"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know or feel is that I am wild with impatience to move —move—move! Curse the endless delays! They always kill me—they make me neglect every duty, and then I have a conscience that tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a month. I do more mean things the moment I get a chance to fold ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... recourse to the hook and line, but, to our great mortification, not a single fish would take the bait. We saw a few turtle, but they were so shy that we could not catch one of them: Here, therefore, we were condemned to the curse of Tantalus, perpetually in sight of what our appetites most importunately craved, and perpetually disappointed in our attempts to reach it. We got, however, from the rocks, at low water, a few rock-oysters, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... raucous curse the former convict swung round on him. A revolver seemed to jump to his hand, but before he could fire, young Rutherford was hanging to ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... at first they had been inclined to look askance at his advances, they were won over by the frank open manners of their noisy neighbor, whose piano-playing and terrific disturbance overhead had often made them curse:—(for Christophe used to feel stifled in his room and take to pacing up and down like a caged bear).—They did not find it easy to talk to him. Christophe's rather boorish and abrupt manners sometimes made Elie Elsberger shudder. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... But I'm a physical coward. Owing to this paralysis of fear, this ghastly inhibition of muscular or nervous action, I have gone through things even worse than that South-African business. I go about like a man under a curse. Even out there, when I don't care a damn whether I live or die, the blasted thing gets hold of me." He swung himself away from the table and shook his great clenched firsts. "By the grace of God, no one yet has ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... themselves to me, and disclosed some of Emery his most unhonest, hypocriticall, and devilish dealings and devises agaynst me and other, and likewise of that errant strompet her abominable wordes and dedes; and John Davis sayd that he might curse the tyme that ever he knew Emery, and so much followed his wicked cownsayle and advyse. So just is God! Oct. 31st, payed xxs. fyne for me and Jane my wife to the Lord of Wimbleton (the Quene), by goodman Burton ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... sickness, and Captain Grant was seized with fever. In addition to these difficulties we found that avarice, that fatal enemy to the negro chiefs, made them overreach themselves by exhorbitant demands for taxes, for experience will not teach the negro who thinks only for the moment. The curse of Noah sticks to these his grandchildren by Ham, they require a government like ours in India, and without it the slave trade will wipe them off the face of the earth. We travelled slowly with our sick ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... go off by themselves and indulge in the luxury of expressions they want none to hear. Others take out their tantrum on the dog or cat or perhaps a younger child, or implicate some absent enemy, while others curse. A few wound themselves, and so on, till it almost seems, in view of this long list of vicariates, as if almost any attack, psychic or physical, might thus be intensified, and almost anything or person be made the object of passion. Be it remembered, too, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... 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, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... began to be hard for Nick to breathe. The men in the dungeons were singing a horrible song, and in the corner was a half-naked fellow shackled to the floor. "Give me a penny," he said, "or I will curse thee." Nick shuddered. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... of mine was much increased, when some days after, a storm came upon us, and the captain rushed out of the cabin in his nightcap, and nothing else but his shirt on; and leaping up on the poop, began to jump up and down, and curse and swear, and call the men aloft all manner of hard names, just like a common ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... A bitter curse followed by a groan of pain was the answer to his shot. Then, where that break in the shadowy line of light had been, now the line ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... the house was sheltered on the north and east by a grove of trees, whose branches, now but thinly covered with leaves, waved mournfully to and fro in the night wind. 'The last proprietor of that place,' continued the clergyman, 'was a vicious and depraved man, whose very existence was a curse to the neighbourhood in which he dwelt. At an early age he came into possession of a large property, which he spent in the gratification of every base and lawless passion. His life, as far as I can learn, was one unmixed ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... he meditates, accompany him even unto the brink of eternity, fluctuate with him on the ghastly sea of despair, soar with him into the purest and serenest regions of human thought, feel with him the curse of beholding iniquity, and the troubled delight of thinking on innocence, and gentleness, and beauty; come with him from all the glorious dreams cherished by a noble spirit in the halls of wisdom and philosophy, of a sudden into the gloomy courts of sin, and incest, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... at Soames, she checked herself on the point of speech so often, that Aunt Hester excused herself and said she must go and bathe Timothy's eye—he had a sty coming. Soames, impassive, slightly supercilious, did not stay long. He went out with a curse stifled behind his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the manhood of Boabdil el Chico with the key of his spells," quoth another, stroking his beard; "I would curse him, if ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sez, "you two on Choosday week, Is to be joined in very 'oly bonds. To break them vows I 'opes yeh'll never seek; Fer I could curse them 'usbands 'oo absconds!" "I'll love 'er till I snuff it," I responds. "Ah, that's the way I likes to 'ear yeh speak, Young friend," ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis
... God, although I curse my Birth, And ban the Ayr wherein I breath a wretch, Since Misery hath daunted all my Mirth, And I am quite undone through Promise breach. Oh Friends! no Friends, that then ungently frown, When changing Fortune calls ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... 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 ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... usual, sweeping the kitchen, attending to the cows, making the soup. No word fell from her lips, and rising ever amid the ominous silence she preserved, her hatred of Goliah grew with every hour and impregnated her nature with its poison. He had been her curse; had it not been for him she would have waited for Honore, and Honore would be living now, and she would be happy. Think of his tone and manner when he made her understand he was the master! He had ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... our visit, returning home late from paying a few calls through the village, we turned a dark corner of trees, and came full upon our goblin friend: as usual, chattering, and motioning with his hands. The doctor, venting a curse, hurried forward; but, from some impulse or other, I stood my ground, resolved to find out what this unaccountable object wanted of us. Seeing me pause, he crept close up to me, peered into my face, and then retreated, beckoning me to follow; which ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... everything." I screamed with delight when she said that, for hadn't I cursed that "curious contrivance" of an inkstand you gave me (Dorothy cursed hers too, no doubt, after her own blessed fashion)? and didn't I curse that execrable "curious contrivance" of a taper you gave me at St. Leonard's, with which I was so enchanted before I used it, and which wasted me by its own small fire every time I did use it, and for the final burning out of which ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry; And in the sleepy silver of the sky A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand. From point to point the road grows worse and worse, Until that place is reached where all the land Seems burdened with some curse. ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... lost its mellow tones! Let the liquid lustre of thine eyes be quenched; and then return to me, return to thy Mathilda, thy child, who may then be clasped in thy loved arms, while thy heart beats with sinless emotion. Go, Devoted One, and return thus!—This is my curse, a daughter's curse: go, and return pure to thy child, who will never love ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... mistress's, he faced about to those regicide walls, and, with hands outstretched to them, said in a loud and threatening voice, those words of David: "Let vengeance for the blood of Thy servants, which has been shed, O Lord God, be acceptable in Thy sight". The old man's curse was heard, and inflexible history ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... approach to verisimilitude, and the ghastly business went on. You must understand that the scheme of the test he was applying to me was, I gathered, a homeward passage—the sort of passage I would not wish to my bitterest enemy. That imaginary ship seemed to labour under a most comprehensive curse. It's no use enlarging on these never-ending misfortunes; suffice it to say that long before the end I would have welcomed with gratitude an opportunity to exchange into the Flying Dutchman. Finally he shoved me into the North Sea (I suppose) and provided me with a lee shore ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... doorway of the cabin, clearly outlined against the flickering light of the interior, was a man. And as Sheila watched another streak of fire burst from the door, and she heard the shrill sighing of the bullet, heard the horseman curse. But he did not stop in his flight, and in an instant he had crossed the river. She saw him for an instant as he was outlined against the clear sky in the moonlight that bathed the crest of the slope, and then he ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... see him first, jay and blackbird and thrush; They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one; With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush, It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done; It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him; Now the rookery's stooping to mob and to goad him; There's an earth on the hill, but he's cooked past believing, And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... the very man who had admitted that he had been received with kindness and hospitality wherever he had been in France, arose, and said, "Now, gentlemen, I have another toast to propose to you, which I hope will be drank with the same enthusiasm as the last; so "Here's a curse for France and the French." All immediately drank it but myself and an elderly gentleman, who declared he would not invoke a curse upon any land or any people. A silent pause intervened; every one appeared to look at the other, as to how they ought to act on their toast being refused, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... assert it also; and better able to assist others or his country, when they or she stake all, even existence, upon the same assertion. But mere knowledge makes no one independent, nor fits him to be free. It often only makes him a more useful slave. Liberty is a curse ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... last, after 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 ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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 her folly in losing the glorious privilege of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... which were instantly closed. Ditmar was left alone among the strikers. As he moved toward the bridge they made a lane for him to pass; one or two he thrust out of his way. But there were mutterings, and from the sidewalk he heard a man curse him. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... place at the very first of all, I cannot tell, as I never could learn it: Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time, sleeping as profoundly {500} As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Salamander, so you're free of one curse, anyway. Balera, I believe, is hellishly wet, although I don't ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... that—and we say it with grateful joy—the earth can bear a great degree of happiness; can bear it for long without its either bringing with it a curse or a disappointment. It is in stillness and in retirement where this good fortune blooms the best, and on that account the world knows little of it, and has little faith in it. But, thank God! it may be abundantly found ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... our own? Or shall the Enemies of GOD be more active against his Cause: than his People for it? GOD forbid. If the Work being so far carried on, shall now mis-carry, and fail in our hands, our own consciences shall condemne us, and posterity shall curse us: But if wee stand stoutly and stedfastly to it, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in our hands, and all Generations shall call ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... us," continued the captain of Castle William, "that the curse of the people followed this Randolph where he went and wrought evil in all the subsequent events of his life, and that its effect was seen, likewise, in the manner of his death. They say, too, that the inward misery of that curse worked itself outward ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no longer a sister!" she cried, turning to her son, with the nervous spasm which returned each time she spoke of her daughter. "She is dead for us! She has disgraced us! I curse her! You, you alone ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... must be cold. Why did you let the fire go out?" Bringing in some wood he soon rekindled it, and began to talk to me of the book I was reading, which was one of Walter Scott's poems. He then spoke of a poem which he had been reading that day, Southey's "Curse of Kehama." He related to me with perfect clearness the long and rather involved story, with that wonderful memory of his, never once forgetting or confusing the strange Oriental names, and repeating ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... evils on themselves, their families, and their nation. It was Eli who, at bottom, was the cause of the defeat and the disasters which slew his sons and broke his own heart. Nothing is more cruel than the weak indulgence which, when men are bringing a curse on themselves by their sin, 'restrains ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... adversity often makes to appear in him divine and lovely traits. Dostoievsky was never more the Russian prophet than when he wrote "The Idiot," and uttered in it his humble thanksgiving that through the curse of nature, through the utter uselessness of his physical machine, through sickness and foolishness and poverty, he had been saved from doing the world's evil and adding to its death. And Moussorgsky is ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... humidity, some curse will fall on you that will prostrate and close down on your optimistical views of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... With this comprehensive curse the rite is concluded and the vengeful man returns home and secretly observes his enemy. The latter may become aware that magic is being worked against him through dreaming that fat is put into his mouth; and as he is probably ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas Eve by dancing and brawling in the church-yard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... it wise to be uneasy about a contingency which is so remote? Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a vapour-engine, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... about war being essentially evil, the wars referred to are those by which the world has been cursed through all the ages—wars between different groups of owners with conflicting interests, not the war between owners and workers which is now on. This war will bless, not curse, the world, because it is for the emancipation of the slave class, not for the enrichment of one group of the masters at the expense of another group, at the cost of increased misery to all ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... upon himself to see to the disembarking of the horses and valuables of the strangers, filled with joy at the thought that an angel in woman's form had appeared to soften his beloved young master, and perhaps even to free him from that early curse. ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... barely-rotted outer four or five inches from the old pile; this makes the base of the new one. Untangling the long stringy grasses, seed stalks, and Brussels sprout stems from the rest can make me sweat and even curse, but fortunately I must stop occasionally to spray water where the material remains dry and catch my wind. Then, I rearrange the rest so half-decomposed brassica stumps and other big chunks are placed in the center where the pile will become the hottest and ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... sickly appearance, which is quite distressing to witness. However, the crew of the Spanish schooner look infinitely more wretched; they have little else but their original forms remaining; they crawl about like beings under a curse they are mere shadows or phantoms of men, looking round for their burying place. No spectacle can be more humiliating to man's pride than this; nothing can give him a more degrading sense of his own nothingness. It is very much ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... rider meanwhile sat upon his horse, but evidently in a state of great impatience; he muttered curses between his teeth, spurred the animal furiously, and then reined it in, causing it to rear itself up nearly perpendicular. At last he said, 'Curse ye for Romans, how slow ye are! well, it is no business of mine, stay here all day if you like; I have given ye warning, I am off to the big north road. However, before I go, you had better give me all you have ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Tom so fond of grog; and 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 flourishing ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... might look forward so cheerfully to the Judgment Day! Adam and Eve must have had much better fruit! Ours are nothing but crab-apples in contrast. And I think the serpent was then a most beautiful creature, kindly and gracious; it still wears its crown, but after the curse it lost its feet and beautiful body." Once he looked at his three-year-old son who was playing and talking to himself and said, "This child is like a drunken man. He does not know that he is alive, yet lives on safely and merrily and hops and jumps. Such children ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... things, even those that naturally tend to sink us, and damn us, for our great advantage! "All things shall work together for good," indeed, "to them that love God" (Rom 8:28). Those sins that brought a curse upon the whole world, that spilt the heart-blood of our dearest Saviour, and that laid his tender soul under the flaming wrath of God, shall by his wisdom and love, tend to the exaltation of his grace, and the inflaming of our affections to him ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the doctor, mildly, "we must remember that their suffering had worn upon them very much. Only exceptional natures remain stanch in adversity, which completely overthrows the weak. Let us rather pity than curse them!" ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... in love even than the princess, thought to himself, "There surely must be some reason for this very sudden attraction which I feel towards her. She must have been my beloved wife in a former existence. Perhaps a curse was laid upon us; and now that is removed. If so, the recognition ought to be mutual; at all events I will try what I can do to produce the same feeling in her ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... they are right who swear there is a curse upon all property taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter upon Chilton Abbey," answered his lordship's grave deep voice from the end of the table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... nurse Till the nursing's a curse; Nor dose you, nor drug you, nor feed with sweet-meats; Nor to soothe, will we try, With old "Dame Winslow" by, For our hopes for ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... we snatch at an overhanging bough, it snaps or slips our grasp; we utter cries for help, those on the bank pass by not hearing, or cast to us a rope the current bears out of reach. Then we cry "Fate!" and either wring our hands, or curse, or sit and gaze straight before us, while we are swept on—either over the cataract's edge and dashed to fragments, or out to the trackless ocean, to be tossed by wind and wave till some bark sees and saves ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... We pass the false whine about "being abandoned by all that was dear to him," as if he had not deliberately quitted Paris against the remonstrance of every friend he had; about his being "solitary and sad," as if he was not ready at this very time to curse any one who intruded on his solitude, and hindered him of a single half-hour in the desert spots that he adored. Remembering the scenes in moon-lighted groves and elsewhere, we read this:—"Whence comes her coldness to me? Is it possible ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... have followed me," continued Herman, speaking with painful slowness, so that every word seemed to poor Ninitta to fall upon her like a curse; "so you have played the ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... the roar of commerce, far more than the work of the husbandman. We are an agricultural people, we of the South and West—and especially we Southerners, with our poverty of invention, our one staple, our otherwise helpless habits, incident to the institution which, however it may be our curse, is still our wealth, and to which, for the present time, we are bound, Ixion-like, by every law of necessity. What does this tariff promise? Where will the profit rest? Where will the loss fall crushingly? ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... nation. This is an important occasion for us—it is perhaps the last time that we shall meet as a free people with a free government. Let us then rise to the height of this occasion; let us arrive at a decision for which our posterity shall bless, and not curse us. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... and, when Yorn Travann wanted to know what he meant, he told him. "When Princess Olva's Empress, she's going to curse the name of Klenn Faress. Flower Festivals, all ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... he is forced to pick out those best fitted for service. Others go of their own free will, thinking soldiering easier work than tilling the fields, besides the chance of getting rich booty. So there are but few shikarees, and the tigers multiply and are a curse ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... condition was serious; and, as the leaving of a banana peel upon a public platform is in its very nature "negligent," the company's lawyer would recommend settlement. Thus "Banana Anna" was able to live in comfort if not in luxury; and an infirmity that might under other circumstances have been a curse became, in fact, a blessing. Of course she took a new name and hired—temporarily—a new residence for each accident; but, as she moved from city to city, she was able to keep up the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... likely that, as a prisoner, the cold and misery would be fatal to the one survivor. I took pity on him and set both him and his venerable mentor at liberty. On taking his leave of me the latter said, "When she thinks of her eldest son, the mother of my two pupils will curse you, but when she sees the return of her youngest, she will bless you and the mother in whose ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the moment I had yanked them up," said he, "and heard that fat swine curse his wife for dropping them. He told her she'd done it on purpose, too; he hit the nail on the head all right; but it was her poor head, and that showed me my unworthy impulse in its true light, Bunny. I didn't need your reproaches to make me realise what a skunk ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... alliances to bring these fragments back, saying: 'Pardon us, O Goddess, it was done to save them from the evil genii of the night,' and rebuild thy walls to the sound of the flute, thus expiating the crime of Lysander the infamous! Thence they shall go to Sparta and curse the site where stood that city, mistress of sombre errors, and insult her because she is no more. Firm in my faith, I shall have force to withstand my evil counsellors, my scepticism, which leads me to doubt of the people, my restless spirit which, after truth has ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Girl! girl! I say, would'st drive Thy father mad! A very handsome man, A healthy fine young man—lands joining too! Nay! I could curse you, wench! Not have him? This Comes from your mawkish sentiment. You ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... work of our own hands," he said, with strong emotion. "It is your curse and mine that we must love each other, Rachael—love each ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... fifty thousand gold florins paid to Sigismund was a mere fraction of the pecuniary obligations incurred, while the weight of care was difficult to gauge. He succeeded to princes weak, frivolous, prodigal, whose misrule had long been a curse to the land. The incursions of the Swiss, the repeated descents of the Rhine nobles from their crag-lodged strongholds to pillage and destroy, terrified merchants and plunged peaceful labourers ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... all come of my insensate pursuit of that filthy treasure, when all the time the only treasure I coveted was Calypso herself. Poor old ignorant Tom had been right, after all. Nothing good came of such enterprises. There was a curse upon them from the beginning. And then, as I thought of Tobias, my body shook so that I could hardly keep on walking, and, next minute, my hatred of him so nerved me up again that I ran on through the brush, like a madman, my clothes clutched at by the devilish ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds. We are mere figureheads upon a hulk, with livers in the place of hearts. The curse is the worship of idols, which at length changes the worshipper into a stone image himself; and the New-Englander is just as much an idolater as the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a political graven image between ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... conceived the present plan of this history. I divided it into nine parts. Two thoughts led me to prepare the chapters under the head of PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. First, The defenders of slavery and the traducers of the Negro built their pro-slavery arguments upon biblical ethnology and the curse of Canaan. I am alive to the fact, that, while I am a believer in the Holy Bible, it is not the best authority on ethnology. As far as it goes, it is agreeable to my head and heart. Whatever science has added I have gladly appropriated. I make no claim, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... silence, thinking that Calumet was at the other end of the gully, he moved the small rock which he had pushed beyond the edge of the large one, using his rifle barrel as a prod. A bullet from Calumet's pistol struck the rock, glanced from it and seared the back of his hand, bringing a curse to his lips. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... believe that He has done it all for your sake, if your faith is to help you. Therefore that is a vain, senseless doctrine that has been hitherto preached and taught in the great schools, which have had no experience of this knowledge, and have only attained to imagine how the curse afflicted Christ our Lord, and how He sits above in heaven unemployed, and possesses a joy with Himself; and thus their hearts remain barren, so that faith cannot live in them. But Christ does not stand there for Himself, ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... different from that of so many young couples who are so bored they don't know what to do except drink and play cards, and make you so tired that you're glad when you see their backs. Why, sometimes I feel, when I see a lad who can't do anything but curse on his wedding-day, and who sticks out his borrowed pipe as if he wanted to pull down the moon, that I'd like to give him a punch in the head, so that he'd have it where other folks have it, and learn to talk ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... and blow his brains out, then and there. He—a man supposed to have a mind! He—counted a master of those very things! And now, what? Manhood, power, himself gone. Stumbling through his days! Useless!—a curse to himself and everyone else. Groping about in the dark—a thing to be pitied and treated well for pity's sake! Cared for—looked after—helped! That beat down the bounds of control. He did things then which he never remembered and would not ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... like your tone, Mr. Annixter," returned Ruggles, flushing angrily. "I don't give a curse whether you like it or not," retorted Annixter, rising and thrusting the check into his pocket, "but never you mind, Mr. Ruggles, you and S. Behrman and Genslinger and Shelgrim and the whole gang of thieves of you—you'll ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... an enduring curse," cried Isobel, bitterly. "Among my papers I had some letters of his, the marriage certificate, and his written promise not to molest me. On that awful night when the ship was disabled, I went to my cabin and secured them, or thought ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... Will you swell the ranks of German hordes? And what will be the issue of your crime, when the Roman legions take the field against you? Desertion upon desertion, treachery upon treachery! You will be drifting miserably between the old allegiance and the new, with the curse of Heaven on your heads. Almighty Jupiter, whom we have worshipped at triumph after triumph for eight hundred and twenty years; and Quirinus, Father of our Rome, if it be not your pleasure that under my command this camp be kept clean from the stain of dishonour, grant at ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... [he writes to his elder brother], I am pining after change, I am thirsting for excitement. When I compare what I might be with what I shall be, what I might do with what I shall do, I am ready to curse myself with vexation. 'Why had I, who am so low, a taste so high?' I know you are rather of a more peaceful and quiet temper of mind than I, but I am much mistaken, if you have not much of the same desire for some kind of life more suited to man's lofty passions and his glorious ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... scant map of this. My mind neither with pride's itch, nor yet hath been Poison'd with love to see or to be seen. I had no suit there, nor new suit to shew, Yet went to court: but as Glare, which did go To mass in jest, catch'd, was fain to disburse The hundred marks, which is the statute's curse, Before he 'scap'd; so't pleas'd my Destiny (Guilty of my sin of going) to think me As prone to all ill, and of good as forget- Ful, as proud, lustful, and as much in debt, As vain, as witless, and as false ...
— English Satires • Various
... with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised self-control for months from religious motives, and remains unrewarded, he does not curse God and die, he curses God and lives, to the distress of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a class of citizens engaged in the same pursuits, with the same interests and the same modes of life; a class that would in time unite and assert itself, and prevent the domination of a single order of society that has been the curse of Asia. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. Even those who do their best to resist the temptation, yield to it almost unconsciously and become the tools of toadies and flatterers. "Authorities," "disciples," and "schools" are the curse of science; and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... together like a castanet rattling," said Velasco, "You tremble like a string under the bow. Come closer. There—one ran over my sleeve, curse the creature! Did you feel him, the vermin? Put my ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... for grace to do His will in whatever circumstances might arise; but he yearned in that terrible way after a blessing which, when granted under such circumstances, too often turns out to be equivalent to a curse. And that spirit brings with it the material and earthly idea that all events that favour our wishes are answers to our prayer; and so they are in one sense, but they need prayer in a deeper and higher spirit to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... us back in confusion and disgrace with a hundred empty saddles. At first her tone was one of simple amaze and horror. It softened afterwards into wonder and perplexity, and the oft-repeated rebuke or curse was on its last recurrence spoken with more of pitying tenderness and regret ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... has adorned another page. "Can Froude understand honesty?" asks this anxious inquirer; and again, "Supposing Master Froude were set to break stones, feed pigs, or do anything else but write paradoxes, would he not curse his day?" Along with such graceful compliments as "You've found that out since you wrote a book against your own father," "Give him as slave to Thirlwall," there may be seen the culminating assertion, "Froude is certainly the vilest ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... him with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... important parts of house plumbing. Great care must be bestowed upon the construction, material, fitting, etc., of the plumbing fixtures, that they be a source of comfort in the house instead of becoming a curse ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... curse of the house of Dhoon will prevail until the Polish Jewess who originated it has been treated as her son ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... whose beauty is the beauty of a moment, whose face is desolate, and whose character is strangely stern, the curse of war was hardly needed to produce a melancholy effect. Why should there be caustic plants where everything is hot and burning? In deserts where thirst is enthroned, and where the rocks and sand appeal to a pitiless sky for moisture, it was a ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... degenerate form of this purple herb as shown by still possessing on its petals the same brown markings. Nevertheless, having disobeyed the laws of its growth, it has lost its original colour, and, like the Lady of Shalott, it is fain to complain "the curse has come upon me." Count Mattaei's nostrum Pettorale is thought to be got from the Galeopsis (hemp Nettle), another of the labiate herbs, with Nettle-like leaves, but no stinging hairs, named from galee, a cat, or weazel, and opsis, a countenance, because supposed to have a blossom ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... has been looking towards the Sabbath, not as to a day of rest from labour, and healthy recreation, but as one of grievous tyranny and grinding oppression. The day which his Maker intended as a blessing, man has converted into a curse. Instead of being hailed by him as his period of relaxation, he finds it remarkable only as depriving him of every comfort and enjoyment. He has many children about him, all sent into the world at an early age, to struggle ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... translation of the Asbjoernsen and Moe stories, illustrated by Norwegian artists, appeared in two volumes called Round the Yule Log and Fairy Tales from the North. The story of the magic hand-mill is the story of how an evil brother violated the Christmas spirit and how his curse was turned into good fortune for his better-disposed relative. The naive idea of the common folk as to the devil's home is especially interesting, as is the acceptance of the fact that a Christmas celebration includes ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... descending stick. He tried to tear it from her, and they fought each other almost in silence, except for the sound of their quick, painful breath. He grew frantic, twisting and writhing. He began to curse her as his father cursed Christine. But her slim brown wrists were like steel. And suddenly, looking into her eyes he saw that she wasn't angry now. She knew that she was stronger than he. She was just ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... the fear of God, who visits with misery and death such as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly! This place is under his curse—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it with all the evil done before it. Not a tear but is remembered and used as a reproach, not a cry of pain but becomes a cry of accusation. Death alone bears the weight of the errors of nature or the ignorance of science that have uselessly prolonged torments in whose name we curse death because it puts an end ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and a better Christian than I am, I believe. Certainly they do need pity, if any sinners do; for slavery seems to be—to judge from Mr. Brooks's triumph—a great moral curse, and a heavier degradation to the slaveholder himself, than it can ever ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... of the battle ground is one of the most famous in Europe, not even the plains of Belgium possessing a richer historical significance than that melancholy plain, the Champagne-Pouilleuse, upon whose inhospitable flats rested for centuries the curse of a prophecy, that there would the fate of France be decided, a prophecy of rare connotation of accuracy, for it refrained from stating what that fate should be. Yet the historic sense is amplified even more by remembrance than by prophecy, for in the territory confronting that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... abolitionism. It is and will be charged with all kinds of dreadful things, whatever it does, and it has nothing to fear from an upright and downright declaration of its faith. One part of the grateful work it has to do is to deliver us from the curse of perpetual concession for the sake of a peace that never comes, and which, if it came, would not be peace, but submission,—from that torpor and imbecility of faith in God and man which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. A question which cuts so deep as that which now divides ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... if you meditated an attempt upon your illustrious person. Are you thinking of suicide? Let us see whether you have some concealed weapon, some poisoned ring. Curse upon it! the poison of the Borgias! Is the white substance in this china bowl, vulgarly called sugar, by some terrible chance infamous arsenic disguised under the appearance of an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... early fable—early, that is, relatively to known Hebrew history. It ties together two creation stories and two flood stories; it duplicates several sets of mythic personages—as Cain and Abel, Tubal-Cain and Jabal; it grafts the curse of Cham on the curse of Cain, making that finally the curse of Canaan; it tells the same offensive story twice of one patriarch and again of another; it gives an early "metaphysical" theory of the origin ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... crowd; we have an injured man here." The crowd began shoving back, and in the rear I could hear them taking it up: "Joe Kivelson; he's been hurt. They're carrying Joe Kivelson off." That made Joe curse a blue streak, and somebody said, "Oh, he's been hurt real bad; ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... moment the subject of anonymity,' said an eminent novelist, 'I think the great curse of all criticism is that of slating any book at all. Think of the unfortunate young man or woman first entering the paths of literature, and the great pain it causes them. You should encourage them, and ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... he pondered his course, and wondered now, at the last moment, was there no way to avert this meeting. Could not the matter be arranged? He was stirred out of his musings by Gascoigne's voice, raised to curse the tardiness of ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... try and relate how, like the Lady of Shalott, when I first began to gaze upon the world of realities "the curse" came upon me. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the Christian right of sanctuary by taking an escaped prisoner from the altar of refuge in Temple Ruadan (Tipperary) and putting him to death. The patron priest and his clergy marched to Tara and solemnly pronounced a curse upon the King. Not long afterwards Dermid was assassinated, and superstition shunned the place "as a castle under ban." The last human resident of "Tara's Hall" was the King's bard, who lingered there, forsaken and ostracized, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... passed, and the baby and the vaudevilles were hushed in absence and silence. So the happy winter time went by; and the howling winds brought no rheumatism with them, and even the tax-gatherer himself, looking in at this earthly paradise, departed without a curse when he left his little ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... de Rivera, "these explorers are careless dogs. One seldom finds the places they map out so gaily. And what do they care who dies of the hunger or scurvy—drinking their flagons in Mexico or Madrid? A curse, say I, on the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... without hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. "Good heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!" A curse rose from the bottom of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Then we have a great many places said to be haunted. These were dead timber on my hands until I happened to notice that the Japanese have no objections to spooks. Now, whenever I have such a building to rent, I let it to Japs at a nominal figure, and after they've taken the curse off, I raise the rent, the Japs move out, the place is renovated, and in the ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... nineteenth century. From pulpit after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abundantly, the ordinary declaration being that to use chloroform was "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman." Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to defend the blessing which he brought into use; but he seemed about to be overcome, when he seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by which a great cause was ever won: "My opponents forget," he said, "the twenty-first verse of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... no rest till he had made ready an army and crossed the sea to make war on him. Modred, in Arthur's absence, seized the kingdom, and would have wedded the queen by force, had not the Archbishop of Canterbury threatened to curse him with bell, book, and candle. When Modred defied him, the archbishop departed, and "did the curse in the most orgulous wise that ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... reckless gait over the untracked, hardening snow. The man Gouter was driving under imperative orders such as he loved. Bull Sternford had told him when he left the shelter of No. 10 Camp: "Get there! Get there quick! There's dogs and to spare at all our camps, and I don't care a curse if you run the ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... cried Raikes, in mock surprise. "On my soul, you astonish me!" At this the Captain screeched with laughter again, yet he broke off in the middle to curse instead, as his ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... in the Old Testament reflects the popular feeling that confusion of tongues is a hindrance and a curse. Similarly in the New Testament the Pentecostal gift of tongues is a direct gift of God. But apparently it was not till about 300 years ago that philosophers began to ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark |
