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These pious personages amused themselves with cultivating little gardens that abounded with flowers and fruits, especially musk-melons of the best flavour that Persia could boast; sometimes dispersed over the meadow, they entertained themselves with feeding peacocks whiter than snow, and turtles more blue than the sapphire; in this manner were they occupied when the harbingers of the imperial procession began to proclaim: “Inhabitants of Rocnabad! prostrate yourselves on the brink of your pure waters, and tender your thanksgivings to Heaven, that vouchsafeth to show you a ray of its glory; for lo! the Commander of the Faithful draws near.”

The cut-throats bellowed with joy when they learned that a Republican of '89, who had risen to the rank of marshal under the Usurper, was about to pass through Avignon. At the same time sinister reports began to run from mouth to mouth, the harbingers of death.

The beautiful feathered songsters, that had returned from the south, warbled their songs in our ears anew and seemed to exert themselves, to make their notes clear, and let us know they had come. The little grey phebe-birds, the robins and the blue birds were the first harbingers of spring.

It appeared to the alarmed and feverish imagination of Gertrude, that the brine was giving up all its monsters; and, notwithstanding the calm assurances of Wilder, that these accustomed sounds were rather the harbingers of peace than signs of any new danger, they filled her mind with images of the secret recesses over which they seemed suspended by a thread, and painted them replete with the disgusting inhabitants of the caverns of the great deep.

But it is intended to heal the poor wretch in the middle who, if he does not succumb to the violence of his disease, has a good chance of dying from the torture endured. The diabolical concert lasts until the garrulous harbingers of the sun announce the dawn but is repeated after sunset for seven days during which period only the men are permitted to go into the forest in search of food.

And then it was, warmed by the excitement of released feelings, long and carefully shrouded, that this man, ordinarily so calm and self-possessed, poured burningly and passionately forth all those tumultuous and almost tremendous thoughts, which, however much we may regulate, control, or disguise them, lurk deep within the souls of all of us, the seeds of the eternal war between the natural man and the artificial; between our wilder genius and our social conventionalities; thoughts that from time to time break forth into the harbingers of vain and fruitless revolutions, impotent struggles against destiny; thoughts that good and wise men would be slow to promulge and propagate, for they are of a fire which burns as well as brightens, and which spreads from heart to heart as a spark spreads amidst flax; thoughts which are rifest where natures are most high, but belong to truths that virtue dare not tell aloud.

But the wall was clearest crystal; and Sarah was looking down a grassy lane shaded with cherry trees and elms and bordered with raspberry bushes and Cherokee roses. Spring's real harbingers are too subtle for the eye and ear.

If not a principal, you have been a party to crime; and never shall you have absolution until you have made a full confession." Her heart swelled with emotion, she attempted to speak, and burst into tears. "These are harbingers of good," observed I; "I am now convinced that my supposition was correct: pour out your soul in tribulation, and receive that comfort which I am empowered to bestow.

No doubt you know this is a commemoration of the three wise men of the East presenting their offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to our Lord. Storks are considered the sacred birds of Denmark. These harbingers of good-luck the children take great interest in, and more especially in the growth of the stork family on the roof-tree.

The officers evidently came from manoeuvres or parade. The King was in the town, as was indicated by the presence of some of his harbingers, that is to say Swedish uniforms. Was he here in person? Was he expected? No, for in that case there would have been others present besides the officers. But was that lady who stood at the carriage-door the person to whom they had come to bid farewell?