"Nigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reading book was Webster's Speller. "When I got him through that," said Uncle Dennis, "I had only a copy of the Indiana Statutes. Then Abe got hold of a book. I can't rikkilect the name. It told a yarn about a feller, a nigger or suthin', that sailed a flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was magnetized and drawed all the nails out, and he got a duckin' or drowned or suthin',—I forget now. [It was the "Arabian Nights."] Abe would lay on the floor with a chair under his head and laugh over them stories by the hour. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... wood scooped out, in shape like an elongated dice box. One end is covered with the skin of a snake or iguana, the other being left open. When this instrument is played upon by a muscular and excited "nigger," a music results which seems to please him in proportion to its intensity; keeping time with these, and aiding with their voices, they kept up their wild dance varying the chant with the peculiar b-r-r-r-r-r-r-oo, ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... massa Capting. P'r'aps it bery presumsheeous in dis yer chile for to speak afore his betters, but as no oder man 'pears to want to volunteer, I's willin' to go in an' win. Ob course I ain't a man— on'y a nigger, but I's a willin' nigger, an' kin do a few small tings— cook de grub, wash up de cups an' sarsers, pull a oar, clean yer boots, fight de Eskimos if you wants me to, an' ginrally to scrimmage around a'most anything. Moreover, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... was nothing except a dance by a nigger. Maybe you wouldn't have thought so much of it. I don't know, though; it did bring down the house. He was called back I don't know how many times. It was like a dance an old fellow on my father's plantation used ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... just like old Pluto, Persephone's prigger; You'll follow Apollo the Younger—that's me! He's sombre as Styx, and as black as a nigger. His lady-love, LONDON! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... my neck to remember, and after that it'll be easy. I'm afraid I'm just naturally lazy, and if I didn't watch myself I'd soon forget all the hard lessons I've learned and get to be like some fat ornary old nigger who's got an ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... machine for saving work, is it? He'd invent that, I'll be bound; let a nigger alone for that any time. They are all labour-saving machines themselves, every one of 'em. No, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... did, my boy. A nigger came round with a little silver tray, covered with tiny gold cups in which was something thick ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... his senses to hear it so brazenly urged that because he happens to think that our fighting and victories may go hand in hand with a measure which is to prevent future war, he is 'opposed to the Administration,' is 'a selfish traitor thinking of nothing but the Nigger,' and altogether a stumbling-block and an untimely meddler. If he protest that he cares no more for the welfare of the Negro than for that of the man in the moon, he is still reviled as an 'abolitionist.' If he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Porgie, Puddin' Pie, Kissed a girl and made her cry! 2. Blue-eyed beauty, Do your mother's duty! 3. Black eye, pick a pie, Turn around and tell a lie! 4. Nigger, nigger, never-die, Black face ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... shifted to Neemuch (Or I might ha' been keepin' 'er now), An' I took with a shiny she-devil, The wife of a nigger at Mhow; Taught me the gipsy-folks' bolee;[2] Kind o' volcano she were, For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white, And I ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... 's the pity! Things have changed sence Reuben an' I was young, an' the very language Abel an' Blossom speak is different from ours. I reckon if old Mr. Jonathan was to ride along these roads to-day thar wouldn't be anybody, unless it was a nigger, to open the gate ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... "Hy, nigger!" exclaimed Martha in desperation, "is you gwine to go back on de Lord cos 'tain't Sunday? How come you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Ranger had to cut brush and build fence and grub stumps and slave like a nigger. I don't believe he ought to. I don't think it's what my people would like to have me do. I always supposed that he just rode around under the trees and made outsiders toe ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Lyceum, there is a very fair Christmas piece, with one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs—one remarkably gay and mad, done in the finale to a scene. Also a very nice transformation, though I don't ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... only thing that roused the father of the family from his sullen moods was my extraordinary acrobatic performances, which also threw the two little nigger boys into hysterics of delight. Father, mother, and children tried to imitate my somersaults, "wheels," and contortions, but came to grief so desperately (once the morose man nearly broke his neck) ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... a superior New York girl at Wellington College who had a great time trying to tease me because I had never seen the ocean. She kept it up so long that I began to feel like a 'po' nigger at a frolic', so I retaliated by asking her if she had ever been to a hanging. I completely took the wind out of her sails, and then confessed that I hadn't either," said ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... There's the nigger serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano organist - I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed - they never would be missed! Then the ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... do you? Ab Lithicum's as big a fool as yore mother was in not callin' a halt. Jest let a man have a little property, an' be a peg or two higher as to family connections, an' he kin ride dry-shod over a whole community. He's goin' thar to-night. Mis' Simpkins was at Lithicum's when a nigger fetched the note. Lizzie was axin' 'er what to put on. She's got a sight o' duds. They say it's jest old dresses that her cousins in town got tired o' wearin', but they are ahead o' anything in the ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... bugs. They are about the size of a sheep tick when empty, but they get on you and suck and suck, till they are full of your blood and size of a grape. Queer things, but ugly. Ista laughed as you would laugh if you saw a nigger afraid of a harmless snake. It's queer that it should be considered a joke when one fears something that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a record could not well be without strong contrasts, and of these unsparing criticism took advantage. Hostile journals delineated Fremont as a shallow, vainglorious, "woolly-horse," "mule-eating," "free-love," "nigger-embracing" black Republican; an extravagant, insubordinate, reckless adventurer; a financial spendthrift and political mountebank. As the reading public is not always skillful in winnowing truth from libel when artfully mixed ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... weeks later he returned to draw out his money. When he presented his check the colored cashier looked at it doubtfully and said: "Sam, you ain't got any money in dis here bank, but I'll look on de books an' make sure." In a minute he came back and said: "Yes, you did have ten dollars; but, nigger, de interes' done eat up ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... they will come; it will be a waste of sleep if they don't. Bah!" he added after a long-drawn yawn. "They won't come—they know better. These nigger spies see a few men on ponies, and away they run to say they've seen a big commando, and hold out their hands for the pay. Take my word for it, there'll ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... sea—a plain without a speck on it. The great black crags at the mouth of the harbor were voiceless and sterile: could anything have been more bleak than the bare uplands on which the pale sun of an English October was shining? The quiet crushed him: there was not a nigger near to swear at, nor could he, at the impulse of a moment, get on horseback and ride over to the busy and interesting and picturesque scene supplied by his faithful coolies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... were muffled. The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be "visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... her. She defended him, she said. "A mistake!" retorted Balzac. "When, in your presence, any one attacks me, your best plan is to mock the slanderers by outdoing them. When some one sneeringly remarked to Dumas that his father was a nigger, he answered: 'My grandfather ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the heat, and listening in silence to Mrs. Mortimer's account of the various happenings of her household: "And didn't I find that good-for-nothing negro wench had been having that man—and goodness knows how many others—right here in the house. I told Ralph I never would have another nigger—but I shall. You can't get anything else half the time. I tell you, Lydia, the servant problem is getting to be ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... horse and jumping through hoops. That was because, at the time, all my knowledge about a compare was derived from a conversation I had had in the house of the Greco family at Palermo. Among the photographs grouped on the wall was one of a pleasant-looking nigger in European costume. I asked who he was, and Carolina said he was an African, a compare. I asked what she meant and she said that her father had held the African's niece at its cresima. The African's name was Emanuele, but she had never known his ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... volcano of revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, "By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotch her here?" "She be white ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... me! Please don't kill poor Cato! He never hurt good Injine in all his life! Please, good, nice Mr. Injine, let me go, and I'll do anyt'ing you wants me to, and lubs you as long as I lib. Please, don't hurt poor nigger Cato," repeated the servant, fairly beside himself ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... and I was sorry for her. I think that, about that time I met her, I was sorry for most people. The shock of Audrey's departure had had that effect upon me. It is always the bad nigger who gets religion most strongly at the camp-meeting, and in my case 'getting religion' had taken the form of suppression of self. I never have been able to do things by halves, or even with a decent moderation. As an egoist I had been thorough in my egoism; and ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the nigger, Dicey, had to be did, an' then he 'lowed thet he wanted the cat did, an' I tried to strike a bargain with him thet if Kitty got vaccinated he would. But he wouldn't comp'omise. He thess let on thet Kit had to be did whe'r or no. So I ast ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... be sold! Jes' like I tells you. My mammy was over to Massa Waite's house las' night, and she hears ober dar dat Massa Robert's gwine to sell off every nigger what ain't workin'—this week!" Estralla's voice had drifted into ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... skelter. By the time they were all in Mrs. Piedmont and Belton had arrived at the step. When Mr. Leonard saw them about to enter the building an angry scowl passed over his face, and he muttered half aloud: "Another black nigger brat ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... the flop of an inch or so of dynamite exploded by a heartless barbarian for the illicit destruction of vivacious fish? Had I not listened with amazement to the buzz of a steamer's propeller and the throb of her engines six miles away when unaccustomed "nigger-heads" of coral showed yellow in the sun? The calm, shallow sea conveyed the sounds with marvellous fidelity and surety. Yet this unaccountable call came from a quarter whence steamers may not venture, and was I not the only whistler within a range ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... though it galls me to be ordered round like a nigger; me with as white a skin as any ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... alike, one after another. And you up in the air, sweeping away to some nook in the forest! Ha! What's that? A wizard! Ha! ha! Known below as a deacon! There is Goody Chickering! How quietly she sent the young people to bed after prayers! There is an Indian; there a nigger; they all have equal rights and privileges at a witch-meeting. Phew! the wind blows cold up here! Why does not the Black Man have the meeting at his own kitchen hearth? Ho! ho! Oh dear me! But I'm a Christian woman and no witch; but those ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like to see the women have their rights, he should have to refuse Mrs. Brown's vote. Here an Irishman called out, "It would be more sensible to let an intelligent white woman vote than an ignorant nigger." Cries of "Good for you, Pat! good for you, Pat!" indicated the impression that had been made. My daughter now went up and offered her vote, which was, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Southun fellers, They're a dreffle graspin' set, We must ollers blow the bellers Wen they want their irons het; 20 May be it's all right ez preachin', But my narves it kind o' grates, Wen I see the overreachin' O' them nigger-drivin' States. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... no mo' use for me, nigger?" The man's voice rumbled softly and threatened like distant thunder. "Yo' got ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... "Don't! It makes me want to get out there again. What colour that was! Opal and umber and amber and claret and brick-red and sulphur—cockatoo-crest-sulphur—against brown, with a nigger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it all, and a decorative frieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise sky." He began to walk up and down. "And yet, you know, if you try to give these people the thing as God gave it, keyed down to their comprehension and according ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a wide, malicious grin of satisfaction. The black messenger who had been started with the news, evidently had not fared well upon the way, and was, but now, arriving. "It's that nigger wanderin' around up hyar," he mused. And then: "I'm goin' to have some fun ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... success, but were buoyant with the prospects of reaching the North. The confederates found it no easy task to watch the negroes and the Yankees too; their attention could be given to but one at a time; as a slave expressed it, "when marsa watch the Yankee, nigger go; when marsa watch the nigger, Yankee come." But the Yankees did not always receive him kindly during the first year of ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... care in what fleet, could come near the Archimandrites when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' yet our Number One mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... there, but it is principally a cotton country. There was an old cuss living over there on that river who was land poor, but had a powerful purty girl. Her old man owned any number of plantations on the river—generally had lots of nigger renters to look after. Miss Sallie, the daughter, was the belle of the neighborhood. She had all the graces with a fair mixture of the weaknesses of her sex. The trouble was, there was no young ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... with "Establishers," for the Kers would not come within such a tainted building as a parochial school—except to a comic nigger minstrel performance, which in Howpaslet levels and composes all differences. So instead they waited at the windows and listened. One prominent and officious stoop of the Kirk tried to shut a window. But he got a Ker's clicky[9] over his head from without, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Hebben's sake no talkee dat. It berry long time ago, and break poor nigger heart to tink ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... by the waifs and strays of our vast vagrant population. On the other hand, it is just as likely that the West Indian negroes picked up 'Duffy' from our own sailors; and that, in fact, Duffy is just the nigger contraction of Davy Jones. There is certainly a very close connection, both in sound and meaning, between the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... any theatre, because they cost nothing. I saw in Leeds, the other Sunday, that in a certain Sunday-school "there will be a sacred drama rendered." It was not a Methodist School. But I know schools where they have "niggers," with blackened faces and banjos. The "nigger troupe of such-and-such a school!" What do you think John Wesley would say if he came to life again? He would drive them out, as Christ drove out those men from the Temple, "with a whip of"—well! I do not think they would ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... Colonel. "These fellows will want to shoot us if they see it is all up. I know their ways, and we must be ready for it. Will you be ready to jump on the fellow with the blind eye, and I'll take the big nigger, if I can get my arms around him. Stephens, you must do what you can. You, Fardet, comprenez vous? Il est necessaire to plug these Johnnies before they can hurt us. You, dragoman, tell those two Soudanese soldiers that they must be ready—but, but——" his words died into ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... several months during the year. On this account the Indians rather set themselves up above the benighted Wallencampers, whom government had not endowed with the privileges of the sanctuary, while they, in turn, made derisive allusions to the "Nigger-camp" minister, and regarded with contempt ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... must be better than mine then. I can't see anything in here. It's darker than a nigger's pocket. Suppose ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... aloud in his glee. "And Emil and Lilienthal, even Timmins, know nothing. It has been a great stroke of nigger luck. This fortune is safe. Now for ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... besides me and one Manila man, and our crews were all natives of some sort or another—Tokelaus, Manahikians and Hawaiians. The skipper of the storeship was a Dutchman—a chicken-hearted swab, who turned green at the sight of a nigger with a bunch of spears, or a club in his hand. He used to turn-in with a brace of pistols in his belt and a Winchester lying on the cabin table. At sea he would lose his funk, but whenever we dropped anchor and natives came ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. [1] De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat. Umph dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' old nigger's feet. ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... said Mr. Grundy, eyeing with pride the easy, far-reaching strides of the big bay. "That's the best horse in my stables, Stone; there can't anything in the county catch him. I've taken premiums with him at every fair in the circuit ever since he was a yearling. It's a day's work for a nigger to drive him to town and back, for he pulls on the lines every inch of the way, and it takes good muscles ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... spears as so many hedgehogs—I dessay they got in the road of a bullet or two. They're always gettin' in the road of things. But we don't talk of shootin' blacks nowadays These parts is too civilised—it's risky. Anyhow, I made them blacks let my cattle alone. And I slaved like a driven nigger, day in and day out, brandin' calves all day long in the dust, with the sun that hot, the brandin' iron 'ud mark without puttin' it in the fire at all. And then down comes the tick, and kills my cattle ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... old negro, with a tallow-candle in his hand, was scanning my face closely. I inquired, "What do you want, old man!" He answered, "Dey say you is Massa Sherman." I answered that such was the case, and inquired what he wanted. He only wanted to look at me, and kept muttering, "Dis nigger can't sleep dis night." I asked him why he trembled so, and he said that he wanted to be sure that we were in fact "Yankees," for on a former occasion some rebel cavalry had put on light-blue overcoats, personating Yankee troops, and many of the negroes were deceived ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... live in Skeaton!" Millicent was frankly amazed. "Why, Skeaton's awful, and the people in it are awful, and Grace is awful. In the summer it's all nigger-minstrels and bathing-tents, and in the winter there isn't a ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... sense, and honor to use, would have had the same effect, and put our country in a very different position from that she occupies at present. He mentioned with pride that he understood the New York Herald called him "the Nigger Captain," and seemed as willing to accept the distinction as Colonel McKenney is to wear as his last title that ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... night That nary 'coon could wollop him in a stand-up barrel fight; We simply smiled and let him howl, for all Mizzourians know That ary 'coon can beat a dog if the 'coon gets half a show! But we'd nestle close and shiver when the mellow moon had ris'n And the hungry nigger sought our lair in hopes ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... American thing in that great American epic is Tom Sawyer's elaboration of an extremely difficult and romantic scheme, taking days to carry out, for securing the escape of the nigger Jim, which could have been managed quite easily in twenty minutes. You know how fond they are of lodges and brotherhoods. Every college club has its secret signs and handgrips. You've heard of the Know-Nothing movement in politics, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... Barney? I suspect that I should be, a little, under the circumstances; perhaps the old Nigger would ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... out of Marigold's enforced humility, but I would be hanged if anybody else should. Sergeant Marigold should instruct those volunteers as he once instructed the recruits of his own battery. So I worked with him like a nigger until there was nothing in the various drills of a modern platoon that he didn't know, and nothing that he could not do with the mathematical precision of his splendid ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... said, bowing obsequiously, "is it yourself that desired my presence? Cricket told me-we call that limber-looking little nigger Cricket-that a lady desired to see me in ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... without stoppin' to look for no gate. I sure jagged myself on the top-wire, frequent, but I never let that there Robinson Crusoe cuss git out of sight till I run him into his a home-corral along with that there man-eatin' nigger ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... eye is caught by a frightful-lookin' female who goes slyin' in an' out, a-organizin' of some grub. She's the color of a saddle, an' Bill can't make out whether she's a white, a Mexican, a Digger Injun or a nigger. An' she's that hideous, this female is, she comes mighty near givin' Bill heart failure. Son, you-all can't have no idee how turribie this person looks. She's so ugly the flies won't light on her. Yes, sir! ugly enough to bring sickness into a fam'ly. Bill can feel all sorts o' horrors ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... he said, fixing on me a stare, which his deeply graven frown rendered the more severe, "you boy, what you think you gwine do, prowlin' round all hours? Hey? You tell dis nigger dat. Heah Ah's been and put you onto all de ropes and give you more infohmative disco'se about ships and how to behave on 'em dan eveh Ah give a green hand befo' in all de years Ah been gwine to sea, and heah you's so tarnation foolish as go prowlin' round de quarter-deck whar you's like ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... new settlement somewheres in Illinois. I got lost in the river when I was a little boy, an' was picked up by a tradin'-boat an' sold for a nearly-white nigger—I s'pose I was ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... which they had been swept by an unexpected sea, gripping rather incoherently at unimportant realities as they assembled themselves. In the edge of the tundra beyond the cottonwoods he noticed three saddle-deer grazing at the ends of ropes which were fastened to cotton-tufted nigger-heads. He drew off his pack as Mary Standish went to help Keok pick up the fallen sticks. Nawadlook was pulling a coffee-pot from the tiny fire. Stampede began to fill a pipe. He realized that because they had expected him, if not today then ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... usually called by the trader, was of real negro blood, and would often say, when alluding to himself, "Dis nigger am no counterfeit, he is de ginuine artikle. Dis chile is none of your haf-and-haf, dere ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... for a cannibal!" exclaimed Tarbox, with a look of horror. "I would as soon think of eating a nigger boy." ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... de key-hole, in de study, war dey axed de osaifer. My 'spicions was roused by de words he 'dressed to me wen I opened de front do', for, you see, dat ole nigger watch-dog ob dern, dat has nebber a good word for nobody, was gone to market, an' Madame Raymond she hel' de watch, an' she sont me from de kitchen to mine de ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... telling me about obscurity of style. But on my life no nigger with lash over him could have worked harder at clearness than I have done. But the very difficulty to me, of itself leads to the probability that I fail. Yet one lady who has read all my MS. has found only two or three obscure sentences, but Mrs. Hooker ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... one-half a demijohn of devil heart whisky ordered up outen that cellar in over a month, and I b'lieve this here no account nigger drunk a pint of that," Mammy added to his answer. "Last month it was two demijohns they had up, and before that it was three or four. That parson done it with readin' and talkin' and hoein'. Glory! I wants to hold my breath and shout at the same time, and I would if I could trust this ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, swelling with pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman robbers, whose blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks down upon common Englishmen as a free American does on a nigger,—I like to see old Stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal pride, and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler. 'Pump and Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a workhouse; ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one mo' chaince,—jes' one mo' chaince. Good Lord! I been a wicked, ornery nigger,—only jes' gimme jes' one mo' chaince. I been a wicked,—Yassuh, Marster Kenneth, I got your boots. Yassuh. Right heah, suh. Oh, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... dat's what wah am, I sho' don' want no mo' wah. Den after dat I jest natchally drifted. I reckon I libbed 'bout eberywhar yo' ebber heard ob, fo' dar want no use ob me goin' back to de East Sho'. Somebody said dat de West am de right place fo' a nigger, an' so ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... "The Nigger of the Narcissus," he said to himself, "for even if she doesn't read the story perhaps she'll read the preface, which not marble nor the monuments of princes will outlive. Dickens' Christmas Stories to introduce her to Mrs. Lirriper, the queen of landladies. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... for the love of high heaven, marry me to-morrow, and let me move you and Father Craddock over into that infernal, empty old barn I keep open as a hotel for nigger servants. ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he said. "If they come from the town, they'd want to get back there in a hurry. If not, they'd steer clear of folks. Onct, when I was in Oklahoma, a nigger went into a house and shot a white man he claimed owed him money. He made his getaway, looked like, and the whole town hunted for him for fifty miles. They found him two days later in the cellar of ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... that we command the respect of others. The story is told of a Negro who, at some time during the War of the Rebellion, being asked why he did not enlist in the army, replied: "De Norf and de Souf am two dogs fightin' over a bone. De nigger am de bone and takes no part in de conflict." That this is not the language of an intelligent Negro is quite evident, if, indeed, it be the language of a Negro at all. So common has it been in this country ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the limit in Washington," said Colonel Manysnifters. "The sassy black rascals seem to think they own the town. And nigger policemen, too! Think of a white man being arrested by ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... snapped out. "I'se nineteen, sah, an' my mother was a slave. I reckon my father was white 'nough, but that don't count fo' much—I'se a nigger just de same. Dat's bad 'nough, let me tell yo', but it's worse to be yo' ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... loss," said he, "but what I do care for is, to be robbed by a nigger. I can endure an injury from a white man; to have a nigger defy ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... nine-thousand-dollar job for a fifty-dollar dinner. Anyhow, he was clean and clean-looking, kindly, humorous and wise above his years—which were thirty-one. And Tony looked to him like a poor runt, Simpkins and Delany were both rascals, Froelich wasn't in court, and he sensed a nigger somewhere. He would have turned Tony out on the run had he had any excuse. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... industrious bumble-bees who were no respecters of persons—would sting an honest delver as quickly as they'd put the gaffles to a scorbutic duke. In about two minutes Mike came over the hill a-whooping like a segment of the Southern Confederacy reaching for a nigger regiment, his head the size and shape of a red peck measure that had been kicked by a ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... women," he rushed on, "an' some ruins other men. He done thet ter me—an' whenever I boggled or balked he cracked his whip anew—an' I wasn't nuthin' but his pore white nigger thet obeyed him. I ached ter kill him an' I didn't even dast ter contrary him. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... probable that he was right, and yet it is difficult not to sympathise with the earnest Republicans who were impatient at his delay, who were puzzled and pained by the free and easy way in which in grave conversation he would allude to "the nigger question," and who concluded that "the President is not with us; has no sound Anti-slavery sentiment." Indeed, his sentiment did differ from theirs. Certainly, he hated slavery, for he had contended more stubbornly than any other man against any concession which seemed to him ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in, But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a nigger's sin. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... here mess, parson. We're goin' to teach this damn nigger a lesson, and I reckon when he's learned it in hell, he won't turn his grin on a white woman again ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long down in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... If I was to be captured at all, Corny, you insulted me when you set a nigger to do the job," said ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... sawdust, do you mean by coming on parade dressed like the ringmaster of a traveling monkey-show, sir? Haven't you any more idea of the honor of wearing a United States sword—the noblest weapon on earth, sir—than to make yourself look like the drum-major of a band of nigger minstrels, sir! A United States officer ought to be ashamed to make a damned harlequin of himself, sir. I'd have you to understand ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... winter and seen the nigger entertainment at the Anglo-Saxon theater. You were there too, my friend. You saw how cleverly we all turned somersaults. Why, you even took part yourself, and you carry about a broken rib as a cherished little memento of the occasion. I saw it ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... you, it's becoming a pretty serious problem. We ought to get together and show the black man, yes, and the yellow man, his place. Now, I haven't got one particle of race-prejudice. I'm the first to be glad when a nigger succeeds—so long as he stays where he belongs and doesn't try to usurp the rightful authority and business ability of the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... remembered how in his palmy days—he had once been the heavyweight champion of New South Wales—he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson—they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... once again emphasized the bewildering effect of a blizzard. They were in the smaller compartment of the main hut completing a set of pendulum observations, while Royds was in the larger compartment—the hut was used for many and various purposes—rehearsing his nigger minstrel troupe. Either because nigger minstrelsy and scientific work did not go hand in hand, or because their work was finished, Bernacchi and Skelton, soon after the rehearsal began, left the hut to return to the ship. Fully an hour and a half afterwards ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... another to a slave-holding State."[654] Nevertheless, even his Democratic colleagues continued to believe that slavery had something to do with his opposition. In the classic phraseology of Toombs, "there was a 'nigger' ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... that nigger about?' said the drummer-boy when Kim returned to the veranda. 'I was ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... "hero" is a tall youth with handsome calves to his legs, who shoots a bull with a fowling-piece, eats a large lunch, thinks it witty to call Othello a "nigger," and, having nothing to live on, and being capable of doing nothing for his living, establishes himself in lunches and cigars forever, by marrying a girl with a fortune. The heroine is an amiable governess, who, for the general encouragement of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ironically, "that if I go down there I'll find he's corraled a nigger," and he looked sorrowfully at the three specimens ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... President! You can't fool me, sah. I sees yer laughin' right now way back dar in yo' eyes. You ain't gwine let 'em shoot me. I'se too vallable a nigger fer dat. I wuz worth er thousan' dollars 'fore de war. I sho' oughter be wuth two thousan' now. What's de use er 'stroyin' er good piece er property lak dat? I won't be no good ter nobody ef ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of the Public is still outside, listening open-mouthed to a comic dialogue between the Showman and a juvenile and irreverent Nigger. Those who have come in find that, with the exception of some particularly tame-looking murderers' heads in glazed pigeon-holes, a few limp effigies stuck up on rickety ledges, and an elderly Cart-horse in low spirits, there is little to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... forward and held out his hand. There was, however, no chance for him in the throng, for he was rudely pushed back, and I heard several angry exclamations of disapprobation from the crowd, at the liberty he had taken, one individual in particular crying out, "Kick that nigger off, what has he to do here." These exclamations caught the ear of the negro gentleman, and he shrunk back in an instant, as if electrified. Mr. Webster was a yeoman-like looking person, of rather a muscular-build, and at one time of life was, no doubt, as ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... your eyes can take it in, sweetheart. At first it would have said almost nothing to you," and she smiled playfully. "In fact, my Paul would have spent most of his time in wondering how he could get exercise enough, there being so few places to walk in! He would have bought a nigger boy with a dish for his father, and some Venetian mirrors for his aunts, and perhaps—yes—a piece of Mr. Jesurum's lace for his mother, and some blown glass for his friends. He would have walked through St. Mark's, and thought it was a tumble-down place, with uneven ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... have plenty of time to forget all you ever knew before we die. We'll spend the rest of our days in that nigger village back there. If I should die first I suppose you'd forget me in ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... replied the major, "depends entirely upon how the people take it. If they hold their peace, then there will be peace. But if these humanity mongers, who would break the peace of the nation to get a new issue on the nigger question, get to kicking up a dust, then there will be no peace. It must certainly be confessed, that niggers ought to thank heaven that they are as well off as they are; and those who say otherwise know not what they say. I also hold it an advantage ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Lyman Ross and John Briggs. We piled our blankets in a pack upon the gentle, four-ounce donkey, and added a little tea and coffee, dried beef and bread, then started for the Yuba River, ourselves on foot. We crossed the river at Park's Bar, then went up the ridge by way of Nigger Tent, came down to the river again at Goodyear Bar, then up the stream to Downieville. This town was named after John Downie, a worthless drunkard. I remember that he once reformed, but again back-slid ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... inform the lady of the house, nigger, that Colonel Hardman and staff have come to take possession of the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... lived in big houses of stone and brick—what brick was Chad could not imagine—and rode along hard, white roads in shiny covered wagons, with two "niggers" on a high seat in front and one little "nigger" behind to open gates, and were proud and very high-heeled indeed; where there were towns that had more people than a whole county in the mountains, with rock roads running through them in every direction ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... thoughtful. Umkopo, as the name suggests, had something to do with the Zulus or Matabeles. His was an extraordinary career, and I may have more to tell you about him in another yarn; but for the present I will merely tell you this, that, though he looked scarcely more like a 'nigger' than any of us three, yet, as a matter of fact, I never for some time really doubted that he was a young Matabele, simply because it never occurred to me to doubt it under the circumstances. He was a boy ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the res' of the fambly step up. What's the matter with Marse Big Josh? An' if he air onable what's the matter with Marse Lil Josh? Yassum, put her in the hall room an' 'fo' Gawd I'll make that ol' Billy keep his feet out'n the oven, if not this summer, nex' winter. He's the orneris' nigger fer wantin' ter sit with his feet ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... is founded upon Roman law, is an extensive subject discussed in the Hidayah and other canonical works. The slave here lays down the law incorrectly but his claim shows his truly "nigger" impudence. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the winter sunshine, the breakers making a ridge of white along the yellow shore. The bathing vans were drawn up on the shingle, and there were no active little figures running to and fro digging castles on the sands, no nigger minstrels and gingerbread stalls and swarms of donkey-boys. All was still and bare and lifeless, and as the short day closed in there was an eeriness about the scene which made the travellers glad to draw ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 'if this don't beat gineral trainin'. I have heerd in my time, broken French, broken Scotch, broken Irish, broken Yankee, broken Nigger, and broken Indgin; but I have hearn two pure genewine languages to-day, and no mistake, rael rook, and rael Britton, and I don't exactly know which I like wus. It's no use to stand talkin' to this ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... same time, he spent a night at Mr. Casey's, three miles from Columbia, South Carolina. Whilst there they heard him giving orders as to what was to be done, and amongst other things, "That nigger must be buried." On inquiry, he learnt that a gentleman traveling with a servant, had a short time previous called there, and said his servant had just been taken ill, and he should be under the necessity of leaving him. He did so. The slave became worst, and Casey called in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... But Nigger rushed about putting up partridges all over the place while Grampus stamped and shouted and every one missed everything, till at last Tom sat down on the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... Mr. Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard at eight o'clock last night by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear tree where nobody would find ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... I knows yer by yer talk and look. I knows a 'Federate well as I does a coon. But dese yere's mighty ticklish times; an' a nigger hab no show ef he's foun' meddlin'. What's yer gwine ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... to form a "troupe." We got up a show—not a very showy show, but a nice little show—and charged a reasonable sum for admission—only a half-penny! The "company" managed, by working together, to possess itself of a creditable wardrobe. But the "Fell-lane Nigger Troupe" did not live long. I, for example, began to soar a little higher, that is to the dramatic stage; but my father evidenced the same bad grace as he did ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... go on foot to being bumped in the haycart. Every one in the depths of depression. Crossed the Nestor, a perfectly magnificent river. Five versts further, then stopped at a farmhouse, pitched tents. Instantly hundreds of wounded. Battle fierce just other side of Nijnieff. Worked like a nigger—from two to eight never stopped bandaging. About ten went off to the position with Molozov. Strange to be back in the little town under such different circumstances. Dark as pitch—raining. Much noise, motors, soldiers like ghosts though—shrapnel all the time. Tired, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical crisis! I conceit their min'stry have got jist about into as considerable a tarnation nasty fix, as a naked nigger in the stocks when the mosquitoes are steaming up a little beyond high pressure. I guess Prince Albert and the big uns don't find their seats quite as soft as buttered eels in a mud bank! Look here—isn't it considerable clear they're all funking like burnt Cayenne in a clay ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... metal screws with one's bare fingers, is not altogether agreeable. It often happens that they must slap their arms about and tramp hard up and down the deck. They are received with shouts of laughter when they reappear in the saloon after the performance of one of these thundering nigger break-downs above our heads that has shaken the whole ship. We ask innocently if it was cold on deck. 'Not the very least,' says Hansen; 'just a pleasant temperature.' 'And your feet are not cold now?' 'No, I can't say that they are, but one's fingers get a little cold sometimes.' Two ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... hung on to since I left home—my own money, mind you! And a harpoon gun! Lord!" he laughed again, "think of it—a harpoon gun! You loaded it with about a peck of black powder. Normally, of course, it shot a harpoon, but you could very near cram a nigger baby down it! And kick! If you were the least bit off balance it knocked you flat. It was the most extraordinary cannon ever seen in Africa, and it inspired more respect, acquired me more ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... have," said he, "and if he don't look like a fool all the time he is a-settin' on the eggs, it's a pity; no soul could help larfin' to see him. Our old nigger, January Snow, had a spite agin one of father's roosters, seein' that he was a coward, and wouldn't fight. He used to call him Dearborne, arter our General that behaved so ugly to Canada; and, says he one day, 'I guess ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... follow the example of their white co-islanders, and plough the sea instead of the land. They make excellent seamen, and sometimes rise to the rank of officers, although few white sailors are sufficiently liberal in their views to approve of being commanded by "a nigger," as they persist in calling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... in QUEER STREET, ma'am, haw, haw! Mulligan, you divvle (in an Irish accent), a glass of wine with you. Wine, here, you waiter! What's your name, you black nigger? 'Possum up a gum-tree, eh? Fill him up. Dere he go" (imitating the Mandingo manner of ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me in a peculiar Yankee drawl: 'I guess, stranger, as I ain't the one to make a man quarrel with his food, more especial when there ain't no more going of the rounds; and as for that there claim, well, she's been a good nigger to me; but between you and me, stranger, speaking man to man, now that there ain't any filthy lucre between us to obscure the features of the truth, I ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... Rupert Gunning, arrayed in a green swallow-tailed calico coat, short white cotton trousers, and a skimpy nigger wig, presented a pitiful example of the humiliations which the allied forces of love and jealousy can bring upon the just. Fanny Fitz has since admitted that, in spite of the wrath that burned within her, the sight of Mr. Gunning morosely dabbing his long nose with the repulsive sponge ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... in. "That nigger is taking the dry rot; he's asleep under the counter half the time. The idea of you delving in the hot sun with a tool that won't cut mud! You oughtn't to chop wood, nohow. You ain't built for it. Your place is in the parlor of some rich man's house, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben |
