"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I believe you realise what your beauty might mean to bless or to curse. But sometimes the hurt comes in spite ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... am ould, and may soon be below the sod, but I will lave it as a legacy behind me that your iniquity shall be proclaimed and made known in high places. While I live I will follow you, and when I am gone there shall be another to take the work. My curse shall rest on you,—the curse of a man of God, and you shall be accursed. Now, if it suits you, you can go up to them at Ardkill and tell them your story. She is waiting to receive her lover. You can go to her, ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... "Curse him; he's busted my best teeth in. Hunt round and find something for a battering ram," cried another voice, but though the assailants had possibly not caught all the answer, they evidently understood the strength of our position, for we ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the curse of America, and for the sake of it men will sell honour and honesty, till we don't know whom to trust, and it is only a genius like Agassiz who dares to say, 'I cannot waste my time in getting rich,'" ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... thee I do impose this taske To crosse proud Venus and her purblind Lad Vntill the mother and her brat be mad; And with each other set them so at ods Till to their teeth they curse and ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... cried the fiddler, his face contorting with anger. "God curse them all!" Muttering and frowning he jerked at his dog. "Come, Papillon, come; we must be getting on, it is late. Petit chien ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... them and attempted to pass through the lines. The column began to move forward. Mr. Sherman slid down the bank with his boy into the grove beside Stephen. Suddenly there was a struggle. A corporal pitched the drunkard backwards over the bank, and he rolled at Mr. Sherman's feet. With a curse, he picked himself up, fumbling in his pocket. There was a flash, and as the smoke rolled from before his eyes, Stephen saw a man of a German regiment ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "But that is just like you! Your impure eyes and heart defile purity itself, and see spots even in the sun. Nothing is too bad for a 'singing girl,' I know. But that is just the marrow of the matter; it is from that very curse that I mean to save her. If you can accuse her of anything, speak; if not, and if you do not want to appear a base slanderer in my eyes, take back the words you have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... forefathers would have termed a mesalliance? What is the value of my birthright now? None,—worse than none. It excludes me from all careers; my name is but a load that weighs me down. Why should I make that name a curse as well as a burden? Nothing is left to me but that which is permitted to all men,—wedded and holy love. Could I win to my heart the smile of a woman who brings me that dower, the home of my fathers would lose ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ants are a curse upon the country; although the hut is swept daily and their galleries destroyed, they rebuild everything during the night, scaling the supports to the roof and entering the thatch. Articles of leather ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... these children face The curse of hate and war's alarm With faith and courage in our hearts And ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... for pardon, and submit to her authority, and she would let them have their seignories, their captaincies, their body-guards, and all the rest of their dignities, with power of life and death over their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse of the English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any definite principle. It threatened, and failed to execute its threats. It fell back on conciliation, and yet immediately, by some injustice or cruelty, made reliance on its good ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... a king lived there whose name was Lion-of-Victory. Fate had made him the owner of all virtues and all wealth. And he had a parrot called Jewel-of-Wisdom, that had divine intelligence and knew all the sciences, but lived as a parrot because of a curse. ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... on as before: only, night and day, its ships lay-to, to pay rent with threat and curse: in all only thirteen ships being sunk ere sea and earth ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... that he would summon a chapter of monks, and pass on the offender a sentence proportionate to his offence. The ministers of civil justice said that would not do. The abbot said it would do and should; and bade them not provoke the meekness of his catholic charity to lay them under the curse of Rome. This threat had its effect, and the party rode off to Gamwell-Hall, where they found the Gamwells and their men just sitting down to dinner, which they saved them the trouble of eating by consuming it in the king's name themselves, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... form sink on thy breast again? If thou shouldst meet with Fortune on thy way, Wouldst thou not follow singing, in her train? What hast thou to regret? Immortal Hope Is shaped anew in thee by Sorrow's hand. Why hate experience that enlarged thy scope? Why curse the pain that made thy soul expand? Oh pity her! so false, so fair to see, Who from thine eyes such bitter tears did press, She was a woman. God revealed to thee, Through her, the secret of all happiness. Her task was hard; she loved thee, it may be, Yet must she break thy ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... the fourth act. Having landed in America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed in Italian costumes, are celebrating, in a quadrille, the victories of Washington, he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to pray for him. Then the curse is removed, the punishment is over, and a celestial vessel, with angels on the decks and "sweet little cherubs" fluttering about the shrouds and the poop, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... citizens of Spain were thus torn from their homes and landed starving on the wild African coast. And Te Deums were sung in the churches for this triumph of Catholic unity. From that hour Spain has never prospered. It seems as if she were lying ever since under the curse of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... don't curse us for barging in like this," Miss Kent apologised, "but my brother is fed to the teeth with me and is going to try and cadge a dance or two off you, Miss Rowe, if you'll ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the Bishop's censure is mild compared to that of an anonymous historian, who writes: "Abbe Loutre, missionary of the Indians in Acadia, soon put all in fire and flame, and may be justly deemed the scourge and curse of this country. This wicked monster, this cruel and blood thirsty Priest, more inhumane and savage than the natural savages, with a murdering and slaughtering mind, instead of an Evangelick spirit, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... "Curse him! we are discovered," exclaimed the steersman of the foremost boat, with a brutal oath. "Spring to your oars, lads! We must gain a footing before the guard turns out or it's all up with ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... condition of things it must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of slavery. They cannot be disunited without abrogating at once the rights of the master, and absolving the slave from his subjection. It constitutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and the free portion of our population. But it is inherent in the relation of master and slave. That there may be particular instances of cruelty and deliberate barbarity where, in conscience, the law might properly interfere, is most probable. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... soul-tellers. From a literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas—the curse of modern literature—and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get the real taste of life—the aroma as from a wine that has been many years in bottle. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... boy," replied the hunter; "an' now I think on it, there's four as jolly trappers in Pine Point settlement at this here moment as ever floored a grisly or fought an Injun. They're the real sort of metal. None o' yer tearin', swearin', murderin' chaps, as thinks the more they curse the bolder they are, an' the more Injuns they kill the cliverer they are; but steady quiet fellers, as don't speak much, but does a powerful quantity; boys that know a deer from a Blackfoot Injun, I guess; that goes to the mountains to trap and comes back to sell ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Curse you, I'll—Ah, it's you, cher ami," he said, beginning fiercely, and changing his tone to a whisper. "No, no, not yet," he continued, "it isn't ripe. Wait, ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... five hundred yards from Shepheard's hotel, he begins to feel that he is really in the East. Within that circle, although it contains one of the numerous huge buildings appropriated to the viceroy's own purposes, he is still in Great Britain. The donkey-boys curse in English, instead of Arabic; the men you meet sauntering about, though they do wear red caps, have cheeks as red; and the road is broad and macadamized, and Britannic. But anywhere beyond that circle Lewis might begin ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Seas—shook his head and said I was trying to wrong myself. The people would be glad to get such a fine boat for two hundred dollars, and that if he and the other head men announced that I had parted with her for a hundred dollars, the entire population of Utiroa would arise as one man and curse them as mean creatures; also they (the people) would refuse to use the boat, and he, Kaibuka, would be regarded as a hog—a man devoid of gratitude to the white man who had been kind to ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... tender years. This tiny deus ex machina has straightway tackled the angry monster, with all the fearlessness of a child, has struck it twice in the face, in a most business-like manner, has piped 'Diam! Diam!'[8]—which sounds like a curse word,—in a furious voice, and finally has hooked his finger into the beast's nose ring, and has led it away reluctant, and crestfallen, but unresisting. Most of us, I say, have experienced these things at the hands of the small boy and the water-buffalo; and, when both have disappeared in the brushwood, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... who was pretty and young, dressed like a lady and avoided patois like a weakness, commonly addressed her child in the language of a drunken bully. And of all the swearers that I ever heard, commend me to an old lady in Gondet, a village of the Loire. I was making a sketch, and her curse was not yet ended when I had finished it and took my departure. It is true she had a right to be angry; for here was her son, a hulking fellow, visibly the worse for drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to hear her unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "The curse of Holy Church is upon them all; they are condemned to hell," he exclaimed with fervor. "A vile pestilence to be stamped out; yet it would afford me joy beyond words could I save this man's soul from eternal torture, and lead him back into the true faith. Mother of God! what was ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... under that pure brow is a dreadful drama. But there are other souls to whom the sight is saddening; and many of those who laugh in public, when withdrawn into themselves and alone with their conscience, curse the world while they despise the woman. Such was the case with Auguste de Maulincour, as he stood there in presence of Madame Jules. Singular situation! There was no other relation between them than that which social life establishes between persons who exchange ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I know—as you will some day come to understand—is not a blessing but a curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which, if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... Deeps of Sheol, anguish-torn, I've hurtled Beauty to a State forlorn, Beauty the Curse, - yet if a Curse it be, With what an Equanimity ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... 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 ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and other counties did their best to follow suit, though with considerable difficulty as to rhymes. I think it was a singer of Tavistock who won the laurels. After disposing of an adjacent rival with the contemptuous jingle, "Dorset—Curse it!" he ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... them bend forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and having put the end of the oar into the water pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and if any of them does not do this or looks about him away from the back of the man before him they curse him in the most terrible manner, but if he does what he is ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... insistently. The orderly on duty dropped his feet from the desk to the floor and lifted the receiver with a muttered curse. ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... Eve, Adam too ate of the forbidden fruit, and the man and woman were driven out of the Happy Garden, and the curse fell upon them because ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... department of thought or action, remember that if to you much is given, from you also much is required, for the responsibility of the lives and happiness of your fellows rests heavy on your shoulders, whether you know it or not and thousands may secretly curse your incapacity and bungling. It is infinitely better to be a good cobbler ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... have lost you: I make no further pretensions to you. But neither shall you have him, sister!" So saying, she took a thorough hold of my head, thrusting both her hands into my locks and pressing my face to hers, and kissed me repeatedly on the mouth. "Now," cried she, "fear my curse! Woe upon woe, for ever and ever, to her who kisses these lips for the first time after me! Dare to have any thing more to do with him! I know Heaven hears me this time. And you, sir, hasten now, hasten away as fast as ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... panting and struggling as if in a vise. It was an odd fight, as we turned and tossed, writhed and twisted among those sharp pointed rocks like two infuriated wild-cats in the dark, neither venturing to break hold for a blow, nor having breath enough in our bodies for so much as a curse. My adversary struck me once with his head under the chin, so hard a blow that everything turned red before me; and then I got my knee up into the pit of his stomach and caused him to quiver from the agony of it; ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he came nearer. He kept therefore his own eyes on the hoe, and never moved until the moment of attack. Then he darted aside. The weapon therefore came down on the hard gravel, jarring the arm of his treacherous enemy. With a muttered curse John followed him and made another attempt, which Abdiel in like manner eluded. John followed and followed; Abdiel fled and fled—never farther than a few yards, seeming almost to entice the man's pursuit, sometimes pirouetting on his hind legs ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... deceit—is there hope for that man in earth or heaven? I have confessed my sin before God and man, and I have suffered the punishment that men have laid on me, and they have let me go; but when will God say, 'It is enough'? What benediction will take away His curse from my soul? What absolution will undo this thing that ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... though I never says anything about it, I often think to myself, that if Tom should chance to be pressed some of these days, and be punished for being in liquor, he'll think of his old father, and curse him in his heart, when he eyes the cat ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the thought of its incalculable value overpowered his intellect. He knew that what he held in his hand was worth more than many years' purchase of an archiepiscopal see; that it would build cathedrals more stately than Ely or Cologne; that he who possessed it was set free for ever from the primal curse, and might follow his own inclinations without concern or hurry, without let or hindrance. And as he suddenly turned it, the rays leaped forth again with renewed brilliancy, and seemed to pierce ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... curse comes fast. Unerring signs are seen In stars above us. There are gods who still Protect unhappy lovers: and our Queen Venus rains fire on ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... would do well to teach its members how to spend as well as how to earn. What, indeed, is the use of higher wages to a certain section of the members of Trades-Unions? The increased pay, instead of being a blessing, becomes a curse; it leads to drunkenness, to wife-beating, to disorder in the public streets, to assaults on the police, to crimes of violence and blood. It is a melancholy fact that the moment wages begin to rise, the statistics of crime almost immediately follow suit, and at no period are there ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... who rides up the hill on bright hot days to seek a friend buried more than a hundred years ago;—the legend of the Habitation Dillon, whose proprietor was one night mysteriously summoned from a banquet to disappear forever;—the legend of l'Abb Piot, who cursed the sea with the curse of perpetual unrest;—the legend of Aime Derivry of Robert, captured by Barbary pirates, and sold to become a Sultana-Valid-(she never existed, though you can find an alleged portrait in M. Sidney Daney's history of Martinique): these and many similar tales might be told to you even on a journey ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The diamonds are of the finest, Antoine, and will sell for much. The blessing of a dying priest upon you if you do kindly, and his curse if you do ill to his poor child, whose home was my home in better days. And for the locket,—it is but a remembrance, and to ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... said. 'Not it. It's more of a tombstone, from all I can make out. They do say there was a curse on him that built it, and he wasn't to rest in earth or sea. So he's buried half-way up the tower—if you can ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... five little ones, one after another," Truide continued. "And Jan was fond of them, and somehow it seemed to sour him. As for me, I was sorry enough at the time, Heaven knows, but it was as well. But Jan said it seemed as if a curse had fallen upon us; he began to wish you back again, and to blame me for having come between you. And then he took to genever, and then to wish for something stronger; so at last every stiver went for absinthe, and once or twice he beat me, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... the company in this manner, with an eloquence peculiar to himself, the cook got up, and after a hearty curse on the poor author of this mischance, who lay under the table with a woful countenance, emptied a salt-cellar in her hand, and, stripping down the patient's stocking, which brought the skin along with it, applied the contents to the sore. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... that Argyll would appear in arms for the Crown, when he deemed the occasion good; meanwhile his heir, Lord Lorne, would join the rising. He did so in July 1653, under the curse of Argyll, who, by letters to Lilburne and Monk, and by giving useful information to the English, fatally committed himself as treasonable to the Royal cause. Examples of his conduct were known to Glencairn, who communicated ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... "Curse it!" muttered Tom; "the painter's caught." He drew out his knife, slashed the rope that bound them to the schooner, got to his place amidships, and pushed the canoe free. The lights of a small boat were just emerging from the dark a dozen feet away. But the canoe slid ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... toward her. One rider pointed in her direction. Silhouetted against the red of the sunset they made dark and sinister figures. Joan glanced apprehensively at Roberts. He was staring with a look of recognition in his eyes. Under his breath he muttered a curse. And although Joan was not certain, she believed that ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... credit from the hearsay of others and the juggler himself encouraged those standing near him to touch him wherever they chose and fire would spring from his body. Sparks sometimes leaped forth from his neck and sometimes from the tips of his ears and everyone was persuaded that the curse had already made its way into every drop of ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... by aught of vengeance that may overtake the wrong-doer; and it is constant. The murdered man, the wronged woman, can find no reparation. What shall one say of the sufferings of children and of the old, and of the great curse that lies in heredity and the circumstances of early life under depraved, ignorant, or malicious conditions? These brutalities, like the primeval struggle in the rise of life, seem in a world that never heard ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... "The curse of it is—that the stuff is there, and that we're the only fellows that can get it out. The Mexicans can't do it. They haven't the brains. All they've got is the guns, and they're making us shell out more than we make. There's ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Why should we forge fetters for our own hands? Why should we be the slaves of phantoms. The darkness of barbarism was the womb of these shadows. In the light of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. They have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. They made the cradle a curse, and the grave a ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... ground and scrub. A mile further it was necessary to dismount and proceed on foot. No opposition was encountered, though the attitude and demeanour of the natives was most unfriendly. The younger ones retired to the hills. The elder stayed to scowl at, and even curse us. The village cemetery was full of property of all kinds, beds, pitchers, and bags of grain, which the inhabitants had deposited there under the double delusion, that we wanted to plunder, and that in so sacred a spot it would be safe—were such our ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... help? Cholera at Capoo might mean cholera everywhere in this new unknown country. What about the women and children? The Wandering Jew was abroad; would he wander in our direction, with the legendary curse following on his heels? Was I destined to meet this dread foe a third time? I admit that the very thought caused a lump to rise in my throat. For I love Thomas Atkins. He is manly and honest according to his lights. It does not hurt me very much to see him with a bullet through ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... never conceived you could become indifferent. Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... greatest blessing for parents and for the State, whilst children without religion are the greatest misfortune, the greatest curse that can come upon parents and upon ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... that he (Bhima) should not pass that way, (Hanuman) lay across the narrow path, beautified by plantain trees, obstructing it for the sake of the safety of Bhima. With the object that Bhima might not come by curse or defeat, by entering into the plantain wood, the ape Hanuman of huge body lay down amidst the plantain trees, being overcome with drowsiness. And he began to yawn, lashing his long tail, raised like unto the pole consecrated to Indra, and sounding like thunder. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... gain This man the needy will sustain. Your mother, if an honest dame, Has not retained her wedlock fame; No part is Mac from top to toe, You're either Rose or else Munro. When to the house you turned your face, Let it be told to your disgrace, 'Twas for the dregs you had forgot, The Poet's curse be in your throat. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... Tressilian, from very weariness, stood still, and was about to abandon the pursuit with a hearty curse on the ill-favoured urchin, who had engaged him in an exercise so ridiculous. But the boy, who had, as formerly, planted himself on the top of a hillock close in front, began to clap his long, thin hands, point with his skinny ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... way with us, too," said I, "but it is the rebel 'Grants' we curse, and the Ethan Allens and John Starks, and treacherous Green Mountain Boy's, who would shoot us in the backs or make a dicker with Sir Henry sooner than lift a finger to obey the laws of the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... frizzling in it for the past six months, more or less; ever since I came home with the one sole, single determination to climb out of the panic ditch if I had to make steps of dead bodies or lost souls. I'm doing it, and I'm paying the price. Sometimes I can find it in my heart to curse the mistaken mother-love that gave me to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I'm pagan in all else, but I can't sin like a pagan. Why is it? Why can't I be a smug, peaceful, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow? Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay? The present is hell! and the coming to-morrow But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the boats behind began to curse loudly; for "Malbrouck" was no popular air with the English. But Bateese took ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... common are various kinds of hawks, including some very much like the great bustard, English brown buzzard, and osprey falcon, and two or three kinds of parrots and cockatoos, the green parrots being the curse to agriculturists, eating all the maize, as the locusts do in ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... know that there is an absolute difference between right and wrong, and that you ought to be enlisted on the side of the right. You know that it is your part to help and not to hinder, to bless and not to curse, to lift up and not ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... waterfront where they sell fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The Dogfish ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... "'You would not curse her?' he said quickly. "'Not even that' she answered, smiling a little. 'And if you will not tell me, I will die even content with that, since it ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... found at that page in the book: "Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... Yonkers, New York, at the select home of Mrs. W.B. Hemingway and her husband. How little we think when we had ought to be thinking our darndest! Me? I just went on playing them two records, the male barytone and the lady mezzo, and trying to curse that Chinaman into keeping the kitchen door shut on his cooking, with Wilbur dropping in now and then so him and Nettie could look at his photo, which was propped up against a book on the centre table—one of them large three-dollar ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... most dreary; vast ranges strewn over with huge blocks of sandstone, rose in desolate grandeur around; chasms, ravines, and thirsty stony valleys yawned on every side; all was broken, rugged, and arid, as if the curse of sterility had fallen on the land; in short, the contrast was complete between this desert place and the country we had so lately traversed up the river. I was able, accordingly, to procure nothing in the shape of a fresh meal, save a few black cockatoos ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... she's what she is. There's some girls here in town,"—the old lady grew choleric,—"you'd think butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, an' they try to sit on Dawn. It's because they're jealous of her, that's what it is. I wouldn't own 'em! They'd run a man into debt and be a curse to him; but there's Dawn, the man that gets her, he'll have a woman that will be of use to him ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... before me, for I shall never receive good counsel from thee. The King then took the Cid by the hand and led him apart, and said unto him, Thou well knowest my Cid, that when the King my father commended thee unto me, he charged me upon pain of his curse that I should take you for my adviser, and whatever I did that I should do it with your counsel, and I have done so even until this day; and thou hast alway counselled me for the best, and for this ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... He could only grind his teeth and curse Sweet Briar gulch from the deepest pot-hole in the bed-rock to the top of its loftiest pine. He drew out her photograph, and obtained much sweet consolation by thinking how happy they two would be in Sweet ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... up and go out and there was left in his mind a picture that he could never forget. The face which had been so cruelly, so grotesquely revealed was that of Frenchy McAllister, and across his knees lay a heavy caliber Winchester. A curse escaped from the lips of the outlaw; the man on the stump spat ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Dutch and English engineers. Quagmire and quicksand, stagnant pool and sluggish stream, succeed in weary iteration. Bleached skeletons of dead trees writhe in weird contortions against the dark background of jungle, as though some wizard's curse had blighted life and growth amid the rank vegetation rising from this dismal Slough of Despond. The brooding melancholy of atmosphere and scenery penetrates mind and soul, oppressed by an intangible weight, and escape from ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... play Sharpe in these matters, I dodge all the bricks and spittoons— (Curse that bull-dog! he's torn to tatters The seat of ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... in such a cause. I am not vengeful, but my son was no wizard. Yet the Inquisitor took him and had a confession from him; you know well the worth of such confessions. And soon there will be others, for when the curse strikes a family it does not stop with one member." He tightened his lips. "It is not for myself I am afraid," ...
— Wizard • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... him!" she repeated, with a fierce moodiness that was quite dreadful, "yes, I hate him! and I would kill him, like that rat, if I could! He has been the curse of my whole life; he has made life cursed to me; and his heart's blood shall be shed for it some ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... old body," said the man in black, "and little cares what her children say, provided they do her bidding. She knows several things, and amongst others, that no servants work so hard and faithfully as those who curse their masters at every stroke they do. She was not fool enough to be angry with the Miquelets of Alba, who renounced her, and called her 'puta' all the time they were cutting the throats of the Netherlanders. Now, if she allowed her faithful soldiers the latitude of renouncing ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... ill, The woe of man, that first created curse, Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins, Proud, disdainful, cruel and unjust, Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles, Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds; And in their hearts sit shameless ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... stricken to death, but he would not fall unavenged. With his great sword Hautclere he smote the Caliph on his head and cleft it to the teeth. "Curse on you, pagan. Neither your wife nor any woman in the land of your birth shall boast that you have taken a penny's worth from King Charles!" But to Roland he cried, "Come, comrade, help me; well I know that we two shall part ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... year, and before he could go to the province allotted to him as quaestor in Sicily he had to stand a trial for sacrilege. Such an offence—penetrating in disguise into the house of the Pontifex Maximus, when his wife was engaged in the secret rites of the Bona Dea—would place him under a curse, and not only prevent his entering upon his quaestorship, but would disfranchise and politically ruin him. Clodius would seem not to have been a person of sufficient character or importance to make this trial a political event. But not only had he ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... curse! Out of my sight—and may Heaven's wrath pursue you!" thundered the commodore, shaking with grief ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... would turn away his f toe, and stand alone in his field, blinded by the salt drops in his eyes, weeping at his own weakness. And when he was quite alone, he would stamp his foot on the ground, and throw abroad his arms, and curse himself. What Nessus's shirt was this that had fallen upon him, and unmanned him from the sole of his foot to the top of his head? He went through the occupations of the week. He hunted, and shot, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... CHESTERTON: "Have always maintained that patriotism is the curse of the criminal classes. Will contribute ten guineas to National Fund for Indigent Burglars Whose ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... conspirators, our arch of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to be a burden to my father; were it not for this fear I should return home at once. I am often in such a mood that I curse the moment of my departure from my sweet home! You will understand my situation, and that since the departure of Titus too much has fallen ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... be it Roman, be it worse, When Pelhams reigned in George's name Poets were safe from sneer or curse Who gave a patriot classic fame, And goodness, void of passion, knit The hearts of Lyttelton ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... power, Conquerors who waste, or ruffians who devour: Had these possess'd, O Cook! thy gentle mind, Thy love of arts, thy love of humankind; Had these pursu'd thy mild and lib'ral plan, Discoverers had not been a curse to man! Then, bless'd Philanthropy! thy social hands Had link'd dissever'd worlds in brothers' bands; Careless, if colour, or if clime divide; Then lov'd and loving, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... in me 'eart lyin' there watchin', an' I can't speak, no! I can't even curse the yellow rat, an' I can't move—not a 'and, not a foot! Just as she fell there right up against the joss an' 'er blood trickled down on 'is gilded feet, old Ma Lorenzo comes staggerin' in. I remember all this as clear as print, mates, remember it plain, but wot 'appened next ain't so good an' clear. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... 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 ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... and meat of his hungry children squandered and sacrificed with a fiendish recklessness. Within the dingy walls of the Ace of Spades was bartered the domestic happiness of many a home that had been cheerless enough, God knows, without this extra curse. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... usual crop of one-idea parties. The Prohibitionists, a unit now, took the field on the "army canteen" issue, making much of the fact that our increased export to the Philippines consisted largely of beer and liquors to curse our soldiers. The anti-fusion or "Middle-of-the-road" Populists, the Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist-Democrats, and the United Christian ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... should returne with them for to make the sayd answere. Then the great master or they departed (prolonging the time as much as he might) aduised to send a letter to the great Turke, the which his grandfather had written or caused to be written. In the which letter he gaue his malediction or curse to his children and successours, if they enterprised to besiege Rhodes. The sayd Robert Perruse bare the sayd letter, and as he was accustomed, he went to Acmek Basha for to cause him to haue audience, and to present the sayd letter. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... are all anti-social. All! They are all a curse to the country and to all mankind." F.F. had already rung the bell, and he now beckoned coldly to the waitress who entered the room. "Everybody who supports the present Government is guilty of a crime against human progress. Bring me a glass of that brown sherry I had yesterday—you ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... the first man was a traveler, and that he and his family were scarce settled in Paradise before they disliked their own home, and became passengers to another place. Hence it appears that the humor of traveling is as old as the human race, and that it was their curse from the beginning. By this discovery my plan became much shortened, and I found it only necessary to treat of the conveyance of goods and passengers from place to place; which, not being universally known, seemed proper to ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... defiance with thee: I'll lay the wickedness of all people upon thee, though thou art never so innocent; I'll convert thy bawds and whores; I'll Hector thy gamesters, that they shall not dare to swear, curse, or bubble; nay, I'll set thee out so, that thy very usurers and aldermen shall fear to have to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... of what is intended here to be aware what mischief may be worked by hard swearing, a violent press, and a jury not insensible to public opinion—evils, if you like, but evils that are less of our own growing than the curse ill-government has brought upon us. It has been decided in certain councils—whose decrees are seldom gainsaid—that an example shall be made of Captain Gorman O'Shea, and that no effort shall be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish landowners; how they attempt ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Hervey uttered a curse, and, plunging past the trio, careless of the leveled weapons, ran down to the end of the jetty, and, throwing his arms round Date, leaped with him into the sea. They fell just beside the boat, as Random ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... one of injured innocence; he surveys them more in sorrow than in anger, while John is on fire with wrath and indignation, and hurls maledictions at him; but Ivan, poor Ivan, hurt beyond all hope or help, is utterly mute; he does not utter one word. Of what use is it to curse the murderer of his wife? It will not bring her back; he has no heart for cursing, he is too completely broken. Maren told me the first time she was brought into Louis's presence, her heart leaped so fast she could hardly breathe. She entered the room softly with her ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of us, except Potter, drank iced water instead of wine whenever we stopped eating for an instant, or couldn't think of anything particular to say; and the more we had the more we seemed to want. There was a kind of iced-water curse ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... transport yearly four hundred million tons of sediment, or about twice the amount of material to be excavated from the Panama Canal. This material is the most fertile portion of our richest fields, transformed from a blessing to a curse by ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... mere accident of sex. I tell you he is just the sort of idiot the Germans have been longing to get hold of and twist round their fingers. Before twelve months or two years have passed, you'll curse the name of that man, when you look at the mess he has made of the army. Peace is all very well—universal peace. The only way we can secure it is by being a good deal stronger than ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the grease. He prepared some in this way, and I thought it a most delectable dish. Another way of stimulating the palate was to boil the beef in a solution of bacon grease and water, and then, while eating it, "kid yerself that it's Irish stew." This second method of taking away the curse did not appeal to me very strongly, and Shorty admitted that he practiced such self-deception with very indifferent success; for after all "bully" was "bully" in ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... departure ... he ... intreated me to give a favourable report of the country and the magistrates thereof, adding that those that blessed them God would blesse, and those that cursed them God would curse." And that "they were a people truely fearing the Lord and very obedient to your majestie." [Footnote: Hutch. Coll., Prince Soc. ed. ii. 248.] And so the royal messenger was dismissed in wrath, to tell ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... cannot hold their heads under the influence of sudden riches. They immediately begin to degenerate. They have become so used to humble circumstances that wealth is a curse. Here is ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... daily gaining new strength and fresh allies, the Negro faces no enviable dilemma. Conscious of his impotence, and pessimistic, he often becomes bitter and vindictive; and his religion, instead of a worship, is a complaint and a curse, a wail rather than a hope, a sneer rather than a faith. On the other hand, another type of mind, shrewder and keener and more tortuous too, sees in the very strength of the anti-Negro movement its patent weaknesses, ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... automobile—not Mendoza's shabby little Ford—but a big car with two large headlights. It was turned across the road and not a soul was in sight. Scott took his foot off the brake and with a muttered curse let the ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... why, my dearest Miss Howe, of a creature, who, in the world's eye, had enrolled her name among the giddy and inconsiderate; who labours under a parent's curse, and the cruel uncertainties, which must arise from reflecting, that, equally against duty and principle, she has thrown herself into the power of a man, and that man an immoral one?— Must not the sense ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... 'treating' is termed in the colonies, is the curse of the Northern goldfields. If you buy a horse you must shout, the vendor must shout, and the bystanders who have been shouted to [more usual, for] must ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... respect. Next day, when Sakuntala is deeply absorbed in thoughts about her absent lord, the celebrated choleric sage Durvasa comes and demands the rights of hospitality. But he is not greeted with due courtesy by Sakuntala owing to her pre-occupied state. Upon this, the ascetic pronounces a curse that he whose thought has led her to forget her duties towards guests, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though on evidence of no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men. Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping, unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was. Captain Stewart and another provincial bore him between them to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... my freedom. Most bad language is from a like cause. When you foozle on the first tee there is no earthy reason why you should say 'Hell' rather than 'Onions'! But if onions had been taboo when you were a child you would find yourself using the word as a swear. The curse word is the link that joins your foozle with the nursery; whenever you curse you regress, that is, you ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... simplicity, he took to himself a native wife, and, by reason of the connubial bliss that followed, he escaped the unrest and vain longings that curse the days of more fastidious men, spoil their work, and conquer them in the end. He lived contentedly, was at single purposes with the business he was set there to do, and achieved a brilliant record in the service of the Company. About ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... ever discontent, Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent; Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state, And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate; New lords they madly make, then tamely bear, And softly curse the tyrants whom they fear. And one of those who groan beneath the sway 230 Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey, (Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spite, With scandal arm'd, th' ignoble mind's delight) ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... water lake, to be devoured, perhaps, by an ichthyosaurus. Prayers and curses seemingly had produced the desired effect; indeed, the pilot's anathematizing was prayer; but such prayer is not by any means to be recommended. It would be as well to curse as only to pray when fear is excited. Prayer, doubtless, often is, but never ought to be, the effect of fear. Prayer should be the holy offering up of reasonable desires to the Creator, and in times of danger there should be confidence in the Creator as all powerful, and in ourselves as the instruments ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... your hairts that keeps ye," roared Sandy hoarsely; "curse ye, ye are sure to dee ane day, and ye are sure to be——!" (a past participle) "soon or late, what signifies when? Oh! curse the hour ever I was born amang sic a cooardly crew." (Gun ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this—that the inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... for ever. Curse me if I can call him Mr. Serjeant—except, mark me, in company. Honour where honour is due; but should he ever visit us, (do you think he ever will, Mary?) what a distinction should I keep up between him and our less fortunate friend, H.C.R.! Decent respect ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the fount of our dishonour? Was it a father's buried sin? Brought his mother a curse upon her? ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... before me is the utmost our time will allow of that inquisition into opinion which has been the curse of Christianity ever since the State took Providence under its protection. The writ de haeretico commiserando is little more than the smell of the empty cask: and those who issue it may represent the old woman ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... upon that moonlit grass—thoughts of the past made his whole being tremble. He thought of what his boy had been to him; he thought of what he had been to his boy. He seemed to see his past life acted out before him in a moving picture, and in all he saw himself a curse and not a blessing—time, money, health, peace, character, soul, all squandered. And still the picture moved on, and passed into the future: he saw his utterly desolate home—no boy was there; he saw two empty chairs—his Betty was gone, dead of want and a broken heart. ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Pope, when he had got up over the churches, give forth both oath and curse, with bell, {472} book, and candle? And was not the ceremony of his oath, to lay three fingers a-top of the book, to signify the Trinity; and two fingers under the book, to signify damnation of body and soul if they sware falsely? And was not there a great number of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... likely such small fry of human beings could live long. So, the good Bishop Guy, of Utrecht, when he heard that the beggar woman's curse had come true, in so unexpected a manner, ordered that the babies should be all baptized at once. The Count, who was strict in his ideas of both custom and church law, insisted on ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... religious and instructive works. I pretended to devote myself assiduously to study, and I thus gave him convincing proof of the moral reformation he was so anxious to bring about. It was nothing, however, but rank hypocrisy—I blush to confess it. Instead of studying, when alone I did nothing but curse my destiny. I lavished the bitterest execrations on my prison, and the tyrants who detained me there. If I ceased for a moment from these lamentations, it was only to relapse into the tormenting remembrance of my fatal and unhappy love. Manon's absence—the mystery in which ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... sober; the relief his absences had been was denied her entirely; and in some sunny corner of the uninhabited rooms up-stairs she spent her days, toiling at such sewing as was needful, and silent as the dead, save as her life appealed to God from the ground, and called down the curse of Cain upon a head she would have shielded from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... spirit haunts him, Till his days are sadly ended Hanging on the loathsome gallows. Here is revel mirth and gladness, And gay scenes, where flock the simple. They are simple who, allured, Follow Pleasure's fleeting phantom. They are led deluded onward, Till it is a curse unto them, And they have not power to leave it. They are led to low desires, Craving unto lust and evil; As the drunkard and profaner, As the vile and the licentious Glory in plebian language, With their sharp tongues dipt in slander, And their ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... family-honors is little disposed to accept them, and has already some suspicion of the deception as respects her, I may be compelled to appear in order to protect the offspring of my unoffending sister from the curse." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Curse this weather," the Lieutenant muttered, wrinkling his eyes in a vain endeavour to see through the murk. "We've been forty-eight hours on patrol, and now we're due to go into harbour this beastly fog comes down and delays ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... Then said Sir Galihud unto Sir Launcelot: Sir, here be knights come of kings' blood, that will not long droop, and they are within these walls; therefore give us leave, like as we be knights, to meet them in the field, and we shall slay them, that they shall curse the time that ever they came into this country. Then spake seven brethren of North Wales, and they were seven noble knights; a man might seek in seven kings' lands or he might find such seven knights. Then they all ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... and contented in their condition, that between master and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while at the same time they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very mention of human rights as applicable to men of color. The impression produced upon ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... only know thee humble, bold, Haughty, with miseries untold, And the old curse that left thee cold, And drove thee ever to the sun On blistering rocks ... Thou whose fame Searchest the grass with tongue of flame, Making all creatures seem thy game, When the whole woods before thee run, Asked but—when all is said and done— To lie, untrodden, in the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "Better had he died at once! Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense—for the Creator never made another being so sensitive as this—he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heartstrings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. But he ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... well-groomed son of a politician would come up from the Capital, and, in the capacity of Government expert, condemn it all. Then strong men would eat their whiskers and the weaker ones would grow blasphemous and curse the country that ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... Poor chaps! They were dying for a smoke. Well, I have always got a good deal of satisfaction from knowing everybody was glad I came into the world. My father was dancing mad to get home and tell all the folks that the curse was lifted. He promised my mother anything; a home in London was one thing. He said he would quit the sea, for another. And he kept his word too. He was going on fifty-five, and had been at sea for thirty-eight years. Think ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... had paid unconscious homage to their freedom from the despicable vice. In those days, when in the civil struggle it was so difficult to distinguish friends from foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly, indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... that terrible and mysterious power which the spirits of the dead have, to haunt the living. That voiceless soul had cried to the wornout soul of the sleeper; it had uttered its last farewell, or its reproach, or its curse on the man who ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... away with a savage curse upon his lips. The cold contempt struck him and pierced the hide of his indifference as nothing else could. But he was going to have his revenge. The time was near at hand when Beatrice would either have to bend or break, Richford did not care which. It was the only ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... despatched Arthur himself,—not to say, that, when you require that a delicate piece of work should be done, you must do it with your own hand, or you may be disappointed. John did the utmost that he could do to keep up the discredit of the family; for, when a man has no son to whip and to curse, he should not be severely censured for having done no more than to kill his nephew. Men of large and charitable minds will take all the circumstances of John's case into the account, and not allow their judgment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... of all Ages to succeed, but feeling The Evil on him brought by me, will curse My Head, ill fare our Ancestor impure, For this ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... tobacco and it cost him many a struggle and much determined effort. In writing to Wordsworth he says:—"I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my 'Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years. I have had it in my head to do it (Farewell to Tobacco) these two years; but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... insult, and are 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 role as tyrant, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... their knowledge to themselves, and waited, as we know now, with a bitter anxiety and fear for what events might bring. For the great politicians were, for the most part, then, as now, afraid of liberty, and looked on it as being very much of a curse ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray |
