"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dumoulin. But, on the other hand, the system of laws which they had to administer stood in striking contrast with the habits of mind which they had cultivated. The France which had been in great part constituted by their efforts was smitten with the curse of an anomalous and dissonant jurisprudence beyond every other country in Europe. One great division ran through the country and separated it into Pays du Droit Ecrit and Pays du Droit Coutumier, the first acknowledging ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... emphatically. "If we were idling around, musing on ourselves from morning till night like some poor creatures do, we'd get prickly mighty soon. People were made to work, and it's flying in the face of Providence to try to get away from it. We all got our share in the curse of Adam, and the sooner we realize ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... derangement and interruption of commerce, it will cost millions more than all the profit that has ever accrued to them from the opium trade. From what motive then, do we uphold a traffic, which is the curse of China, the curse of India, and a calamity to Great Britain? Such a war may be fruitful in trophies of military glory, if such can be gained by the slaughter of the most pacific people in the world; but to expect that it will promote the reputation, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Turbulent brothers of the stars, Companions of the tempests of the seas, Those lights are all that may avail Peace to restore; murderous yet innocent; Which, open or concealed, Will bless with calm, or curse with pride. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... instant he sat with his brain in a whirl. Then a curse upon Providence rose to his lips; he repressed it, and began to load himself with reproaches. A moment before, he had been in the satisfied mood of a man who has his own approbation for work well done. He now looked upon his course during the past winter with both abhorrence and wonder. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... newspapers of the day aroused the people. It convinced them (for, strange as it may seem now, there were many who needed to be convinced) of the unscriptural, immoral and unjust character of a State religion; while it confirmed them in their determination to rest not until they had exterminated the curse from Canadian soil.... This noble effort of an able, learned, bold and patriotic defender of the cause of the people against their corrupt, unscrupulous and then powerful enemies, ought to be printed in letters ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... far from Bernburg. According to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas Eve by dancing and brawling in the church-yard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and casteth it away. Eve looketh on Adam very strangely and speaketh not anything." During this pause, the "conveyor" is told "to get the fig-leaves ready." Then Lucifer is ordered to "come out of the serpent and creep on his belly to hell;" Adam and Eve receive the curse, and depart out of Paradise, "showing a spindle and distaff"—no badly-conceived emblem of the labour to which they are henceforth doomed. And ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... came to his net, and all were treated alike and robbed from start to finish. When Albert had turned his back upon him, and, worse than that, taken away his best client, as he afterwards learned, the old scoundrel suffered the worst blow to his vanity he ever received. "Curse the fellow!" he would say to himself. "I'll pay him and have revenge if I live long enough, and I'll never rest till I do. No man ever got the best of me, and in the long run no man ever shall!" Like an Indian he bided his time, though waiting and watching with his merciless yellow eyes until ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... thought, however, that we do not appreciate the living spark of theistic truth which this movement represents, combined, as it is, with hostility to the caste system, which is India's greatest curse, and its antagonism to many of the superstitions and unworthy ceremonials ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves. He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... chased a roving cat until it got within the neighbouring shelter of its domiciliary railings, whence it me-ai-ouwed to him, through all the vowels of pussy's vocabulary, a Christmas compliment— with, probably, a curse tacked on to the tail of it, or that "phoo! phoo! phiz!" meant nothing. But the feline expletives were all thrown away; for Catch was only "full of fun and with nobody to play with him," like Peter Mooney's goose, and had only chased pussy in the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Impeachment. "Suppose," said he, "you succeed. You settle that hereafter a party having a sufficient majority in the House and the Senate can depose the President of the United States. You establish a precedent which all future parties in all time to come will look to. The curse of other countries, the curse of France, the curse of the South-American Republics, has been that they followed such a precedent as you call upon us to establish here to-day—the overthrow of their Executive, not by law, not by the Constitution, but by the irregular and arbitrary ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... have his money—not more than enough to keep me from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all that money, because—because—because—" She could not finish her sentence, but turned away from them, and walked by ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... or that his children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly we should take the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization, the naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to our Government; and it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever born, to see that no fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... draw the curtain close before that Sunday afternoon at Stiffner's, and hold it tight. Behind it the great curse of the West is in evidence, the chief trouble of unionism—drink, in its most ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... slight sneer. He followed this up with a curse on domineerers in general, and on Fletcher ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Home Rule, that the learning of Ireland is against Home Rule, that all that makes a nation great is against Home Rule, and that the Irishmen most entitled to our respect and honour implore us not to force upon them the curse of Home Rule. This is no trifle. Let us at any rate have done with phrases; let us admit that the satisfaction of Ireland means merely the satisfaction of a class, though it may be the most numerous class of Irishmen, and that it also means the bitter discontent of the one class of Irishmen who are ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... tell your friends where you are and how to help you. Honest! Honest, I will. I know it's as broad as it is long, but I'd rather do it that way. They'll be here in a couple of hours and you'll be free. Nobody will be the wiser. Curse your whining! Shut up! Damn you, get back in there! Don't give me away to Davy, and I'll swear to help you ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Culloden papers, mentions a characteristic instance of an old Highland warrior's mode of pardon. "You must forgive even your bitterest enemy, Kenmuir, now," said the confessor to him, as he lay gasping on his death-bed. "Well, if I must, I must," replied the Chieftain, "but my curse be on you, Donald," turning towards his ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... possibility could the men of that age in referring to St. Matt. v. 44 have freely mentioned 'blessing those who curse,—doing good to those who hate,—and praying for those who despitefully use.' Since there are but two alternative readings of the passage,—one longer, one briefer,—every clear acknowledgement of a single disputed clause in the larger reading necessarily carries ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... he continued, addressing the company at the table—"know what calamity had once come upon the household of Mr. Barbary, by the unlawful thirst for gold; that he held its love as the curse of curses; he thought if he could but once throw himself in its midst, where that passion raged the most, he would be doing his Master's service most faithfully, more than in this quiet country-place of peaceful households, but when he learned the peril and the sore distress ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... to the right of the hill, and poured down into the valley beyond. Here the blue flood of men banked against a stone wall, spreading to right and left, as the waters of a stream spread the length of a dam. Then they began to fire dreadfully into the faces of their enemy, and to curse terribly, as is proper in battle. Bullets stung the long line like wasps, and men bit ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... "Curse it all, I must tell her. Half knowledge is always dangerous, and is sure to lead to blunders, and there must be ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... anticipate or avoid, was happily exceptional, like thunderbolts. The other men and even the members of the family presented nothing similar and regarded themselves with pride as very different to this wretched being transformed into a beast. This victim of heavenly curse was pitied, settled comfortably in a nice pavilion at Bloomingdale and never more spoken of. People still preserve on this point ideas similar to those they had formerly about tuberculosis, known only under the form of terrible but exceptional pulmonary consumption. Now it ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... wretched apartment, and, trusting to his disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he had been used to do—the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened and dulled; and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... meant to act. If any contrary impression produces in your mind any feelings different from those which have made so great a part of my happiness throughout life, I shall deeply regret what seems to be annexed as a curse inseparable from the pursuit of a public life; but I will once more beg you to be assured that neither those feelings on your part, nor anything which they can produce, will vary my sincere and heartfelt affection towards ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... was in merry thoughts, and now thou puttest me to more pain. Balin went a little from him, and looked on his horse; then heard Balin him say thus: Ah, fair lady, why have ye broken my promise, for thou promisest me to meet me here by noon, and I may curse thee that ever ye gave me this sword, for with this sword I slay myself, and pulled it out. And therewith Balin stert unto him and took him by the hand. Let go my hand, said the knight, or else I shall slay thee. That shall not need, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... and a family. The little property he had was scarcely sufficient to pay his debts, and Madame Fouquet, since the captivity of her husband, is abandoned by everybody. The hand of your majesty strikes like the hand of God. When the Lord sends the curse of leprosy or pestilence into a family, every one flies and shuns the abode of the leprous or the plague-stricken. Sometimes, but very rarely, a generous physician alone ventures to approach the accursed threshold, passes it with courage, and exposes his life to combat ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... her dry lips and, gurgling fearfully, fainted. When at length she became conscious again. Hunch, glowering fiercely, was returning from a futile chase. With a resentful flash of brutality he towered suddenly above her and began to curse. Aunt Agatha, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... assistance of our servants, and arm all those amongst them who could be trusted; and on the Bishop being informed, that we were ready, he would come out in full canonicals, carrying the holy cross, and excommunicate Theodore and every one who adhered to him, placing under an irrevocable curse all who attempted to arrest him or us. Our party, including Portuguese, natives of Massowah, and messengers, would have amounted to at least twenty-five; the Bishop could bring fifty men, and surround himself with about 200 priests and defteras, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... storekeepers, coopers, stevedores, and others, beside some thousands of unskilled labourers occupied in the handling of the fish. All these men are now without a day's work, or any means of obtaining it. The isolation of the colony, away out in the Atlantic with no neighbour, is its greatest curse. People unemployed cannot emigrate, but must swell an army of industrials depending on the Government for relief. The city is a veritable aggregation of unemployed; it is a city to let. Every business, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... heavy and dank, and it began to be hard for Nick to breathe. The men in the dungeons were singing a horrible song, and in the corner was a half-naked fellow shackled to the floor. "Give me a penny," he said, "or I will curse thee." Nick shuddered. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... intellect and soul and heart that were here devouring with swift flames a body without stamina; for Jacques had the milk-white skin and high color which characterize young English women doomed sooner or later to the consumptive curse,—an appearance of health that deceives the eye. Following a sign by which Henriette, after showing me Madeleine, made me look at Jacques drawing geometrical figures and algebraic calculations on a ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... to bind men together when you have broken their hearts? O fool, who would conquer all Eri! I see the Red Branch scattered and Eri rent asunder, and thy memory a curse after many thousand years. The gods have overthrown thy dominion, proud king, with the last sigh from this dead child; and out of the pity for her they will build up an eternal kingdom in the spirit of man. [An uproar without and ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France where the ancient curse of barbarism has been ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... "Curse you for a proud fool," muttered the ruffian, as Anthony entered the house. "If Bill Mathews does not soon pull you down from your high horse, may his limbs rot in a jail." And calling to an ugly black cur, that was prowling round the garden, and whose physiognomy greatly resembled his own, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... my fault shall bee imprinted at the day of resurrection. O beauty, the bait ordained to insnare the irreligious: rich men are robd for theyr welth, women are dishonested for being too faire. No blessing is beautie but a curse: curst bee the time that euer I was begotten: curst be the time that my mother brought me forth to tempt. The serpent in paradice did no more, the serpent in paradice is damned sempiternally: why should not I hold my selfe damned ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... hear this, Julia! 'But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.' Wouldn't you like to see ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... lion and the bear, therefore this Philistine uncircumcised shall be as one of them. I shall now go and deliver Israel from this opprobrium and shame. How is this Philistine uncircumcised so hardy as to curse the host of the living God? And yet said David: The Lord that kept me from the might of the lion and from the strength of the bear, he will deliver me from the power of the Philistine. Saul said then to David: Go, and our ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... to the piper danced, Of tatterdemalions all, Till the corpulent butler drove them off Beyond the manor wall. The raggedy piper shook his fist: 'A minstrel's curse on thee, Thou lubberly, duck-legg'd son of a gun, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... slavery.' All of us, who are in the habit of talking with the people on this subject, know that almost in these very words we are met at every street corner. We must answer it, or in some form slavery will still continue to be the curse of our country, and to hurry it on to an untimely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes as great kindness compared to his harder words, when suddenly he stopped his arm mid-way, gasped and staggered, crying out, 'The curse—the curse!' I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and, right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... brought up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no light youth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us—these were the themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil-doers. When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... very decent to me that day," Dysart said. "You had something to say to me—but were good enough not to. I came over to-night to give you a chance to curse me out. It's the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Valliere, with an energy of which one would hardly have thought her capable, "instead of the blessing which I should have implored for you until my dying day, I will invoke a curse, for you are rendering me the most ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... world, on any principle of conqueringly Divine benevolence. That piece of bold impiety, if it be so, I have always asserted in my well-considered books,—I considering it, on the contrary, the only really pious thing to say, namely, that the world is under a curse, which we may, if we will, gradually remove, by doing as we are bid, and believing what we are told; and when we are told, for instance, in the best book we have about our own old history, that "unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... charm for thousands whom a long concert or the inevitable five acts at the Français could not tempt. It would be difficult to overrate the influence such an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must have on the taste and character. The absence of a sordid spirit, the curse of our material day and generation, the contact with intellects trained to incase their thoughts in serried verse or crisp and lucid prose, cannot but form the hearer’s mind into a higher and better mould. It is both a satisfaction ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... the curse of too much ability. He has both genius and talent, but the talent, instead of acting as a counterpoise to the genius, blows it yet more windily about the air. He has almost all the qualities of a great writer, but some perverse spirit in his blood has mixed them to their ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... already; lonely, isolated enough; with no lot nor share in the honest community life; no hand to shake, no neighbor's meal to share; and this unexpected public arraignment smote him between the eyes. With resentment newly kindled, pride wounded, vanity bleeding, he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove toward home, the home where he would find his ragged children and meet the timid eyes of a woman who had been the loyal partner ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the husband's bed, Or pains his head: Those that live single, take it for a curse, Or do things worse: Some would have children: those that have them, moan Or wish them gone: What is it, then, to have or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... left the sacred volume, and seemed to gaze upon some coming struggle in which the sins of the people would meet a bloody retribution. Then, referring to the page, he pronounced with bitterness of holy indignation the prophetic curse which was that day fulfilled in our cherished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... perhaps, by an ichthyosaurus. Prayers and curses seemingly had produced the desired effect; indeed, the pilot's anathematizing was prayer; but such prayer is not by any means to be recommended. It would be as well to curse as only to pray when fear is excited. Prayer, doubtless, often is, but never ought to be, the effect of fear. Prayer should be the holy offering up of reasonable desires to the Creator, and in times of danger there should be confidence in the Creator as all ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... nephew," said the Captain, rising, and folding his arms resolutely on his breast,—"look you, I desired that that name might never be breathed. I have not cursed my son yet; could he come to life—the curse might fall! You do not know what torture your words have given me just when I had opened my heart to another son, and found that son in you. With respect to the lost, I have now but one prayer, and you ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saw such a frightfully desolate spot,' I said, 'to have yet the appearance of a place of Christian worship. It looks as if there were a curse upon it. Are all those the graves of suicides and murderers? It ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Keshava, then proceeded to see Gandhari. The faultless Gandhari, afflicted with grief on account of the death of her hundred sons, recollecting that king Yudhishthira the just had slain all his enemies, wished to curse him. Understanding her evil intentions towards the Pandavas, the son of Satyavati addressed himself for counteracting them at the very outset. Having cleansed himself by the sacred and fresh water of the Ganga, the great rishi, capable of proceeding everywhere at will with the fleetness of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... called by the villagers, was a flat-chested, colourless individual with one of those thin noses which seem to have grown permanently elongated at the point in the process of prying into other people's business. Her hair, once flaxen, was now turning the ugly yellowish grey which is the fair woman's curse, and her eyes were like pale ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the brute slunk off to the other side of the room." "I asked Quin about it later, and he said: "Oh well, you've got to talk to them in their own language, or they don't listen. That's the best of not being a clergyman. Of course one couldn't very well curse and swear then. But it's the way to manage them. That chap will come to heel in an evening or two, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... is Fortune's ball wherewith she sports. Sometimes I strike it up into the air, And then create I emperors and kings; Sometimes I spurn it, at which spurn crawls out The wild beast multitude: curse on, you fools, 'Tis I that tumble princes from their thrones, And gild false brows with glittering diadems; 'T is I that tread on necks of conquerors, And when like semi-gods they have been drawn In ivory chariots to the Capitol, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... old age. O dear my son, stand not up against a man in office and puissance nor against a river in its violence, and haste not in matters of marriage; for, an this bring weal, folk will not appraise thee and if ill they will abuse thee and curse thee. O dear my son, company with one who hath his hand fulfilled and well-furnisht and associate not with any whose hand is fist-like and famisht. O dear my son, there be four things without stability: a king and no army,[FN28] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... with post-horses already harnessed to it. . . . When he left this post they found in his cabinet 900 letters which he had not opened. He was an eccentric lunatic, amusing enough sometimes, but a curse to everything which depended on him." (Memoirs of the Duc de Raguse, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... see the cause. I found an officer with drawn sword threatening to run the color-sergeant through if he was not allowed to pass. He was a colonel and evidently a German. My orders to him to desist were answered with a curse, and I had to thrust my pistol into his face, with an energetic threat to blow his head off if he made one more move, before he seemed to come to his senses. I then appealed to him to see what an example he as an officer was setting, and demanded that he should get to ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... the rightness of God's claims upon the hearts and lives of men; you believe in the humiliation and passion of Christ to redeem men; you believe in the necessity for and possibility of rescuing human souls from the curse of evil and the eternal penalty of sin; but, believe me, your faith is vain if you do not stand for, and labour and fight to enforce, God's claims to proclaim Christ's redeeming grace, and to deliver men from going down to ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Don't I owe you my life? How many more of my countrymen passed me by as I lay on that hospital-bed, and left me to rot there, for all they cared? I heard their loud voices and their creaking boots as I lay there, too weak to lift my eyelids and look at them; but not too weak to curse them." ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... watches for the soldier sire whose lips have felt the touch of God's own hand; no longer the Southern woman wanders with bursting heart amid the wreck and wraith of the fierce simoon, brushing the battle grime from cold brows, seeking among the mangled dead for all that life held dear. The curse has passed: ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... half inclined to reply in the same manner, but he remembered that the horse, whom he felt ready to curse, bore on his back a man with a hundred and fifty pistoles in his pocket, so he resigned himself, and beat his ass to make ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... he struck home! He could not even curse, but he struck home, and a fierce joyous smile illuminated his wan face, as he saw his slayer stumble forward, and fall beside him ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... bad and of so vicious a nature, that they often strike their mothers and others. The most vicious, when they have acquired the strength and power, strike their fathers. They do this whenever the father or mother does anything that does not please them. This is a sort of curse ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... the chief of staff," he said, as he slipped them into his pocket. Rokoff groaned. He did not dare curse aloud. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is true, but not all the truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the Emperor to draw his attention to the needs ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... may have spent my whole natural life in denouncing him as demoralization incarnate, and a curse to the community, but I always liked him, Ellen. Yes, I loved J. Milton, and I was merely waiting for him to prove himself a first-class scoundrel, to find out just how much I loved him. I've no doubt but if we could have him among us again, in the attractive ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... exclaimed Jawleyford, nearly choking himself with a fish bone, as he opened and read the foregoing at breakfast. 'Curse the fellow!' he repeated, stamping the letter under foot, as though he would crush it to atoms. 'Who ever saw such a piece of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... as it is painful, to trace the steps of her final ruin. That ancient curse was upon her, the curse of the cities of the plain, "Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness." By the inner burning of her own passions, as fatal as the fiery reign of Gomorrah, she was consumed from her place among the nations; and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... into thy great ocean. Lord, he is far from every friend and from every means of grace, and for any thing I know, far from thee by wicked works; under thy curse and hateful in thy sight; but thou, God, seest him. Means are not necessary, if thou willest to work without. Thou canst find an avenue to his heart at once. Dead as he is, vile as he is, guilty as he is, far from help of ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... and his tongue charged with unutterable execrations, gazed gloomily down into the darkening valley, that half an hour before had been filled with a radiance "that never shone on land or sea." And as he gazed all the bad in him persistently rose up to curse the despicable author of his woe, while all the good in him—about an even balance—rose up to bless the fast-disappearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... it. It pointed out to her how near she had drawn to him, and once accepted, it paved the way for greater intimacy. Pity, too, was aroused, and innocent, idealistic thoughts of reform. She would save this raw young man who had come so far. She would save him from the curse of his early environment, and she would save him from himself in spite of himself. And all this affected her as a very noble state of consciousness; nor did she dream that behind it and underlying it were the jealousy and ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... Italian music, which says naught to me. I have a letter from one David Patterson, who was Dr. Knox's jackal for buying murdered bodies, suggesting that I should write on the subject of Burke and Hare, and offering me his invaluable collection of anecdotes! "Curse him imperance and him dam insurance,"[290] as Mungo says in the farce. Did ever one hear the like? The scoundrel has been the companion and patron of such atrocious murderers and kidnappers, and he has the impudence to write to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... affection, my religion.... If I lied to you it was because I knew that the day on which you would find out my fault I should see you before me, despairing and implacable as you now are, as I can not bear to have you be. Ah, judge me, condemn me, curse me; but know, but feel, that in spite of all I have loved you, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... right, curse you!" said the American, in an angry snarl. "Drop it, boys; they're too many for us this time. We're done, and it's of ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Oh! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe; On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son, in Aghadoe! When your throat fries in hell's drouth, salt the flame be in your mouth, For the treachery you did ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... guests suggested the smallest doubt. They had now arrived at dessert and the waiters were clearing the table with much clattering of dishes. Madame Lorilleux, who up to then had been very genteel, very much the lady, suddenly let fly with a curse. One of the waiters had spilled something wet down her neck while removing a dish. This time her silk dress would be stained for sure. Monsieur Madinier had to examine her back, but he swore there was nothing to ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... two thieves being conveyed to the place of execution, and tortured, in a cart. Instead of lamenting their sins, they behaved like demons. Though no one else beheld anything unearthly near the culprits, St. Catherine saw a multitude of devils provoking them to blaspheme and curse. Having compassion on the unhappy men, she went into the cart beside them, drove the evil spirits away, and brought the condemned men to repentance before ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the fit takes her. She went away when I stood in the sorest need of a little talk with her—she went away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... all-excluding mountainous duty; an obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress, a probation, beleaguered round with doleful histories of Adam's fall and curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener sank in them. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The world still wants ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the stony space. It was as though a curse had fallen upon it. She tried to lift her voice, to call to Noel, to make some sound in the stillness. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... who surrounded him and against his sons. It would be impossible for me to read this passage without weeping over the disasters of the unfortunate old king.' And then he took the book, and tried to read aloud the passage, 'Go, wretches, curse of my life,' but he ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... entangled; from many necessities of the body, lest I be taken captive by pleasure; from all obstacles of the spirit, lest I be broken and cast down with cares. I say not from those things which the vanity of the world goeth about after with all eagerness, but from those miseries, which by the universal curse of mortality weigh down and hold back the soul of thy servant in punishment, that it cannot enter into liberty of spirit, so often ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. Before night, victims watched for will be secured; men heated with liquor, or drugged, will be robbed, and many curious and bold explorers in this locality will curse the hour in which they resolved to spend a Sunday ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... rose up suddenly from her stool and stood gazing at her husband with burning cheeks and clenched hands. She took no heed of me, much less of the laughing crowd round her, but looked only at him with her soul in her eyes. He, after uttering one hoarse curse, seemed to have no thought for any but me. To have the knowledge that his own wife had baulked him brought home to him in this mocking fashion, to find how little a thing had tripped him that day, to learn how blindly he had played into the hands ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... she took her Way When lo, the Devil came and said Where are you going to, my pretty Maid To School I am going Sir, said she Pish, Child, don't mind the same saith he, But haste to your Companions dear And learn to lie and curse and swear. They bravely spend their Time in Play God they don't value—no, not they. It is a Fable, Child, he cry'd At which his cloven Foot she spy'd. I'm sure there is a God, saith she Who from your Power will keep me free, And if you should this Thing deny Your ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... "Friend!" he repeated. "Oh, curse and confound it, Perry, if I wasn't such a miserable, hopeless dog, I should be proud of such friendship—I am proud of it and always shall be—but here our companionship ends. There's but one course for me, and I intend to ride to ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... parts of Canada. It would be too much to say that the habitant has a wide outlook on public questions; but the village notary and the village doctor are likely to have political ambitions and rivalry becomes acute; often indeed the curse of the village is the professional politician. At times in Quebec politics have been closely associated with religion and always the bishops are persons to be reckoned with. Their attitude has ever been that, if the policy of one or the ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... that any woman would ever have preached the damnation of babies new-born; and "hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A celibate monk—with God's curse writ on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a mother—might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the preliminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are commonly put upon God in the popular ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... commend the favour of a little more time in the world! But then if we knew what an eternal misery we are involved into, and stand under a sentence binding us over to such an inconceivable and insupportable punishment as is the curse and wrath of God; O how precious an esteem would souls have of the scriptures, how would they be sweet unto their soul, because they show unto us a way of escaping that pit of misery, and a way of attaining eternal blessedness as satisfying and glorious ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with the curse of ignorance weighing on his mind, it is to be presumed that he fancied his own great task of destroying the whites was so much the lighter, in consequence of the feeble defence of the Yankees at Detroit. The runner was now ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... longer, I think, be mocked for our amusement; and perhaps its love may not always be despised by our pride. Believe me, all the arts, and all the treasures of men, are fulfilled and preserved to them only, so far as they have chosen first, with their hearts, not the curse of God, but His blessing. Our Earth is now incumbered with ruin, our Heaven is clouded by Death. May we not wisely judge ourselves in some things now, instead of amusing ourselves with the ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of this deity Nursed at the teat of thine imagination, Was bred, brought up by thine own vanity, Whose being thou mayst curse from the creation; And so thou list, thou may as soon forget love, As thou at first didst fashion ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... father, shall I look above, Amid the gathering gloom, To him whose promises of love Extend beyond the tomb Or curse the being who hath blessed This chequered path of mine, And promises eternal rest, And die, my sire, ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... as practised in New England. Dionysius Carthusianus, speaking of the nomad tribes of the Biarmii and Amaxobii, who, according to him, were most skilful fascinators, says that they so affected persons with their curse that they lost their freedom of will and became insane and idiotic, and often wasted away in extreme leanness and corruption, and so perished: "ut liberi non sint nec mentis compotes, soepe ad extremam maciem deveniant, et tabescendo dispereant." Olaus Magnus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... mission (viii. 33); it was Peter's fanciful plan to erect three tabernacles on the scene of the Transfiguration (ix. 5), it was Peter who informed the Lord that the fig tree had withered after His curse (xi. 21), it was Peter whom Christ awoke in Gethsemane by uttering his name "Simon" (xiv. 37); and Peter's denial appears doubly guilty in this Gospel, inasmuch as he did not repent until the cock crew twice ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... is spared till this business is settled, I shall spend the rest of my days in Havana. Even with the memory of my crimes in my heart, I believe I can be happy with such a treasure in my bosom as Marion. My father's pride has been my curse—my sins ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... it would be folly to demand hospitality or to attempt to enforce it. It is like the drunken cobbler who said to his wife, "You don't love me, curse you, but by God you shall if I have to kill you first." Even if a paternal government made a law that hospitality was obligatory and that whoever asked a night's lodging must be given it, then at one blow the whole idea of hospitality would be annihilated. Hospitality must be something ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham |
