, as in other cyclonic disturbances in tropical climes, does it merely presage fiercer outbursts yet to come? Has the blended policy of repression and concession adopted by Lord Morley and Lord Minto really cowed the forces of criminal disorder and rallied the representatives of moderate opinion ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... The Thebans willingly decreed this, but when all was ready and the general was about to march, the sun was eclipsed and darkness fell upon the city. Pelopidas, seeing that all men were disheartened at this, thought that it was useless to force frightened men full of presage of evil, to march with him, nor did he like to risk the lives of six thousand citizens, but he offered his own services to the Thessalians, and took with him three hundred horsemen, volunteers and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... to the belief implicitly held by all Romans from the earliest days until Brinnaria's time, and for centuries after. The extinction of the perpetual fire, whether by accident or by neglect, was looked upon as a presage of frightful disaster to the nation, as an omen of impending horrors, almost as the probable cause of national misfortunes. Without qualification or doubt the people of Brinnaria's world believed that, as long as Vesta's holy fire burned steadily and brightly, Rome was ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... pigmentation or darkening there are often the black spots, the pigmented birth marks, or the lighter ones of freckles. The latter signify some permanent or transitory adrenal inadequacy in the past, ante-natal or post-natal, of the individual, and presage the same in his future. These spots have been frequently observed to appear after an attack of diphtheria or influenza. There seems to be more tuberculosis among those who have them than those who do not. We therefore say that diphtheria, influenza and tuberculosis stand ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... diffused with a zeal and rapidity never before dreamed of, and the spirit which prompted it has been worthily embodied in the enlarged and enlightened temper with which it has been communicated. In the midst of much error, there are many features prominent which presage the birth of a love of mankind more expansive and generous than any that has ever yet ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Scots adage! I hate to presage ill-luck; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually are to their partners of our sex, in similar circumstances, I reckon on twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth wedding-day: these twenty-four ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... approach, unmoved and with a slightly mocking smile. Colbert smiled too; he had been observing his enemy during the last quarter of an hour, and had been approaching him gradually. Colbert's smile was a presage of hostility. ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and the spark in the stubble! Often did the presage of her dream occur to Christina, and assist in sustaining her hopes during the days that Ebbo's life hung in the balance, and he himself had hardly consciousness to realize either his brother's death or his own state, save as much as was shown by the words, "Let him not be taken away, mother; ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... constantly verified by all our observations in these high latitudes,* that fair weather was always of an exceeding short duration, and that when it was remarkably fine it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm; for the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from the south-west as the night came on, and increasing its violence continually till nine in the morning the next day, when it blew so hard that we were ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... leaping red blood of youth ran strong in him. He had imagination. He could dream. The good things he was tasting were a presage only of the better things to come, and that is a wholesome point of view. He was proud—as who would not be?—to step straight into the tracks of such a father; and with that thought came another—just as good for him, and for India, that made him feel ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... foretold by Sylvester's tomb. Near Rupes Nova in Finland, in the kingdom of Sweden, there is a lake, in which, before the governor of the castle dies, a spectrum, in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes excellent music, like those blocks in Cheshire, which (they say) presage death to the master of the family; or that [1210]oak in Lanthadran park in Cornwall, which foreshows as much. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last by such predictions, and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) by familiar spirits in divers shapes, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... short passages of his life did not belie the melancholy presage of his infancy. When he was seven years old, the parish bound him out to a husbandman of the name of Leman, with whom he endured incredible hardships, which I had it not in my power to alleviate. At nine ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... courts—the minute finishing of cornice, column, frieze and vault, the loving modeling of sculpture, the artistic planning of vistas, the inspired brushing of murals—are marvelous beyond my telling. It is an outpouring of the arts before the altar of humanity. It is a presage of what men can do when they ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt

... and the round heads of two or three swimmers from the bathing cove appeared like corks upon the surface of the water. Half lost in the hazy horizon, a dim fairy island hung between sky and ocean; while overhead flew the milk-white birds, whose presence inland is said to presage stormy weather. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a sturdy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... passed over the face of the bright moon, obscuring her blessed light. The maiden, deeming it an inauspicious omen, sat down upon the green bank, and, leaning her head upon her hand, suffered the tears to stream through her slender fingers. But vain was the presage—idle were her fears. The cloud has passed away from the face of the pale orb, and lo! there is her lover. He comes with a joyous step and a laughing eye, as though he had been successful in his search for the further means of flight. Cheer ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... "bating not a jot of heart or hope," till the weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble spirit, unrecognized by the lord of the soil, returned to God who gave it. I seemed to see in his history a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more self-restrained, more righteous far than ever I could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted, in the stern battle with social disadvantages, what ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... of fall presages the untimely waning of a youthful life. As with all superstition, the sign is not merely the prediction of an event; it is felt that as the avoidance of the omen would be to escape its consequence, so the careless action, in becoming the presage of calamity, is likewise its cause. Here appear natural antinomies of human thought: on the one hand, the sense of the inevitableness of the designated fate; on the other hand, the consciousness of ability by altering conditions to change conclusions. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... of the Eternal laws More slowly Titan rose, (1) nor drave his steeds, Forced by the sky revolving, (2) up the heaven, With gloomier presage; wishing to endure The pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse; And drew the mists up, not to feed his flames, (3) But lest his light upon Thessalian earth Might ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... Plainly this was no flying visit. You do not pop over to London for a day or two with a steamer trunk, another trunk, a black box, a suit-case, and a small brown bag. Lady Underhill had evidently come prepared to stay; and the fact seemed to presage trouble. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... As stated above (A. 3, ad 1), the Magi are the "first-fruits of the Gentiles" that believed in Christ; because their faith was a presage of the faith and devotion of the nations who were to come to Christ from afar. And therefore, as the devotion and faith of the nations is without any error through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so also we must believe ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... his custom was, one hot and thunderous day, in the country lanes; it was very still, and through the soft haze that filled the air, the distant trees and fields lost their remoteness, and stood stiffly and quaintly as though painted. There seemed a presage of storm in the church-tower, which showed a ghostly white among the elms. A fitful breeze stirred at intervals. Hugh drew near the hamlet, and all of a sudden stepped into a stream of inconceivable sweetness and fragrance; he saw in a moment what was its ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the completion of maturation, and the absorption and drying away of the pus in the simple distinct form of small pox. After some experience, we were enabled, from the appearance of the eruption at the outset, to presage the event, which in the above described kinds, was almost ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... A presage gripped the man's heart, drawing powerfully at its strings with pain, yet with delicious hope and joy ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... Metropolitan church in Washington on the 27th of April, 1886. The text given me was "Grant and the New South." As this brief speech expressed my appreciation of the character of General Grant soon after his death, and my presage of the new south, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... extended his hands, and the four white men respectfully brushed them with their lips. It was a tribute less to his office than to his appearance; for not one of them saw in his coming aught else than a good presage ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... her tail no more; Returning home at night you'll find the sink Strike your offended nose with double stink; If you be wise, then go not far to dine, You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine, A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen, He damns the climate and complains of spleen.... Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, Threatening ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange



Words linked to "Presage" :   foreboding, prefigure, signal, foretoken, foreshow, bespeak, auspice, augury, sign, presentiment, premonition, preindication, boding, threaten, point, indicate, death knell



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