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When at ten o'clock in the morning the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, as Death's harbinger, the names of those whose death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were already waiting at the prison's gate to drive them to the guillotine.
Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost.
Besides the exposition of socialistic doctrine there were book reviews, musical notes, and fiction, the most important novel being George Sands' "Consuelo," translated for the paper by Francis George Shaw. The Harbinger never paid expenses, and the editors and contributors gave their services in aid of the cause it advocated.
The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair, Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life, And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey, So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides. The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note, Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow.
The middle-sized gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a little way into the Bay of Biscay. When it blows a hard gale of wind the stormy petrel makes its appearance. While the sea runs mountains high, and every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, on rapid pinion, up and down the roaring billows.
Presently from the east came a keen, cold breeze, the harbinger of sunrise; the gray gloaming began by degrees to pierce and part the tops of the tall trees, which, in the darkness, had seemed a compact black roof.
I was prepared for it, yet was thrilled electrically by the flashing glance of the violet eyes for it was she the beautiful harbinger of calamities!
He it was, too, who had brought the first offers of an armistice after Austerlitz. These recollections touched the superstitious chords in the great Corsican's being; for in times of stress the strongest nature harks back to early instincts. This harbinger of good fortune the Emperor now summoned and talked long and earnestly with him.
This economic union, of which Prussia was the head, and from which Austria was excluded, was a harbinger of the future German empire. Metternich had met with signal success in his efforts to keep Germany at a standstill.
All was bathed in the shimmering, sultry heat of midsummer, the harbinger, as it proved, of a violent thunderstorm. The Prussian position was really stronger than it seemed. Napoleon could not fully see either the osier beds that fringed the Ligny brook, or its steep banks, or the many strong buildings of Ligny itself.
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