"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more important use than this—to afford shelter to a few little birds and to the solitary man that watched them—from the bleak wind. Many a strange Roman curse on this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard. Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth. They were uncovering a small portion of that ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... in peace, O man of wrath and evil, but know that the curse of the Church shall follow you. I say that you stand ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... curse Beppo seized the child by one arm, swung her round and dealt her a savage box on ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... me, neighbors!" at last he cried,— "What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin, To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me,—I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!" Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... probably, even in his youth, it had been a woman's gewgaw, useless, but allowable as tending to her happiness. Now the door was never even opened before his eye. His last interview with Carry had been in that room,—when he had laid his curse upon her, and bade her begone before his return, so that his decent threshold should be no ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... that impious race, Those slaves of Fire, that moan and even Hail their creator's dwelling place Among the living lights of heaven; Yes! I am of that outcast crew To lean and to vengeance true, Who curse the hour your Arabs came To desecrate our shrines of flame, And swear before God's burning eye, To break our country's chains ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the children of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse. ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... go and play right sadly, To my mother's door begone, And sing: Here is thy daughter, Whom thou didst curse to stone." ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... to thank for this," he shouted. "Curse you, you eavesdropping spy. But there are surprises in store for you, my friend. You've got me, it seems, and you say you've got the will. You'll find it more difficult to lay your ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... you supped with him at table the same day, you were compelled to eat with as good a countenance as though you had tasted nothing since the previous night. He was as inconsiderate in other and more delicate matters; and ladies, in his long drives and stations, had often occasion to curse him. The Duchesse de Chevreuse once rode all the, way from Versailles to Fontainebleau in such extremity, that several times she was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... languishing in durance vile under the yellow flag. Several times the first-class, up-to-date, effective artillery of his countrymen, being brought to bear upon the gaol, had caused the captive to bound like the proverbial parched pea, and to curse with curses not only loud but fervent the indiscriminating ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... dreadful fits of insanity she would bewail the living as worse than dead, and pray God to take them away. Then she would curse herself for being the mother of slave children, declaring that it would be far better to see them die in their childhood, than to see them grow up to suffer ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth, and the inclemency of the heavens, and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... intoxicated but the name of Philibert roused his anger. He set his cup down with a bang upon the table. "I will not taste a drop more till he is gone," said he; "curse Galissoniere's crooked neck—could he not have selected a more welcome messenger to send to Beaumanoir? But I have got his name in my list of debtors, and he shall pay up one day ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... he added, and his voice was reverent. "This will do the work of the world: it will make a new heaven and a new earth! Oh, I have dreamed dreams," he exclaimed, "I have seen visions. And it has been given to me—me!—to liberate man from the curse of Adam ... the sweat of his brow.... I can't realize it even yet. I—I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... If he could only endure the pain and the hemorrhage a few minutes longer he could reach and push open the door of his cabin, and give his imprisoned friend a chance for life. He dragged himself on with unfaltering resolution, and with his silent lips closed tightly. Not a groan nor a curse nor a prayer escaped him. He stuck to his task with the grim fortitude of the wolf who gnaws his leg free from the trap. All his thoughts and all his fast-vanishing strength were concentrated on the effort to save the creature ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Seven Gables," which Hawthorne himself was inclined to think a better book than "The Scarlet Letter." Certainly this story of old Salem is impeccably written and its subtle handling of tone and atmosphere is beyond dispute. An ancestral curse, the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children, the gradual decay of a once sound stock, are motives that Ibsen might have developed. But the Norseman would have failed to rival Hawthorne's delicate manipulation of ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... children, and afterwards to smite him with a loathsome and distressing disease. Thus stripped of every thing that could make life valuable, he still holds fast his integrity, and returns to his wife, who counsels him to "curse God and die," the discreet and pious answer: "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" His three friends, who have come to comfort him, amazed and confounded ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... are happy and contented in their condition; that between the 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 on the slave-trade, curse Great 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 ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... in the battle [Footnote: The objector urges "why should our good or evil deserts oblige God to act in a certain way?" He answers by referring to the well-known legend given in the Bhâgavata Purâ.na, viii. ch. 2-4. A certain king, named Indradyumna, became an elephant through Agastya's curse. One day, while drinking in a lake, he was seized by a crocodile, and the struggle lasted for a thousand years. At last, in despair, he prayed to Vish.nu, who came down mounted on Garu.da and killed the crocodile. ...
— The Tattva-Muktavali • Purnananda Chakravartin
... I've got your Bargeman's clothes, tore this way and that way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spattered all over with what bust from the blows. I've got them, and I've got you. I don't care a curse for the T'other governor, alive or dead, but I care a many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me and was a sly devil agin me, I'll be paid for it—I'll be paid for it—I'll be paid for it—till I've ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... never mind; it can't be helped," the native answered. Then I exploded. I frankly confess that I cursed that Chinese and all his ancestors; which is the only proper way to curse in China. I assured him that he was an "old rabbit" and that his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather were rabbits. To tell a man that he is even remotely connected with a rabbit is decidedly ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the 'oly Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to Him not to curse ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him something for his daughter's sake. The idea of his having such a daughter! What rubbish is this we artists talk of birth and beauty! Neither in life nor on canvas have I ever seen one so fair as this girl." He meditated for a moment, then cried out, angrily: "Heaven curse me, if I harm her! What an ungrateful villain should I be! If there be a Gehenna, and but one man in it, I should deserve to ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... do," declared Miss Jinny emphatically. "If we were idling around, musing on ourselves from morning till night like some poor creatures do, we'd get prickly mighty soon. People were made to work, and it's flying in the face of Providence to try to get away from it. We all got our share in the curse of Adam, and the sooner we realize it, the ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... he replied, burying his face in his hands. 'The curse of GOD was on it; it has been on me for years.' After a few moments, he added: 'But hear the rest, and you will ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in a state of innocence, or He would have created them like cows and horses, with clothes upon their backs," said Wilhelmina, sharply. "It was their own fault that they ever required such trumpery, entailing upon their posterity a curse as bad as the thorns and thistles. For I always consider it as such, when sweltering under the weight of gowns and petticoats on a hot day; and I rate Mother Eve roundly, and in no measured terms, for ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... nor any But one that's heere: and that's himselfe: for he, The sacred Honor of himselfe, his Queenes, His hopefull Sonnes, his Babes, betrayes to Slander, Whose sting is sharper then the Swords; and will not (For as the case now stands, it is a Curse He cannot be compell'd too't) once remoue The Root of his Opinion, which is rotten, As euer Oake, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... tool of faction, though at one time he was doubtless near the brink; but this was some time ago, and it would be a grievous pity if he ever again became in jeopardy of feeling the baneful influence of any such curse. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, unmuzzled, excepting when on duty. Too mindful of what was expected of him as a man of color to give his white superiors the denial flat, Burl would, nevertheless, hasten to disprove ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... meets the swarms of beggars that make life a burden. Aged men, with loathsome sores, stand whining at corners beseeching the favor of a two-anna piece; blind men, led by small, skinny children, set up a mournful wail and then curse you fluently when you pass them by, and scores of children rise up out of hovels at the roadside and pursue your carriage with shrill screams. All are filthy, clamorous, greedy, inexpressibly offensive. If you are soft hearted ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... an entire state. The Jukes family in New York, the Kallikak family in New Jersey, have shown the awful possibilities of descent from a single feeble-minded ancestor. Prisons, almshouses, and houses of shame owe their population in no small degree to this bitter curse. It will not be long before society will learn to protect itself against such poisoning of the human stock. Nothing is more clear to the investigator of this subject than that the one overwhelming cause for feeble-mindedness ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... assailed by a cloud of violent thoughts. I had come from the Albergo, where I had heard Miss Bell's cook improvise magnificently twelve hundred verses on Spring. I was inundated by a celestial joy which the sight of you made me lose. It must be that a profound truth is enclosed in the curse of Eve. For, near you, I felt reckless and wicked. I had soft words on my lips. They were lies. I felt that I was your adversary and your enemy; I hated you. When I saw you smile, I felt ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... "Larry, will you keep the pipe going until I come off?" Booth entered on the scene; then came the big moment in the play when the nobles and the weak King had assembled to defy the power of the Cardinal; and Richelieu launches (as Booth always did with thrilling effect) the terrifying curse of Rome—a superb bit of oratorical eloquence. At the conclusion, the house shouted its wild and demonstrative approval, and when the curtain dropped on this uproar for the last time, Booth approached Hutton at the prompter's entrance saying, in his usual quiet voice: ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... under the rock, and tended the graves hewn in the living stone, where his old comrades, the Paladins who were slain, sleep side by side round the church of the Holy Cross. But the armor he left here; and he laid a curse upon it, that whosoever of his descendants should lose that armor in fight, should die childless, without a son to wield a sword. And therefore it is that none of his ancestors, valiant as they have been, have dared to put this harness on ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... to level the city of Carthage and the suburb of Magalia with the ground, and to do the same with all the townships which had held by Carthage to the last; and thereafter to pass the plough over the site of Carthage so as to put an end in legal form to the existence of the city, and to curse the soil and site for ever, that neither house nor cornfield might ever reappear on the spot. The command was punctually obeyed. The ruins burned for seventeen days: recently, when the remains of the Carthaginian city wall were excavated, they were found to be covered ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... rank in the Hofburg. Three days later the new Empress was handed to her traveling-carriage by the Archduke Charles, and amid salvos of artillery, mingled with the cheers of the populace, she set forth. There were a few signs of discontent among little knots who collected to curse their national humiliation, and the aristocracy were not reconciled to see Prince Esterhazy in the role of guide to the Prince of Wagram, as Berthier had now been styled by imperial decree in Paris. But, on the whole, Europe was impressed with a sense of Francis's sincerity. The father went forth ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and some nice, lurid stores there were, I can assure you. The Quicks had seen about as much of the doubtful and seamy side of seafaring life as men could, and all of us could contribute something. Also, the Quicks had money, safely stowed away in banks here and there—they used to curse their fate, left there apparently to die, when they thought of it. And it was that, I think, that led me to tell, one night, about my adventure with the naughty bank-manager at Blyth, and of the chests of old monastic treasure which I'd planted ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Giraud's fortune. I was mindful, lastly, that in England we are taught to ride straight, and I sat down and wrote to Madame that her husband was in good health, and that I quite hoped to see him depart in a few days for La Pauline. I will not deny that the letter went into the post-box followed by a curse. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... take any notice of their complaints, besides, it made the masters treat them still worse. Said one, "We go to de magistrate to complain, and den when we come back de busha do all him can to vex us. He wingle (tease) us, and wingle us; de book-keeper curse us and treaten us; de constable he scold us, and call hard names, and dey all strive to make we mad, so we say someting wrong, and den dey take we to de magistrate for insolence." Such was the final consequence of complaining to the magistrate. We asked them why they did not complain, when they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Curse it, sir, and what's the meaning of this, I'd like to know?" he cried, and struck at the sheet of notepaper with his free hand. "A pretty fix to put us in at the last minute, upon my word! It was your business, sir, to nurse your witness ... after all the trouble ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... spirits for the new building: "he laid the foundation thereof with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub; according to the word of the Lord." [For the curse pronounced on whoever should rebuild ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... tempted me to commit the crime, and might probably defy scrutiny. I speak of myself as poor; for, not withstanding all the sums I had possessed, not a dollar remained. Ill-gotten wealth speedily disappears, and leaves only a curse behind. Years passed away, when, at the port of Macao, in China, I took a berth as first mate on board the American brig Emu, trading in the ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... 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 Party all ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... convincing, that the prisoner was acquitted. Outside the court he turned to thank his preserver. The stranger looked at him steadily, and said, "Do you remember years ago, driving a poor, broken-hearted boy from his mother's coffin with a curse and a blow? I was that boy." The man was overwhelmed with shame and confusion. "Why have you given me my life?" he asked. "To show you," answered the other, "that ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... as though stung, just as he pulled the trigger, bumping into Shiner. Immediately that uncertain quadruped wheeled and kicked at him. So quick was his pivoting motion that Casey was almost unseated. He saved himself, but lost his rifle, which fell to the ground. With a furious curse and a jerk of the bit he wheeled Shiner around, drawing ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... *'Chevalier, allow me to tell you that there is something higher than money and goods; there are sentiments to which you are a stranger, which, whilst sustaining our souls with the comfort of Heaven, bid us reject your gift, your favour, with contempt. Keep your mammon, which is burdened with the curse that pursues ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... taking counsel together, they resolved to consult Urswick, who they doubted not could remove the spell. Accordingly, they went to Bagshot Heath, and related their story to him. When they had done, he said, 'The curse of Herne's blood is upon you, and can only be removed in one way. As you return to the castle, go to the tree on which he destroyed himself, and you may ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... woman in 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 ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... he cried, "through me thou hast become thus magnificent, and now thou hast turned upon and driven away thy benefactor. May the vengeance of God descend upon thee; may my curse come upon thee and upon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... their balances by millions. Money was never so abundant, and nothing that is good to be done with it. ("Hear, hear," and a laugh.) No man knows—or very few men know—what benefit to get out of his money. In fact, it too often is secretly a curse to him. Much better for him never to have had any. But I do not expect that generally to be believed. (Laughter.) Nevertheless, I should think it a beautiful relief to any man that has an honest purpose struggling in him to bequeath a handsome ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... fair," she answered, quickly—"neither to them nor to you. No, I am an actress, and this is a part of my life. We are none of us exempt from the universal curse." ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... a world should be, With room enough for all. We will rear a race of the wise and free, And not of the great and small. And the heart and the mind of humankind Shall drink to the dregs of good, Forgetting the tears of the darker years, And the curse of bondman's blood. ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... years, in a profane and careless manner, though you are repeatedly informed and reminded in the most plain, faithful, and alarming language I can use, that the wages of sin, without repentance, is death,[Rom. vi. 23.] the curse of God, and the eternal ruin ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... With a curse he seized the wirebound railway lantern. At the sound the man looked up—it was the cigar salesman. The young man swung the weapon with all his might. It cut the air in a descending arc, but the other avoided ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... not shame his lineage, for lo, Your brother's good still seems your injury. Envious you are, and proud, and foes to heaven; Love of your neighbour still you loathe and hate, And only seek what must your ruin be. If to Pistoja Dante's curse was given, Bear that in mind! Enough! But if you prate Praises of Florence, 'tis to wheedle me. A priceless jewel she: Doubtless: but this you cannot understand: For pigmy virtue grasps not aught ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother's head with the curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and, with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the prayers of his father and of Madame ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... goal he had in view, through any description of filth provided it would obviate the necessity of relaxing his gripe upon his ill-gotten gain. It is to such men as he, that Ireland owes all her misfortunes, and that the people of Canada owe the curse of the great embarrassments that now sorely beset them. For so far, not a single Irishman who has ever been prominently identified with the Government of Canada, if we are at all able to judge, has possessed a spark of honest or true patriotism. From first to last, every man Jack of them has fleeced ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... billiard ball, and the booming of the ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. Before night, victims watched for will be secured; men heated with liquor, or drugged, will be robbed, and many curious and bold explorers in this locality will curse the hour in which they resolved to spend a Sunday in ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... naught to me. I have a letter from one David Patterson, who was Dr. Knox's jackal for buying murdered bodies, suggesting that I should write on the subject of Burke and Hare, and offering me his invaluable collection of anecdotes! "Curse him imperance and him dam insurance,"[290] as Mungo says in the farce. Did ever one hear the like? The scoundrel has been the companion and patron of such atrocious murderers and kidnappers, and he has the impudence to write to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... notice of their employments during their leisure hours. And Satan was not a bit less busy in 1651 than he is in 1895, in finding mischief for idle hands to do. Leisure time is to a man what he chooses to make it—either a great blessing or a great curse. And just then, for those who chose the last, the disturbed and unsettled state of the country ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... and by the press, for the rights of man; by hurling back into the jaws of oppression, the fugitive gasping for his sacred liberty; by recognizing the right of one man to buy and sell other men; by spreading the blasting curse of despotism over the whole soil of the nation, you may allay the brutal frenzy of a handful of southern slave-masters; you may win back the cotton States to cease from threatening you with secession, and to plant their ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... adapt themselves to these conditions ought not to be lost sight of by the colored people. The meaning is very important, and we should learn it. We are taught our insecurity by it. Without the means of living, life is a curse, and leaves us at the mercy of the oppressor to become his debased slaves. Now, colored men, what do you mean to do, for you must do something? The American Colonization Society tells you to go to Liberia. Mr. Bibb tells you to go to Canada. Others tell you to go to school. ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... prose. The poems of both will live, and have justice done them by posterity. "Madoc" was many years ago recommended to me by one of the most able, and most candid, of our living authors. I read it with much interest. "The Curse of Kehama" is full of high and wild poetry; and "Roderick, the last of the Goths" gives a noble picture of deep penitence and of devoted patriotism. You will hardly read any ten lines of the longer poems of Sir ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... as needless, as it is painful, to trace the steps of her final ruin. That ancient curse was upon her, the curse of the cities of the plain, "Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness." By the inner burning of her own passions, as fatal as the fiery reign of Gomorrah, she was consumed from her place ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Simplicity; in thy hospitals, to Faith; and in thy public-halls to Freedom and Culture. And all these, without Light, Love, and Will, are but hollow affairs, high-sounding inanities. Without Light, Love, and Will, even thy Nabobs in the end shall curse thee; and with these, thy hammals under their burdens shall thank the heavens under which thy domes ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 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 fingers, and twist his wild ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... well known," continued the stranger: "we need make no bones of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse—" ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... should not be taken except for an occasional dose or during illness upon the advice of a physician. So common is the practice of taking daily laxatives that it has become a "national curse"! People do not realize that they are slaves to this habit, so they continue to take their daily doses of "teas" or "waters." In many cases a patient will tell his physician that his bowels are "all right," that they move every day. Further questionings reveal the fact that ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... woe! Not only the whispered prayer Of love, But the imprecations of hate, Reverberate Forever and ever through the air Above! This fearful curse Shakes ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... primordial energies of the complex vision may be felt and realized without being expressed in words. The curse of what we call "cleverness" is that it hastens to find facile and fluent expression for what cannot be easily and fluently expressed. Education is too frequently a mere affair of words, a superficial ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... thine, as thou art his, And to his curse, the heir; But never a luckless babe of mine That fearful ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... all avail,— All its beauty, all its grace, All the honors of its place? He who plucked it from its bed, In the far blue Indian ocean, Lieth, without life or motion, In his earthy dwelling,—dead! And his children, one by one, When they look upon the sun, Curse the toil by which he drew The treasure from its bed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... slave; for Yudhishthira lost himself before he staked his wife, and having first become a slave, he could no longer have power to stake Draupadi." Vidura then turned to the assembly and said:—"Take no heed to the words of Duryodhana, for he has lost his senses this day." Duryodhana then said:—"A curse be upon this Vidura, who will do ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the Queen! Antinous has smitten me because that I am poor. May the curse of the hungry light on him therefor, ere he come ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... urg'd (but weigh it, and you'll find 'Tis light as feathers blown before the wind) That Poverty, the Curse of Providence, Attones for a dull Writer's want of Sense: Alas! his Dulness 'twas that made him poor; Not vice versa: We infer no more. Of Vice and Folly Poverty's the curse, Heav'n may be rigid, but the Man was worse, By good made bad, by favours more disgrac'd, So ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... pillage, and justly to be feared in the hour of danger. Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman state. It destroyed its vitality. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse, destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent, powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this incubus, the standing disgrace ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... But the curse o' class distinctions from our shoulders shall be hurled, An' the influence of woman revolutionize the world; There'll be higher education for the toilin' starvin' clown, An' the rich an' educated shall be educated down; An' we all will meet amidships on this stout old earthly craft, An' there ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... "There, curse you, there you are again!" he said, "showing how little you know of women and of their pride. If she were sure that you loved her, she would never marry Chartersea or any one else. She has had near the whole ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that I flung back into my seat with a curse, resolute to show him I was as good a man as he. My grim-faced guardian angel washed his hands of me with a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... has been the curse of my life," said Auriol. "If I hadn't anticipated them—or is it it?—by telling them to go to the devil, they would have disowned me long ago. Now they're afraid of me, and I've got the whip hand. A kind of blackmail; ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... Eustace! curse on him, with his handsome eyes! Regnald had envied Eustace many a day,— Envied his fame, and that exceeding grace And courtliness which he had learned at Court Of Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, and the rest: For when their father, lean Sir Egbert, died, Eustace, whose fortune ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... "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, cher ami, wait ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... over to Lebanon to-night and have it out," he said in French. "That Ingolby—let's go break his windows and give him a dip in the river. He's the curse of this city. Holy, once Manitou was a place to live in, now it's a place to die in! The factories, the mills, they're full of Protes'ants and atheists and shysters; the railway office is gone to Lebanon. Ingolby took it there. Manitou was the best ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... solid things That daily mock our senses, shall dissolve Before the might within, while shadowy forms Freeze into stark reality, defying The force and will of man. These forms I see, They may go with me through eternity, And bless or curse with ceaseless company, While yonder man, that I met yesternight, Where is he now? He passed before my eyes, He is gone, but ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still shining upon ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... wandered away, but their places were easily filled; for the majority of the freed slaves very soon discovered that their lot was a far harder one than it had been before, and that freedom so suddenly given was a curse rather than a ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... construction of 5 is this: Dakshina Bhuyasirdadat: tena hetuna Janaughena akaranta. The story of the salvation of Bhagiratha's ancestors is a beautiful myth. King Sagara (whence Sagara or the Ocean) had sixty thousand sons. They were all reduced to ashes by the curse of the sage Kapila, an incarnation of Vishnu himself. Bhagiratha, a remote descendant, caused the sacred Ganga to roll over the spot where the ashes of his ancestors lay, and thus ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pointed to, Alice. The Moors are intellectual mummies." Allen carefully turned two pages, and encouraged by a nod of approval from Mrs. Gorham proceeded. "Why, Miss Gorham, if a Moor happens to sit down upon a tack he doesn't curse or swear or rail at fate; he simply murmurs, 'It is written,' and carefully replaces the tack for some ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... is condemned by the Divine judgment save for a mortal sin. Yet a man is condemned for theft, according to Zech. 5:3, "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth; for every thief shall be judged as is there written." Therefore theft is a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Courant, detailing his experiences in the cultivation of a garden. Warner had become the owner of a small place then almost on the outskirts of the city. With the dwelling-house went the possession of three acres of land. The opportunity thus presented itself of turning into a blessing the primeval curse of tilling the soil, in this instance not with a hoe, but with a pen. These articles detailing his experiences excited so much amusement and so much admiration that a general desire was manifested that they ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... taught anything which he did not hear from his masters. He had never been heard to say that it was time to leave the Academy." He advised a certain family in Jerusalem, the members of which died young, to occupy itself with the study of the Torah, so as to mitigate the curse of dying in ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Why, Doctor, you don't know how fat I am. I am a sight to behold. And now I have come to see if any thing can be done. I know you have studied up all sorts of curious subjects, and I thought you might be able to tell me how to get rid of this dreadful curse." ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... What curse had come upon him? What malign fate had led Graham there that evening at the very moment when he could least afford to have his trickery revealed to his son? ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... went away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has something to tell me—something that I am ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... round of hauling and toiling and moiling, in heat and cold, wet and dry, with nothing to lighten the life or cheer the heart save a game at "crib" or "all fives," or a visit to the coper, that terrible curse of the North Sea. ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... and tragically, downwards went the others. For they had light and they would not look at it; and it blasted and blinded them. They had the manifestation of Christ, and they scoffed and jeered at it, and turned their backs upon it, and it became a curse to them; falling not like dew but like vitriol on their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... attaining wisdom, and which had fabricated those false notions that governed the practical world and constrained the natural feelings. Instances of the unhappiness caused by such constraint, he gave in Songs of Experience, where The Garden of Love describes the blighting curse which church law had laid upon free love. To overthrow intellectualism and discipline, Man must liberate his most precious faculty, the imagination, which alone can reveal the spiritual character of the universe and the beauty that life will wear when ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... thoughts which now occupied him in his solitude—thoughts darkened and distorted by the terrible superstitions of his country and his race. Ever since the period of his mother's death he had been oppressed by the conviction that some curse hung over the family. At first they had been prosperous, they had got money, a little legacy had been left them. But this good fortune had availed only for a time; disaster on disaster strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses, misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them; ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... be wrought for the Dark Continent by the agency of colored men Christianized, civilized, and educated in America. Good men reverently hoped to see in this triumphant solution of the mystery of divine providence in permitting the curse of African slavery, through the cruel greed of men, to be inflicted on the American republic. In 1816 Mills successfully pressed upon the Presbyterian "Synod of New York and New Jersey" a plan for educating Christian men of color for the work of the gospel ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... surprised to hear his words repeated, the Yankee lost somewhat of his confidence as he replied, "well now sure-LY, you officers didn't think nothin' o' that—I expect I was in a mighty rage to find my small bore gone, and I did curse a little hearty, to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... which was displeasing to Him, and make me a new creature in Christ Jesus—a holy, devoted Christian man, for the sake of Him who died for sinners. I told God that I could not be denied; I could not get up from my knees till I was forgiven and the curse was forever removed. I was ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... of the consolation of my old age, and the joy of my eyes. Go! I banish thee forever from my sight! I curse thee and thine offspring—and only when thou shalt restore to me my Fatima, shall thy head be entirely free ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... love in which we 'live, and move, and have our being,' encircles the worst with abundant flow. He Himself sets us the pattern, which to imitate is to be the children of 'our Father which is in heaven,' in that He loves His enemies, blessing them that curse, and doing good to them that hate. He Himself is what He has enjoined us to be, in that He feeds His enemies when they hunger, and when they thirst gives them drink, heaping coals of fire on their heads, and seeking to kindle in them thereby the glow of answering love, not being overcome of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... lone horseman muttered a low curse as he saw the two disappear from sight. It was Hanson. He had followed them from the bungalow. Their way led in the direction of his camp, so he had a ready and plausible excuse should they discover him; but they had not seen him for they had ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... them, on the strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. A passion for unnecessary expense is, under different circumstances, frequently repressed by an inability to procure credit; but it is the curse and bane of Mr. Omnium's nephew, and Miss Saveall's niece, that so far from any obstacle being opposed to their prodigality, almost unlimited indulgence is offered, nay, actually pressed upon them, by the trades-people of their wealthy relations; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... a sound; but not articulate. It was a curse, a challenge, a menace all in one; and with a hysterical terrified little cry the girl shrank back into the doorway itself. But none other, not even ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... Voice, and also had the spirit and skill to use the law against the horrible traders in girls. Every week the Voice exposed and denounced the "cribs." Everyday Mr. Kendall wrote an article or a chapter, or addressed a ministers' meeting against the city's awful curse and shame. At night these determined men led little companies of ministers and others through the crib district that they might know the infamies that were practiced in ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... penitent is the curse of the old church, for according to the true doctrine of the Gospels, as accepted and faithfully treasured by the German people after long struggles, it is not deeds but faith that secures salvation. So in the progress of the legend leaves sprout from the dry stick, ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl |
