"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... centre; and, contrary to their expectations, amongst the press of baggage-wagons, artillery, and travelling equipages, all tumultuously clamoring to push on, as the best chance of evading Holkerstein in the forest, their own unpretending vehicle passed without other notice than a curse from the officer on duty; which, however, they could not presume to appropriate, as it might be supposed equitably distributed amongst all who stopped ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... wine and fermented liquors may be to the more blunt sensibilities of body and mind, in youthful circles of another description? But if so, where rests the guilt? Or shall we bless the fountains, while we curse the stream they form? ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... and a liar!" she answered contemptuously. "You will love her all your days, and you know it. You will grow to curse the memory of this hour in which you threw away the only chance you will ever have of winning her. The only chance, mind, I will answer for that. I wish you good-evening, Mr. Greatson. You are excused. Isobel, as you are aware, remains here. You will find her in the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for peace with vows and prayer We sue, and pardon of these powers implore, Or be they goddesses or birds of air Obscene and dire; and lifting on the shore His hands, Anchises doth the gods adore. 'O Heaven!' he cries, 'avert these threats; be kind And stay the curse, and vex with plagues no more A pious folk,' then bids the crews unbind The stern-ropes, loose the sheets and spread them ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... making the soup. No word fell from her lips, and rising ever amid the ominous silence she preserved, her hatred of Goliah grew with every hour and impregnated her nature with its poison. He had been her curse; had it not been for him she would have waited for Honore, and Honore would be living now, and she would be happy. Think of his tone and manner when he made her understand he was the master! He had told her the truth, moreover; there were no longer ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... war by cupidity, by encroachment, and, above all, by efforts to propagate the curse of slavery, is alike false to itself, to God, and ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... from the curse of the law. But before faith came, we were kept inward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ. For with freedom did Christ set ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... bobbed up and down in his seat with glee. "Ee, bless me! Ee, hang me! Ee, curse me!" he chirruped. "He's bust the bone. He'll never walk again. Probably mortification will set in, and he'll have his foot off. Next man in, please. Oh, I never enjoyed anything so much in ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Viscount sprang forward and, turning in a flash, Barnabas saw a heavy bludgeon in the air above him; saw the Viscount meet it with up-flung arm; heard the thud of the blow, a snarling curse; saw a figure dart away and vanish among the jungle of carts; saw the Viscount stagger against the caravan and lean there, his pale face ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... replied to his father, saying, 'Whether this be an act of rashness, O father, or an improper act that I have done, whether thou likest it or dislikest it, the words spoken by me shall never be in vain. O father, I tell thee (a curse) can never be otherwise. I have never spoken a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... not born beneath The Virgin and the Scales, So I must curse my cruel stars, And walk about ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... revolution to the disinherited masses give no thought to this. It's a hard and a bad thing to live under an oppressive system; don't think that I speak lightly of the miseries which must drive many a man to frenzy, till he heeds nothing so long as the present curse is attacked. I know perfectly well that for thousands of the poorest there is no possibility of a life guided by thought and feeling of a higher kind until they are lifted out of the mire. But if one faces the question with a grave purpose of doing good that will endure, practical ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... been the devil of a disturbance in Munich; and the King's mistress, Lola Montez, has been forced to fly for her life. She has been the curse of Bavaria, yet the King ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... mouth was markedly disfigured, and on my inquiring as to the probable cause she said: "Doctor, it is the result of sucking my thumb when I was a mere child, too young to know better, and every time I look into the glass, which I assure you is only when I am compelled to, I curse my parents for not breaking me of that habit." The indulgent parents were hated and despised for neglecting their duty, because of the disfigurement which resulted from this unrestrained ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... appetite, and it is only when one gloats over marrow bones or elephant's feet that indigestion is possible. No doubt much toil is involved, and fatigue of which travellers in the more temperate climes can form but a faint conception; but the sweat of one's brow is no longer a curse when one works for God: it proves a tonic to the system, and is actually a blessing. No one can truly appreciate the charm of repose unless he has ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... once, was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the children of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse. ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain. Virtue now, nor noble blood, Nor wit by love is understood; Gold alone does passion move, Gold monopolizes love; A curse on her, and on the man Who this traffic first began! A curse on him who found the ore! A curse on him who digged the store! A curse on him who did refine it! A curse on him who first did coin it! A curse, all curses else above, On him who used it first ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... denied the light of day, even though they loathe it. Cadets, social skunks, whose carnivorous eyes love darkness, walk in God's sunshine and breathe God's air. Scarlet women turn over in wide beds and draw closer velvet curtains to shut out the morning. Gamblers curse ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that thou hast brought to us many a booty from the island of our enemies, by means of tobacco, a weed the cause of much deceit; for how much deceit is practiced in carrying it about, in mixing it, and in weighing it: a weed which entices some people to bib ale; others to curse, swear, and to flatter in order to obtain it, and others to tell lies in denying that they use it: a weed productive of maladies in various bodies, the excess of which is injurious to every man's ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Bessie, whom the curse of being twins linked like galley-slaves, were Heather-bells in a childish chorus which piped forth the information "We are the Heather-bells: list to our song," but which was almost ruined by their common desire to get away ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... man is condemned by the Divine judgment save for a mortal sin. Yet a man is condemned for theft, according to Zech. 5:3, "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth; for every thief shall be judged as is there written." Therefore theft is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... town—not one; but that you—I THINK he said you—am almost sure—had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... the bright day, And this our darkness makes for others dawn, Pensive I look upon the cruel stars Which framed me of such pliant passionate earth, And curse the day that e'er I saw the sun, Which makes me ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... disappointed him probably thought that he would not, for the mere gratification of his malevolence, make public a transaction which was discreditable to himself as well as to them. They knew little of him. He soon taught them to curse the day in which they had dared to trifle with a man of so revengeful and turbulent a spirit, of such dauntless effrontery, and of such eminent talents for controversy and satire. He compelled the Parliament to put a degrading stigma on M. Goezman. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with a curse. "If that be what you wish, lord, it is here in very flesh. This young she-devil hath given me as ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... time stood moaning. But her cubs not rising to follow her, she returned, and with signs of inexpressible fondness went round them, pawing them successively. Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards the ship, and growled a curse upon the destroyers, which they returned with a volley of musket-balls. She fell between her cubs, and ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... finest tracts of land have been forsaken, and given up to the untamed beasts of the jungle. The motives to industry have been destroyed. The soil seems to lie under a curse. Instead of yielding abundance for the wants of its own population, and the inhabitants of other regions, it does not keep in existence its own children. It becomes the burying-place of millions, who die upon its bosom crying for bread. In proof of this, turn your eyes ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Octavio. O curse of Kings, Infusing a dread life into their words, And linking to the sudden transient thought The unchangeable irrevocable deed. Was there necessity for such an eager 20 Despatch? Could'st thou not grant the merciful A time for mercy? Time is man's good Angel. To leave no interval ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... A noisy mob is always rash—often cruel and cowardly. A good friendly shout from a multitude is well, and a passing hearty curse endurable. The silent and stern assemblage of orderly men, like the myriads of Tipperary, or like one of Napoleon's armies, is a noble sight and a mighty power; but a scolding, hooting mob, which meets to make a noise, and runs away from a stick, a horse, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... young potentate o' Wales, I tell your Highness fairly, Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... muttered to his weeping wife; "and she has become a curse to us. It lies with us to turn the punishment into our souls' good; but what can we do ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... said, woe worth our first meeting, or woe worth the time that Iason arriued with his ship at my fathers cittie in Colchos, when he tooke me away with him, & not so farre off as to curse the mountaine that bare the pinetree, that made the mast, that bare the sailes, that the ship sailed with, which caried her away. A pleasant Gentleman came into a Ladies nursery, and saw her for her owne pleasure rocking of her young child in the cradle, and sayd to her: I ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... characterization of Madoc,[276] yet after repeated readings he saw enough to convince him that Madoc would in the future "assume his real place at the feet of Milton."[277] Thalaba was one of the poems he liked to have read aloud on Sunday evenings.[278] A review of The Curse of Kehama, in which he seemed to express the opinion that this surpassed the poet's previous work, illustrates his professed creed as to criticism. He wrote to Ellis concerning his article: "What I could I did, which was to throw as much weight ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... made a dying man disgrace himself. You, you, you are the cause of my abject cowardice! I would kill you if I remained alive! I do not want your benefits; I will accept none from anyone; do you hear? Not from any one! I want nothing! I was delirious, do not dare to triumph! I curse every one of you, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cannot disguise from myself that I am a slave, and a wretched one, and that his career has entailed this curse of servitude upon me. But away with this! You must think me, Miss Temple, the most egotistical of human beings; and yet, to do myself justice, I never remember having spoken of ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Religion is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that country may be traced nearly all the oppressions suffered by its people, who never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests. When that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be 'a nation' in the ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... "With Nidhug's curse each human life is teeming,— The cruel tempter from the land of shade, He hates the asa-light with glory beaming On hero's brow and on his shining blade; Each coward deed, each act of wrathful scenting, Is his, a tribute unto darkness paid; ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... remains to be made. Are these trunks a burden, a vexation of spirit, a curse?' demanded Amanda, tapping one ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... children. Go to where you can establish yourselves, to Iximche, on the Ratzamut. Build there houses and a city, and construct a road on which all the people may pass and rest. Abandon Chiavar. As for you, people, if you succeed, may my words come to you as a curse." Thus spoke the king Qikab to our ancestors. Then the commands were given to the rulers, and the words of the king were sent to our ancestors. Nor did the ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... latter of the blessing designed for him, (in favour of Jacob,) given us for in the 27th chapter of Genesis? My father used, I remember, to enforce the doctrine deducible from it, on his children, by many arguments. At least, therefore, he must believe there is great weight in the curse he has announced; and shall I not be solicitous to get it revoked, that he may not hereafter be grieved, for my sake, that he did ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... together in the house of Thorgils Arason. It is illustrated in a quite different and more fantastic way in the scenes of his wanderings among the mountains, in the mysterious quiet of Thorisdal, in his alliance with strange deliverers, outside of the common world and its society, in the curse of Glam under the moonlight. This last is one of the few scenes in the Sagas, though not the only one, when the effect depends on something more than the persons engaged in it. The moon with the clouds driving over counts for more than ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... all. Never curse my memory. Remember that the worst pang of my agony is in dying far from my children, far from my wife, without a friend to close my eyes. Farewell, my own Caroline. Farewell, my children. I send you my blessing, my most tender tears, my last kisses. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... them were too obstinate to take medical advice, the usual thing happened. The husband cut a ridiculous figure, and the wife a tragic one. He was told that a childless woman was sacred because, for some reason or other, "God's" curse rested on her. That "God" could also stoop to curse a man ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Juno. It was all very well for the people so to believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had been the curse of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... holy man Ketellus in [1215]Nubrigensis), that had an especial grace to see devils, Gratiam divinitus collatam, and talk with them, Et impavidus cum spiritibus sermonem miscere, without offence, and if a man curse or spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many such ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... officer, who gladly drank of the cool and refreshing beverage, without being able to thank the fair donor, who had withdrawn her hand at parting with the glass. The glass was held up to the window, but the hand that clutched it was coarse and large, and evidently that of a man. A muttered curse, too, in the Spanish language, was heard to proceed from within. This was heard but indistinctly. The invalid gazed at the window for some minutes, expecting the return of the beautiful apparition, then as if he had given up all hope, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... volley again, like a man running a metal hammer very rapidly along iron corrugations, and this time people were dropping all over the road. One white-faced man not a score of yards away fell with a curse and a sob, struggled up, staggered for some yards with blood running abundantly from his neck, and fell and never stirred again. Another went down upon his back clumsily in the roadway and lay ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... 27. 'God's curse on his hart,' saide William, 'Thys day thy cote dyd on! If it had ben no better then myne, It had ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and inconsistent with any former act of the legislature of the state; the ultimate consequence of which will prove a lasting curse to vital religion, which every candid and reflecting mind may easily foresee; and we view it as a very bold and desperate effort to effectuate a union between Church and State.... We are induced to believe that Pilate and ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... his name; the which I did. And the bloodhound was still on the mountain, albeit he had long since heard what had befallen; and when the bailiff gave him the orders of the worshipful court, he began to curse so fearfully that it might have awakened the dead; moreover, he plucked off his cap, and trampled it under foot, so that any one might have ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... with curse They hounded on to death's untimely doom. [Footnote: T. L. Harris, Lyrics of the Golden ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... which had been familiar enough in his own mouth a few months ago. But now other words, familiar from daily reading, the words that he had repeated to Tim so short a time before, were being whispered, as it seemed, close by his ear: 'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.' There was a deadly conflict going on in the boy's soul; and Martha's angry words were helping the tempter. He sat down despondently on the door-sill, ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... a being. The sinister truth, like a flash of flame, scorched the eyes of the paralysed woman and penetrated within her with the concussion of a shaft of lightning. Had she been able to rise, to utter the cry of horror that ascended to her throat, and curse the murderers of her son, she would have suffered less. But, after hearing and understanding everything, she was forced to remain motionless and mute, inwardly preserving all the glare ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... she persuaded him in seriousness or in jest, by entreaties or by coaxing, to eat his supper and spend his evening with his family, she had gained but little. Perhaps, touched by the sight of his wife's distress, he would curse his bad habits and promise all that she asked—even more. But to no purpose; he would soon, unexpectedly, find himself in the old ruts again. One is tempted to believe that he could not do otherwise, and that a code of morals, totally different from our ideas ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... trembling! My curse upon the slave who first invented A word which ne'er my Nanna's lips should sully; Thy excusations kill me! I imagined It was a chaste, a maidenish reflection, That made my Nanna blush at our affection: Unmurmuring I obeyed, and kept in secret. Why hast thou ta'en ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... A bitter curse broke from Junes' pale lips. "Police, by God!" he said; "they're too near or I'd shoot all four of you whining swine. Hell! and ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... them:—and why? what was his object? He was, the count declared in answer, a born intriguer, a lover of blood, mad for the smell of it!—an Old Man of the Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; and more—the curse of Italy! There should be extradition treaties all over the world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of his conscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding ghosts, and nothing had opened to them. What was Italy in his eyes? A chess-board; and Italians were the chessmen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fear Allah in your ordinances and beware of oppression, which if it endure depopulateth; and apply yourselves to justice, for justice, if it be prolonged, peopleth a land. Oppress not the True Believers, or they will curse you and ill report of you will reach the Caliph, wherefore dishonour will betide both me and you. Go not therefore about to violence any, but whatso ye greed for of the goods of the folk, take it from my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... God," cried he, "is it then possible that you do not hate me?-Can the child of the wronged Caroline look at,-and not execrate me? Wast thou not born to abhor, and bred to curse me? Did not thy mother bequeath thee her blessing on condition that thou should'st detest and avoid ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... stormy outburst of his soul. He casts upon her a look of withering scorn, the past of that life so chequered flashes vividly through his thoughts, his hate deepens, he hurls her from him, invokes a curse upon her head, and shuts her from his sight. "Mine will be the retribution!" he says, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... "Curse them not," said Neter-Tua, "who are already accursed, and given over to the Devourer of Souls when their time shall come. Make a record of this deed, O Scribes, and do ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... cynical and then serious again. One tries to get there by scheming, one is once more a light hearted child, and again an earnest seeker after one's artistic ideals—not for ambition's sake, not for conviction's sake, cannot help it, because it's a curse which has been laid on one by a cruel omnipotence to which the life-long agony of its creature is a pleasing offering! A pleasing offering, I say, for we whom art enthralls rebel against our lot as little as does the slave of a woman against his seductress, as ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... expression of perfidious hypocrisy in his eyes, and again pouring his words lowly, but distinctly, into her ear. "Do you not fear that he should rise from his tomb, and, showing the bloody wounds of that fatal night, cry for vengeance on his murderers, and curse the weakness of that mother who would screen and shelter them? Do you not fear that Heaven should condemn you as a friend to the destroyers of the righteous? Think on your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... apparent right or position. For Mrs. Travers, Glenn had managed to conjure up a very actual distrust. She was too good-looking and free-acting to be sound; and her misshapen and delicate son was, so the severe man concluded, a curse, in all probability, for past offences. The youth of Kenmore was straight and hearty, unless—and here Nathaniel recalled his superstitions—dire vengeance was wreaked ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... at the foot of the drawers against the brass handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against it. Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-rope, called for the servant with all her might, and she was just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It was the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was indeed betrothed to Barbara Bamberg, Sidonia presented herself once in the choir, kneeled down, and was heard to murmur, "Wed if thou wilt, that I cannot hinder; but a child thou shalt never hold at the font!" And truly was the evil curse fulfilled. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... told me that I was one of those "peculiar" people who just think there is something the matter with them. Is it not strange that with all the advance that has been made in general medicine, little or nothing has been done for the relief of the people born with this curse hanging over them? ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... greater contrast than between this mountainous island of Madeira and the country which we are about to penetrate. This is one of the most delightful climates in the world, the west coast of Africa one of the worst. Once well in the interior, the swamp fevers, which are the curse of the shores, disappear, but African travelers are seldom long free from attacks of fever of one kind or the other. However, quinine does wonders, and we shall be far in the interior before the bad ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... many of them, I believe, well known in England; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes wondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's curse into classic American; if they had done so, only placing (he, Basil Hall,) between brackets instead of (he, Obadiah,) it would have saved them ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... speakers. M. Thomas is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust of the hand accompanied by a muttered exclamation, presumably a curse. Rendering M. Thomas into English, M. Mantoux would sweep back an imaginary wisp of hair with an imprecation which I am confident was a "damn!" Then again, no man can turn on a more irresistibly ingratiating ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Texas. Here were miners and soldiers of fortune and plain tramps. More than one of the shining-eyed gamblers had a price upon his head. Several were outlaws. A score or more had taken part in the rapine and the pillage of the guerrilla warfare that has of late years been the curse of the country. It would have been hard in a day's travel to find an assembly where human life was ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... of walled Uruk. In violent rage she pronounces a curse: "Cursed be Gilgamesh, who has enraged me, Who ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... mien, And baffled rage in his glance is seen. Paler they grow as the hours go by, With the pallor that comes with the summons to die. Slowly fading, and shrinking away, Clutched in the grasp of a gaunt decay, Till the herald of morn on the sky is thrown; Then a shriek, a curse, and a dying moan, Comes from that death-black window there. A mocking laugh rings out on the air, From that darkful place, in the nascent dawn, And the faces that looked from the window are gone. Seventy years, when the Spanish flag Floated above yon beetling ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... are for truth. The hope of the world lies in the middle class—the rich are as ignorant as the poverty-stricken. A way must be devised to reach the rich—I can do it. Inaction, idleness, that is the curse. Life is fluid, and only running water is pure. Stagnation is death. Turbulent Rome was healthy, but quiescent Rome was soft, feverish, morbid, pathological. Now, take Hamlet—what man ever had more opportunities? Heir to the throne—beauty, power, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the holy place of God shall assign them a place where they cannot be seen or understood, or shall erase the writing and inscribe his own name, or shall divide the sculptures (?) and break them off from my tablets, may Anu and Vul, the Great Gods, my lords, consign his name to perdition! May they curse him with an irrevocable curse! May they cause his sovereignty to perish! May they pluck out the stability of the throne of his empire! Let not his offspring survive him in the kingdom! Let his servants be broken! Let his troops be defeated! Let him fly vanquished before his enemies! ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... dry rot—and four men, sometimes silently, sometimes violently cursing their isolation, but always cursing it—afraid in their souls lest they fall to cursing one another aloud as they had begun to curse in their hearts. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... on the subject of Christian assurance in a characteristically outspoken fashion. 'When,' he wrote in old age, 'fifty years ago, my brother Charles and I, in the simplicity of our hearts, taught the people that unless they knew their sins were forgiven they were under the wrath and curse of God, I marvel they did not stone us. The Methodists, I hope, know better now. We preach assurance, as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of God, but we do not enforce it under pain of damnation denounced on all who enjoy it not.' He ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... pouted, envious. "Here there is never anything to call a show. Even when Daud el Barudi married, there were no fine dresses. Every woman present wore the head-veil. I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will not let me—curse their father!" ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Strange, how the house seemed forlorn! 'Something about a baby,' Agg had said vaguely. And it was as though something that Mr. Haim and his wife had concealed had burst from its concealment and horrified and put a curse on the whole Grove. Something not at all nice! What in the name of decent propriety was that slippered old man doing with a baby? George would not picture to himself Mrs. Haim lying upstairs. He did ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... curse of Oro," said the Ancient again. Then followed a terrible spectacle. The man went raving mad. He bounded into the air to a height inconceivable. He threw himself upon the ground and rolled upon the rock. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... so from the first, John Willows, ever since I came to this mill as a boy. You've been a tyrant and a curse to all the poor, struggling people who spent their days under you, not as your servants, but ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... hypo and shoved the needle into his arm. Necrosynth—enough to keep him unconscious for twenty-four hours. He started to curse her, but the drug acted before he ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... was musing with a certain tenseness on these things that the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the first instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of the human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs was running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of your lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large income with his brush and pencil, and spent ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... strategical victory secured by emancipation in Missouri by her consent, will be far more important than any triumph yet achieved by our arms. It is a victory that relieves a great State now and forever from the curse of slavery. It is a victory that secures the whole valley of the mighty Missouri to the Union. It is a triumph that sweeps slavery from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, dissevers the Southern confederacy, and restores the whole Mississippi, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... absent ten years, under the pretense of wishing to see the world, but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which at the request of the Athenians he had made for them. Without his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had bound themselves under a heavy curse to be governed for ten years by the laws which should be imposed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... in the carriage without their traveling companion, and were whirled swiftly along the road to Blois. The Marquise was constantly put in mind of the journey made in 1814, when as yet she know nothing of love, and had been almost ready to curse it for its persistency. Countless forgotten impressions were revived. The heart has its own memory. A woman who cannot recollect the most important great events will recollect through a lifetime things which appealed to her feelings; and Julie d'Aiglemont found all the most trifling ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... solemnly after service, with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. [His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... governed by the despotism of one man, whose word is our law! And that man, they tell us, "is the right man in the right place. He will develop a Union sentiment among the people, if the thing can be done!" Come and see if he can! Hear the curse that arises from thousands of hearts at that man's name, and say if he will "speedily bring us to our senses." Will he accomplish it by love, tenderness, mercy, compassion? He might have done it; but did he try? When he came, he assumed his natural ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... lady Feng assured herself that there was no one about. "How is it," she next asked, "that I'm like a queen of hell, or like a 'Yakcha' demon? That courtesan swore at me and wished me dead; and did you too help her to curse me? If I'm not nice a thousand days, why, I must be nice on some one day! But if, poor me, I'm so bad as not even to compare with a disorderly woman, how can I have the face to come and spend ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Devil's Lead. Oh, Lord! what a fool I was not to have collared that ground before she did; but that infernal McIntosh never would tell me where the place was. Never mind, I'll be even with him yet; curse him.' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... marshes, Learned the songs of winds and waters, Learned the music of the ocean, And the echoes of the woodlands. Many men that live to murmur, Many women live to censure, Many speak with evil motives; Many they with wretched voices Curse me for my wretched singing, Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom, Call my ancient songs unworthy, Blame the songs and curse the singer. Be not thus, my worthy people, Blame me not for singing badly, Unpretending as a minstrel. I have never had the teaching, Never lived with ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... at the question from every side, and not jumping at conclusions before they are warranted by facts. It is true that most of our positive knowledge on this subject would condemn alcohol as being the greatest curse of the ages, but it may be that it has played a beneficent part in the affairs of mankind through devious paths impossible to trace. Unquestionably a drug, the taking of which assists us in momentarily throwing our troubles aside, must be of a certain positive ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... have urg'd (but weigh it, and you'll find 'Tis light as feathers blown before the wind) That Poverty, the Curse of Providence, Attones for a dull Writer's want of Sense: Alas! his Dulness 'twas that made him poor; Not vice versa: We infer no more. Of Vice and Folly Poverty's the curse, Heav'n may be rigid, but the Man was worse, By good made bad, by favours more disgrac'd, So dire th' effects ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... analyst, for the vivisectionist, for those who may transfuse their knowledge of it to the ultimate good of mankind. And although I am so heavily endowed with curiosity concerning the people I find about me, my gift (or curse, whichever it be) knows pause at the gates of the house of calamity. So, if it were possible, I would not speak of the agony of which I was a witness that night in the apartment of my friends at Madame Brossard's. I went ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... country's cause at heart thou wilt hear me in this thing. I will give you back the lords you all love. I will trouble you no more myself. I would I had never seen this evil place. It has been nought but a curse to me from the day it ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... have to marry Big Brother Bill. Why, his very name appeals to me. May I, Charlie?" she went on, turning to the smiling man. "Would you like me for—a—a sister? I'm not a bad sort, am I, Kate?" she appealed mischievously. "I can sew, and cook, and—and darn. No, I don't mean curse words. I leave that to Kate's hired men. They're just dreadful. Really, I wasn't thinking of anything worse than Big Brother Bill's socks. When'll he be getting around? Oh, dear, I hope it won't be long. 'Specially if ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... met; an oath broke from his lips. He made a movement to spring from the well, but as the girl started back, the pistol held in her hand was discharged aimlessly in the air, and the report echoed throughout the courtyard. With a curse Starbuck drew back, instantly disappeared in the well, and Polly fell fainting on the steps. When she came to, her father and Larry were at her side. They had been alarmed at the report, and had rushed quickly to the patio, but not in time to prevent the escape of Starbuck and ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... been the ground of Nancy's difficult resistance to her husband's wish. To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and would be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better without. When you saw a thing was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a bounden duty to leave off so much as wishing for it. And ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... "No, curse him!" cried William Carley savagely. "I've been at him all this afternoon, when you and that woman were out of the room, trying to get it out of him as a loan, without waiting for your promise; but he's too cautious for that. 'The day Ellen gives her consent, you shall have the money,' he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... "Impossible!" and "Curse it!" were the words he had most frequently repeated in the course of his retrospect during the past night and morning. How he had had to rush and hurry under the broiling sun! and the sense of being compelled to do so for mere ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. What can I say, or think, or do? I received a letter from him the day before yesterday. My dear Scrope, if you can spare a moment, do ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... carried it from the raft—apparently unconsciously—and had taken it, fearing to leave it with Flores. He had intended to throw it away in the mountains in some inaccessible place where it could never again curse human lives. This image ought to be final proof as to whether or not Manning could recall anything of his life as a priest of the Sun God or not. If the sight of this failed to arouse his dead memory, then nothing ever could. Of all the things in this life among these mountains no one ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... appropriately terminate our narrative, for the bright days that had begun to dawn on Madagascar have never since been darkened by persecution—though they have not been altogether cloudless or free from the curse of war; for, with its enormous capacities and important position, the island has long been a morsel, coveted by some of what ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Craftily qualified, curse him," he thought; "the fellow's a damned Cassio, and will be fumbling with his right hand and ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ruffian levy once raised upon central India by the ferocious Pindarree, who asked for it with the insolence of a robber, and wrenched it from the recusant with the atrocities of a devil. Here there was no pretence of equivalent given or promised: and this was so exquisite an outrage, a curse so withering, that in 1817 we were obliged to exterminate the foul horde (a cross between the Decoit and the Thug) root and branch. Now between these two poles lie two different forms of mitigated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... same. Borrow had none of these gifts as a letter-writer and no genius for friendship. The charm of his style, so indisputable in his best work, is absent from his letters; and his friends were alienated one after another. Borrow's undisciplined intellect and narrow upbringing were a curse to him, from the point of view of his own personal happiness, although they helped him to achieve exactly the work for which he was best fitted. Borrow's acquaintance with FitzGerald was commenced by the latter, who, in July 1853, sent from Boulge Hall, Suffolk, to Oulton Hall, in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... they slight the crosse, God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them From stupifaction; witnesse my milde pen, Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just. Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but th'art worse, Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse Of black ingratitude; if not, couldst thou Part with miraculous Donne, and make no vow For thee, and thine, successively to pay A sad remembrance to his dying day? Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein Was all Philosophy? was every sinne, Character'd in his Satyrs? Made so foule ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... plenty leaves us so feeble and frivolous, so childish, so impatient, so deaf to all that calls to us from the past and entreats us in the future, that we faint and fail under the stress of our one short effort, then indeed is our Democracy our shame and curse. Let us show now what manner of people we are. Let us be clear-sighted and far-sighted to see how great is the issue that hangs upon the occasion. It is not a mere military reputation that is at stake, not the decay of a generation's commerce, not the determination of this or that party ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... he said, haughtily. "I shall not betray you to Lord Earle. Let him find out for himself what you are, as I have done. I could curse myself for my own trust. Who ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Phantom, "I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... captive hour, To know those spears our foes should dread For me in kindred gore are red: 'To know, in fruitless brawl begun, For me that mother wails her son, For me that widow's mate expires, For me that orphans weep their sires, That patriots mourn insulted laws, And curse the Douglas for the cause. O let your patience ward such ill, And keep your right ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... 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, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Hamish's answer to this gay invitation? The Gaelic tongue is almost devoid of those meaningless expletives which, in other languages, express mere annoyance of temper; when a Highlander swears, he usually swears in English. But the Gaelic curse is a much more solemn ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... is one of the few patriotic outbursts in the seven books of the Wars, and it reads like a cry of bitter regret wrung from the unhappy author at the end of his work. Like Balaam he set out to curse, and stayed to bless, his enemies, and cursed himself. Perhaps this apostrophe hides the tragedy of Josephus' life. Perhaps he inwardly repented of his cowardice, and rued the uneasy protection he had secured for himself. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... that a stranger will take your place at her bedside, that as she has lived without knowing you she will die without that knowledge, or that if through any weakness of yours it came to her then, it would embitter her last thoughts of earth and, dying, she would curse you?" ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... and pious you are, because it may happen that those who, like you, are flung into the storms of life upon the perilous waves of human interests might be tempted to utter blasphemies in the midst of their adversity,—carried away as they are by anguish. Curse neither the men who injure you nor the God who mingles, at His will, your joy with bitterness. Look not on life, but lift your eyes to heaven; there is comfort for the weak, there are riches for the poor, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... us understand the wrong-doing of others enough to point the way, if possible, to better things, not merely to criticise and blame them. Only in such ways can we learn to realize and use the delicate power of sensitiveness. Selfish sensitiveness is a blessing turned to a curse; but the more lovingly sensitive we become to the need of moral freedom in our friends, the Dearer we are ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... that the Church in making this concession has been guilty of self-contradiction. "The Ecclesiastical Council of Moscow," they say, "anathematised our forefathers for holding to the old ritual, and declared that the whole course of nature would be changed sooner than the curse be withdrawn. The course of nature has not been changed, but the anathema has been cancelled." This argument ought to have a certain weight with those who believe in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... resting-place to guard it as long as he might live. When he lay on his deathbed he was implored to reveal where he had hidden it, but he persistently refused to do so, saying that it would be found by the man who was destined to conquer the world, but that he would not be able to escape the curse. Years passed by. Wave after wave the tide of barbarian invasion swept over that part of the country, and last of all came the terrible Huns under the leadership of Attila, the "Scourge of God." As he passed along the river, he saw a peasant mournfully examining his cow's foot, which had been ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... peasantry believe in the existence of small beings, of vaguely defined form, called Zluidni who bring zlo or evil to every habitation in which they take up their quarters. "May the Zluidni strike him!" is a Little-Russian curse, and "The Zluidni have got leave for three days; not in three years will you get rid of them!" is a White-Russian proverb. In a Little-Russian skazka a poor man catches a fish and takes it as a present to his rich brother, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... they had imbibed no liquor to give them false pluck—and, with a final curse, he whipped up his horse and drove away 'with all their teeth' to the barracks, where he left a very useful arsenal, and was never troubled ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... the grain came upon this moving platform these men seized it, bound it into sheaves, and threw it upon the field. Simple as this procedure seemed it really worked a revolution in agriculture; for the first time since the pronouncement of the primal curse, the farmer abandoned his hunchback attitude and did his work standing erect. Yet this device also had its disqualifications, the chief one being that it converted the human sheaf-binder into a sweat-shop worker. It was necessary to bind the ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... just the suggestion of a mustache showing, a blue denim coat fitting close to his figure, and a black silk sash wound around his waist over a flannel shirt with black and green checks. Any woman would be proud to own a boy like that! He was going to be another terror on the lines of that Martinez—curse the wretch—but with more "seasoning," more get-up-and-go, to him. To be sure of that, it was enough to watch the girls in the Cabanal when he was around. They would be willing to scratch each other's eyes out to get him ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... half of Comus and Lycidas, the stately periods of the Decline and Fall, and the severe beauties of Laodamia, to the better influences of academic training on the minds of their authors. Similarly, the richest pages of Byron's work—from the date of The Curse of Minerva to that of the "Isles of Greece"—are brightened by lights and adorned by allusions due to his training, imperfect as it was, on the slopes of Harrow, and the associations fostered during his truant years by the sluggish stream of his "Injusta noverca." ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... in which the woman became more deeply affected by the curse than the man; she not only participated, as a fallen creature, in the diversified calamities which, from the moment of transgression, were entailed upon humanity, but suffered as a female in the conjugal and maternal relationships which ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... estimate money at its true value. If they had earned their money by honest effort they would not have fallen into habits that led to unbridled extravagance and ultimate disgrace. The inheritance of unearned wealth quite frequently proves a curse rather ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... him by the gifts the land Hath won from him and Rome, The riving axe, the wasting brand, Rent forest, blazing home. I curse him by our country's gods, The terrible, the dark, The breakers of the Roman rods, The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... same time the court ladies adopted the fashion of wearing horns as huge in proportion as the noblemen's shoes. The government tried legislating them down, and the clergy fulminated a solemn curse against them; but fashion was more powerful than Church and Parliament combined, and horns and hoofs ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Face Of God, whom to behold was then my heighth Of Happiness! yet well, if here would end The Misery, I deserved it, and would bear My own Deservings: but this will not serve; All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget Is propagated Curse. O Voice once heard Delightfully, Increase and Multiply; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... you now! Ah! you'd sneak away, would you? But it was you, my curse! it was you who made me what I am, brigand! robber! sneak! It ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... out a pipe. He looked at it for one instant, then raised it to his nose. He smelt it, and, with a motion of disgust and a bitter curse, he threw it from him. It reeked of the weed he had ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... be a day when men will curse us because we have not preached more plainly. You can call a spade "a spade" or you can designate it as "an iron utensil employed for excavating purposes," but if you want folks to understand what you are driving at ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... phantasms of two men. Adam. One that sustains, And one that strives, so the ends Of manhood's curse of labor. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... retorted Rachel. "Look you, women make no wars, nor serve therein: nor women be no lawyers, to set folk by the ears: nor women write not great tomes of controversy, wherein they curse the one the other because Nell loveth a white gown, and Bess would have a black. Is the Devil a woman? Answer me that, I ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... have said that they are right who swear there is a curse upon all property taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter upon Chilton Abbey," answered his lordship's grave deep voice from the end of the table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and silent, save ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon |
