"Cur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you where you picked up that Injun-looking feller that was lugging off the gal, and what his natur'? The Injuns say, he's a conjuror: now I never heerd of conjurors among the whites, like as among the Injuns, afore I cut loose from 'em, and I'm cur'ous on the subject!—I jist ax you a civil question, and I don't mean no harm in it. There's nobody can make the feller out; and, as for Ralph Stackpole, blast him, he says he never seed the crittur ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... undertook to slip away unobserved after night had set in—as we sometimes did—to go coon hunting. One night my brother, John Johnston, and I, with the usual complement of boys required for a successful coon hunt, took the insignificant little cur ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... exact, nay, illusive resemblance, the masks deviated more from it than in the Old, being overcharged in the features, and almost to caricature. However singular this may appear, it is too expressly and formally attested to admit of a doubt. [Footnote: See Platonius, in Aristoph. cur. Kster, p. xi.] As they were prohibited from bringing portraits of real persons on the stage they were, after the loss of their freedom, very careful lest they should accidentally stumble upon any resemblance, and especially ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... spouse. Her jokes, such as they were, and the coquetry with which they were enforced, had such an effect on this Timon of the woods, that he curled up his cynical nose, displayed his few straggling teeth like a cur about to bite, broke out into a barking laugh, which was more like the cry of one of his own hounds—stopped short in the explosion, as if he had suddenly recollected that it was out of character; yet, ere he resumed his acrimonious gravity, shot such a glance at Gillian ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... urg'd, this best of men, This gallant youth, then favour'd, high in power, Sought out the pit obscene of foul disease, Where I, and many a suffering soldier lay, And, like an angel, seeking good for man, Restor'd us light, and partial liberty. Me he mark'd out his own. He nurst and cur'd, He lov'd and made his friend. I liv'd by him, And in my heart he liv'd, till, when exchang'd, Duty and honour call'd me from my friend.— Judge how my heart is tortur'd.—Gracious heaven! Thus, thus to meet him on the brink of death— A death so infamous! Heav'n grant my prayer. [Kneels. ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands. ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... let them howl a psalm to a tune that is worse than the cries of a flogged hound, and the villains will lay on like threshers; but for a calm, cool, gentleman-like turn upon the sod, hand to hand, in a neighbourly way, they have not honour enough to undertake it. But enough of our crop-eared cur of a neighbour.—Sir Jasper, you will tarry with us to dine, and see how Dame Margaret's kitchen smokes; and after dinner I will show you a long-winged falcon fly. She is not mine, but the Countess's, who brought her from London on her fist almost the whole way, for all ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... dealt, That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt, Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it,— And shunn'd the tainted door as if they smelt Onions, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it. At last there came a pause of brutal force, The cur was silent, for his jaws were full Of tangled locks of tarry wool, The man had whoop'd and holloed till dead hoarse. The time was ripe for mild expostulation, And thus it stammer'd from a stander-by— "Zounds!—my good fellow,—it quite ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... yapping, unpleasant cur that seemed to think it rare fun to snap at Jacky's heels, then bound out of reach. A joke is a joke, but this horrid beast did not know where to stop, and Jack's first and second visits to the Bonamy hut were quite spoiled by the tyranny of the dog. If Jack could have ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... family friend," he said. "I guess you've a right to know. It isn't for my own sake I'm going at all. It's for—hers, and because of a promise I made to Luke. If I were to stop, I'd be a cur—and worse. She'd take me without counting the cost. She is a woman who never thinks of herself. I've got to think for her. I've sworn to play the straight game, and I'll play it. That's why I won't so much as look into her face ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... deir aine no monks at Ellsworf, an' never was, 'cept when de circus kem ter de kentry, las' summer was a year agone. Dey was two cute li'l monks den, wif white faces like li'l ole men, an' dey was mighty cur'us li'l rascals, an' dat sassy wif deir red suits and yaller caps; but I aine never heerd o' deir gitten loose from de circus, an' I don' b'leeve dey ever did, an' you can 'pend on what I say, fer I been at Ellsworf ever sence I was born, an' dat's a hunnerd years more or less. Now shet yo' eyes, ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... lirrel Tremendous! Ooray! ray! ray!—We're alf our ship's company short. There's only old Ding-dong left on the quar'er-deck. I'm drunk as David's sow. And we're off to cur out the Grand Armee. Ooray! ray! ray!" and he fell hiccoughing away into ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... several miles without encountering any body at that still hour of the night, occasionally alarmed at the barking of some snarling cur, as I passed through the small villages in my route,—when, worn out with fatigue and cold, I sat down under a hedge to screen myself from the cold "mistral" which blew. As the wind lulled, I heard sounds ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... lane to a muddy farmyard, with a muddy cur yapping at her wet legs, and geese hissing in a pool of purest mud serene. The house was small and rather old. It may have been painted once. The barn was large and new. It had been painted very much, and in a blinding red ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... see what a cur he is," whispered the pupil in disgrace; as soon as the teacher had returned to ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... old captain of our's before the war. He resigned when Zumalacarregui took the field, and joined the Carlists, and it seems they've made him a colonel. A surly, ill-conditioned cur he always was, or we should not be standing here without a word of kindness or consolation ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... case preceded an attempt at securing members. This campaign of education had for its object the instruction of the negro as to what real freedom was. He was taught that being released from chains was but the lowest form of liberty, and that he was no more than a common cur if he was satisfied with simply that. That much was all, they taught, that a dog howled for. They made use of Jefferson's writings, educating the negro to feel that he was not in the full enjoyment ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... A fuzzy little cur that had been sitting between Mr. Tate's earth-stained boots ran at the gander and yapped shrilly. The big bird curved his neck, bristled his ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... that day and place—or that her family was an old one, and his but a mushroom stock, as that she was a being of the gentlest instincts and the purest thoughts, while he was what you may have gathered from my words—vain, coarse, cowardly and mean; an abject cur beside her, who was, and is, one of the sweetest women ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... shouldst thou call to thy god on behalf of a tyrant and a coward," she said excitedly; "thou shouldst have seen that man cowering at my feet like a beaten dog. I could have spurned him with my foot, as I would a cur." ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... so stupid. David Hume, notwithstanding his past, may still be deemed a man of honour in some respects. He treated me grossly this morning. Will he fight me, or must I treat him as a cur?" ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... will, my darling wife! I should be a cur, and worse than a cur—a thankless wretch—to wish to restrain you in anything!" he answered, sealing his agreement ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... dog!" he said. "Damned old cur," wiping the slush from his worthless coat. "I—I hired ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... perversity of the situation at once occur to me. Not until we had gained one of the residence avenues did I realize the significance of the ill-concealed merriment we had aroused. It was not that I had been followed by a random cur, but by one known to be the dog of the lady I had called upon. I mean to say, the creature had advertised my acquaintance with his owner in a way that would lead base minds to ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... cornstalks and caused the dry twigs to rap a tattoo upon the windows of the farm houses. It attacked the shivering form of a lonely little cur who took his tail between his legs and scurried away down the road in search of some sheltering barn or shed; it nipped little Hi Babson's ears and snatching his cap, tossed it over the wall and across the field where it lay, held fast in a ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... extraordinary letter, I should have supposed you had been actuated by a mad infatuation for the cur, Levison; its tenor gave the matter a different aspect. To what did you allude when you asserted that your husband had driven ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Campos, Jose H. Campos," he volunteered. "The dirty cur's stuck Carson up for twenty thousand pesos. We had to pay, or he'd have compelled half our peons to enlist or set the wells on fire. And you know, Davies, what we've done for him in past years. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... swept away the black horrors of the torture-room; that the butchery of the headsman's block ceased at the close of the civil contest which settled the line of regal succession; and that hanging, which is the proper death of the cur, is now reserved for those only who place themselves out of the pale of humanity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... abandoned trucks marooned on the few stretches of the narrow-gauge railway left whole by our shell-fire. In the wood stood numerous Boche-built huts, most of them put up since the March onslaught. The Boche, dirty cur that he is, had deliberately fouled them before departing. The undulating waste land east of Trones Wood, hallowed by memories of fierce battles in 1916, had remained untroubled until the last few weeks; and the hundreds ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... not feel bound to champion every fighting cur who is getting the worst of it," said Mr. Cuthbert. "What has become of Mr. Farrant's favorite? I suppose he is fussing over it instead of studying the affairs of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... for the shepherd is the collie, but other kinds are employed, and many an ordinary cur has been trained by an intelligent master so that he made an excellent sheep dog, though he can never attain the excellence of the genuine collie. The real shepherd dog will accomplish more than would ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... sitting alone in his tent, looking for the hundredth time over a worn copy of Harper's Weekly that he had picked up at Casement's camp, when a dog put his nose in the tent door. A glance revealed merely a disconsolate, unpromising cur, yet Bucks thought he had seen the dog before and was interested. He seemed of an all-over alkali-brown hue, scant of hair, scant of tail, and with only melancholy dewlap ears to suggest a strain of nobler blood in an earlier ancestry. He looked in with the furtive ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... See, he is coming towards us with a paper in his hand. We shall soon know the King's command; so prepare, my fine fellow, either to become food for the vultures, or to make acquaintance with some hungry cur. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Lewis, and two cursives (71, 157) are literally the only authority, ancient or modern, for so exhibiting the text [in all its bare crudeness]. Against them are arrayed the whole body of MSS. uncial and cursive, including ACD; every known lectionary; all the Latin, the Syriac (Cur. om. Clause 1), and indeed every other known version: besides seven good Greek Fathers beginning with Clemens Alex. (A.D. 190), and five Latin Fathers beginning with Tertullian (A.D. 190): Cyprian's testimony ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... it you for nothing. You are an infamous cur, my friend. Your name is Charles Blondet; you were steward in the household of De Langeac; twice have you bought the betrayal of the viscount, and never have you paid the money—it is shameful! You owe ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... escapes of the vile cur, after whom the novel is christened, and of his natural enemy Peter Smallbones are not all equally well contrived, and they become a little wearisome by repetition; but a general atmosphere of diablerie is very effectively produced by their means. Some such element of unreality ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wishes; where no tones of love ever fell on his ear, save those addressed to others; where his presence or absence was a matter of utter indifference; and when he entered Ty Glas, all, down to the little cur which, with clamorous barkings, claimed a part of his attention, seemed to rejoice. His account of his day's employment found a willing listener in Ellis; and when he passed on to Nest, busy at her wheel or at her churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and the gradual yielding ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... ingratitude of his countrymen to the soldier who did it eminent service at a crisis of the destinies of our Indian Empire! He could not condone the injury done to him by entering among them again. Too like the kicked cur, that! He retired—call it 'sulked in his tent,' if you like. His wife had to share his fortunes. He being slighted, she necessarily was shadowed. For a while she bore it contentedly enough; then began her mousy scratches to get into the room off the wainscot, without blame from him; she behaved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had fallen back in his chair, was livid; his limbs shook as if with ague. Meanwhile the major, striding up and down and striking the tables wildly with his fists, continued: "So you have become a thief like the veriest scribbling cur of a clerk, and all for the sake of that creature here! If at least you had stolen for your mother's sake it would have been honorable! But, curse it, to play tricks and bring the money into this shanty is what I cannot understand! Tell me—what ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... all I did. Honest, I am. I want you to forget the past and forgive me. I treated you, as you say, like a cur. I'm willing to make amends and do the right thing by you as far as that is humanly possible. You and I were brought up together, Phil. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... their breasts, thinking the very devil is loose. The wails of the unfortunate cat mingle with the short snapping barks of the pack, or a howl of anguish as puss inflicts a caress on the face of some too careless or reckless dog. A howling village cur has rashly ventured too near. 'Pincher' has him by the hind leg before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' Leaving the dead cat for 'Toby' and 'Nettle' to worry, the whole pack now fiercely attack the luckless Pariah dog. A dozen of his village mates dance madly outside ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... cur, that has got himself introduced into the family, and the sooner we get quit of him the better. I should think the young lady would hardly fancy him when she knows that he has lied like the very devil, with the object of getting her former lover ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... free t' confesh I haven't gotter shingle idea. But 'f you know, 's all right. W'en a man feels himself slightly 'tossicated, 's nozzin' like bein' in comp'ny of f'law 'at knows where 's goin'. 'Parts a highly 'gree'ble feelin' 'f conf'dence. Don't wanter 'splay any 'pert'nent cur'osity, Boffski, but p'raps 's no harm in askin' where 'tis 'at you know ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... a cur to accept such terms, though I would do anything to even matters with that Asbury; but I want to get ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... for her, and were good to her—not your people, nor my people; but enough were good to her to make her see as much of the world as she had used to. She never loved Thatcher, and she never loved any of the men you brought into that trial except one, and he treated her like a cur. That was myself. Well, what with trying to please my family, and loving Alice Thatcher all the time and not seeing her, and hating her too for bringing me into all that notoriety—for I blamed the woman, of course, as a man always will—I got to drinking, and then this scrape came ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... hale me up before a stern Committee, Fellows with brazen faces, hearts of steel, And destitute of manners as of pity. My solemn statement, or my mild demur, To them a subject of fierce scorn and scoff is; An honest citizen feels but a cur When snapped and snarled at by these Jacks-in-Office. They're sure to have the pull of me somehow; Oh! I've read "Handbooks." I've attended Meetings Where angry ratepayers raise fruitless row; But, bless you, these bold roarings turn to bleatings, When they the cruel inquisition face Of some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... Meissen, in the district of Cur Saxony, lived an honest and worthy man, Christian Gottfried Hahnemann, an intelligent, patriotic and highly esteemed, though unassuming and unambitious member of that community, by trade a painter upon porcelain, known under the ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... inhabitant was allowed to have a servant behind his carriage. About 1292, Philip the Fair, of France, by edict, ordered how many suits of clothes, and at what price, and how many dishes at table should be allowed, and that no woman should keep a cur. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Prosper, "the cur will do as he says; and, alarm once given, farewell to our projects. We must find some other entrance ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Larry. "He looks as black as thunder when he speaks first to one and then to another. They're dead afraid of him, that's what! They've had their say, and he's put a damper on it all. See him shake his fist at that fellow; and how he cringes like a whipped cur! Oh! Phil, whatever did you come down here to try and do ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... not even desire—but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run—gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... walks of life he trod He never wagged an unkind tale abroad, He never snubbed a nameless cur because Without a friend or credit card ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... ditches, undistinguishable in the hazy atmosphere; with the village church looming brown and dingy through the uncertain light; with every winding path and cottage door, every gable end and gray old chimney, every village child and straggling cur seeming strange and weird of aspect in the semi-darkness, Phoebe Marks and her Cousin Luke made their way through the churchyard of Audley, and presented themselves before a shivering curate, whose surplice hung in damp ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... it altogether. I looks round in all directions, but I couldn't see nothin'—cause why? there wasn't nothin' to be seen. It was 'orrid dark, I can tell ye. Jist one or two stars a-shinin', like half-a-dozen farden dips in a great church; they only made darkness wisible. I began to feel all over a cur'ous sort o' peculiar unaccountableness, which it ain't easy to explain, but is most oncommon disagreeable to feel. It wos very still, too—desperate still. The beatin' o' my own heart sounded quite loud, and I heer'd the tickin' o' my watch goin' like the click ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... to honour, and his evil bents remain; Bind a cur's tail ne'er so straightly, yet it ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... could sure talk, but Ranch, he wasn't much on chin-chin. Little an' dark an' quiet he was, an' jus' crazy fer dogs. Any old mutt'd do fer him—jus' so's it was in the shape of a pup. He was fair wild fer 'em. He picked up a yeller cur out there the day after the Yangtsin fight, an' that there no-account, mangy, flea-bitten mutt had ter stay with us the whole time. If the pup didn't stand in me an' Buck an' Ranch, he swore he'd quit too, so we had to let him come, an' he messed ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... and I know not how to gainsay you," returned Sibyll, as the dogs, reluctantly beaten off, retired each from each, snarling and reluctant, while a small black cur, that had hitherto sat unobserved at the door of a small hostelrie, now coolly approached and dragged off the bone of contention. "But what sayst thou now? See! see! the patient mongrel carries off the bone from the gentleman-hounds. Is that the way ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as I stood at the gate (because I had knocked, and none did answer), that all our labour had been lost, especially when that ugly cur made such a heavy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... know, after a little while, that the roaring dragon was really afraid of them and would run like a very coward if it saw a dog coming across the fields. Every small cur that lived in sight of it lay in the tall grass, and when he saw the dragon coming, chased him off the farm ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the bonds that held the girl's wrists and ankles. A moment later he had lifted her to her feet, and grasping her by the hand led her towards the entrance. Outside the grim sentinel of death kept his grisly vigil. Sniffing at his dead feet whined a mangy native cur. At sight of the two emerging from the hut the beast gave an ugly snarl and an instant later as it caught the scent of the strange white man it raised a series of excited yelps. Instantly the warriors at the near-by fire were attracted. They turned their heads in the direction of the commotion. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had only to deal with some helpless creature you could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... the forest laws, a man who had no right to the privilege of the chase, was obliged to cut or law his dog: among other modes of disabling him from disturbing the game, one was by depriving him of his tail: a dog so cut was called a cut or curtailed dog, and by contraction a cur. A cur is figuratively used to signify ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... cur bark; for I took him by the ears, to show him out into the street. Whereon he got to his sword, and I to mine; and a very near chance I had of never bathing on the pebble ridge more; for the fellow did ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... such a cur? Burgundy won't hurt you if you do as he bids you. I won't hurt you if you ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... companion of a Jew, or the inmate of his house." He quotes various terms of reproach still common among us, and which seem to have originated from a similar feeling to that of the Jew. For instance, we say of a very cheap article, that it is "dog cheap." To call a person "a dog," or "a cur," or "a hound," means something the very opposite of complimentary. A surly person is said to have "a dogged disposition." Any one very much fatigued is said to be "dog weary." A wretched room or house ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... some eggs and so on, 'cause you can see in the road where they smashed when the basket flew out; and Jerry didn't know no more than to hitch up into the buggy without shortenin' the traces, and you know how that would work. Well, the cur'us thing is that I was out in the paster mowin' some brakes—here, let me hitch up this side, while you do the other—and I heard somebody or somethin' comin' slam-bang, and I looked up—I wa'n't near enough so as to ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... not be that though there should be a quarrel for a time, everything would come right at last? As for Adrian Urmand, George did not believe,—or told himself that he did not believe,—that such a cur as he would suffer much because his hopes of ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... by step, still facing her, longing to rebel, yet not daring, cringing, skulking like a whipped cur. He reached the end of the path; the entrance to the garden was behind him. He raised his clenched hand to the heavens. "Ah, Melkarth!" burst from his lips, and, turning, he plunged into ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... 'ere cur'us lookin' thing,' he said, 'under a walnut-tree on the hill yonder, where I was rakin' up leaves—an', thinks I, there's some kind of a crittur stored away inside, an' Miss Ruth she's crazy arter bugs ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... he was not at one with Punch, and that was "Toby." The form and face of Mr. Punch, as rendered by him, was hardly a classic rendering; but this was forgiven him. But Keene's Toby was neither the cur represented by some, nor the Irish terrier affected by others, but a dachshund! And he persisted in so drawing him to the end, not because he thought it right, but because "it might have been!" and because the original of the beast was his own much-loved ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... share of the transaction. The guests numbered about sixty, and about a third that number of dogs which had strayed in through the open doorway. When an attendant (in shirt-sleeves) proceeded to walk round and sprinkle the rough boards with resin, the dancers fairly yelled with delight, for a hungry cur closely followed him, greedily devouring the stuff as it fell! But although in those days the Yukon gold-digger was as tough a customer as ever rocked a cradle in the wildest days of Colorado, there was a rough and friendly bonhomie amongst the inhabitants of Circle City which ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... served as a soldier in South Africa, a great admiration for the Boers themselves." What I submit is, that it makes the whole difference to your chances of a settlement whether you speak of and regard your enemy as brave and admirable, or as a yelping cur. We shall have to settle down with these people sooner or later, and every paltry insult uttered and countenanced against them only makes the process much more difficult. The odd thing is that even in England they seem to excite no surprise or dissent. They are printed ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... "Cur of Judea!" hissed the knight, his sword flashing out of its scabbard, "I shall cut you down and fling you out to the dogs. Fight here and ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... smells mighty inviting to him, I wager; but will he go in? Not much. See, there he goes along, heading straight for home. If another dog picked a fight with him, Carlo would lay that package down, give the cur a good licking, then pick the papers up ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... its stroke. Mild treatment will not do. It is loathsome, filthy and disgusting. If we bid a dog in gentle words to go out of the house, he will lie down under the table. It wants a sharp voice and a determined manner to make him clear out, and so sin is a vile cur that cannot be ejected by any conservative policy. It must ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Ruspoli. Ruspoli was leaning up against a pillar, watching Orazio as he would a mischievous cur. "A most suitable marriage. Not that I care a button for blood, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... but to cause those who come here to turn back from my gate by the sound of its voice. But hadst thou known more of me thou wouldst not have felt fear of a dog. The poor man who goes from door to door will, for the sake of alms, run the risk of a bite from a cur; and shall a dog ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... itself—or in the color of that shawl—of gold and purple and scarlet and green—both were but just entering upon the field of vision as you spoke, and now both have vanished forever! And lo! a tall man of a majestic presence, with a little black dog at his heels—the veriest cur you ever saw! What must be the nature of such companionship? Look! look! there goes another—a fashionably dressed young man—followed by two or three more—intermixed with women and children—and now they go trooping past by dozens! leaving you as little time to note their peculiarities ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... cur'ous. Sometimes hit 'pears like you air kin to them, and they ain't kin to you. That Pony boy of your'n is son to a full mealsack; he's plumb filial and devoted thataway to a dollar, if so be he thinks you've got one in yo' pocket. The facts in the business air, Nancy, ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... stopped suddenly, and the darkness seemed on fire against his cheeks. He would have to face curious eyes, he reflected. It was from the Red Lion he and Aird had started so grandly in the autumn. It would never do to come slinking back like a whipped cur; he must carry it off bravely in case the usual busybodies should be gathered round the bar. So with his coat flapping lordly on either side of him, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, and his hat on the back of his head, he drove at the swing-doors with an outshot chest, and entered ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... a-rubbin' his hands, he was so excited and tickled over it, 'at Steve and me we jist stood there a-gawkin' like, tel Bills hisse'f come up and rech out one hand to Steve and one to me; and Steve shuck with him kind o' oneasy like, and I—well, sir, I never felt cur'oser in my born days than I did that minute. The cold chills crep' over me, and I shuck as ef I had the agur, and I folded my hands behind me and I looked that feller square in the eye, and I tried to speak three or four times afore I could make it, and when I did, my voice wasn't ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... that the Errors corrected by our Enemies are better cur'd, than those corrected by ourselves; for we are apt to indulge our Faults, nor can we so ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... morning came but some farmer or other found his flock reduced in this way, until the whole neighbourhood was roused to excited indignation against the whole dog tribe. Suspicion fell in turn upon almost every poor cur of the neighbourhood, and many a poor canine innocent was done to death, some by drowning, others by poison, and more by shooting; until it seemed as if all the sheep and dogs of the countryside would ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... your emotional oratory, but pardon me while I look for my stethoscope," he said. "I want to see what effect an hour's run will have on the hearts of a hound and an ordinary cur." ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... him, men!" shouted Sim Squires, following up the wreck of arrogance who through years had brow-beaten him, and becoming in turn himself the bully. "Look at him huddlin' thar like a whipped cur-dawg! Hain't he done es good es made confession by ther ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... possession of yourself. In short, ceasing to be a man. You led me to see that you would no longer believe me, because I had once told a lie. Your behavior was grand, noble and lofty, for any other man would have whipped me out of his house like a cur; and yet I ought not to ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Yes, sir; he'd be actually tickled to death if he could nose up some hint of a scandal about her—something that he could pretend to believe, and work for his own advantage to levy blackmail, or get rid of her, or whatever suited his book. I didn't think there was such an out-and-out cur on this whole footstool. I almost wish, by God, I'd thrown him ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... dig far into the etymological strata to be impressed by the unenviable place which the dog has made for himself in the tradition and experience of our race. The name itself, and still more its variations, such as cur, hound, puppy, and whelp, are anything but complimentary when applied to mankind; and its derivatives, such as "dogged" and "doggerel," are not of dignified suggestion. And, mark you, these associations ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... erat? Judaei. Quomodo? Sumptu Quis jussit? Regnans. Quo procurante? Magistri. Cur? Cruce pro fracta ligni. Quo tempore? Festo Ascensus Domini. Quis est locus? ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... fellow in every sense of the word—a gredin (a cur), the true translation, by-the-bye, of the word blackguard. Voltaire, who dealt largely in Billingsgate, was very fond of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... springs; then, perhaps, a bespattered buggy, with reins jerked by a pair of sinewy and impatient hands. Then more street-cars; then a butcher's cart loaded with the carcasses of calves—red, black, piebald—or an express wagon with a yellow cur yelping from its rear; then, it may be, an insolently venturesome landau, with crested panel and top-booted coachman. Then drays and omnibuses and more street-cars; then, presently, somewhere in the line, between the tail end of one truck and the menacing tongue of another, a ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... in the house was made extremely uncomfortable at such times— "Liubov Liubimovna, you see my position; go, my love, to Gavrila Andreitch, and talk to him a little. Can he really prize some wretched cur above the repose—the very life—of his mistress? I could not bear to think so," she added, with an expression of deep feeling. "Go, my love; be so good as to go to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... a special aversion for Montaigu College. 'Tempeste,' says he, 'was a great boy-flogger at Montaigu College. If for flogging poor little children, unoffending school-boys, pedagogues are damned, he, upon my word of honor, is now on Ixion's wheel, flogging the dock-tailed cur that turns it.' Pantagruel's education was now humane and gentle. Accordingly he soon took pleasure in the work which Ponocrates was at the pains of rendering interesting to him by the very nature and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... authorities current among the Christians of the fifth century have been amalgamated with the Armenian traditions, and the historical romances of the Greeks and beyond doubt the patriotic fancies also of Moses himself have been laid to a considerable extent under contribution. Bad as is cur Occidental tradition in itself, to call in the aid of Oriental tradition in this and similar cases—as has been attempted for instance by the uncritical Saint-Martin—can only lead to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... all her internal arrangements! No more watching for mice in dark, damp cellars, no more awaiting the savage gray rat at the mouth of his den, no more scurrying up trees and lamp-posts to avoid the neighbor's cur who wishes to make her acquaintance! It is very grand to "die in harness," but it is very pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... made of money. By Jove! if he wants to borrow any I'll surprise him, the cur; I'll talk ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... another word;" and, seizing him by the collar, I shook him furiously. "Speak lightly of her," I continued, "and I will thrash you like a dog, as well as that cur who follows at ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... said one of the elders of the village;" no man must expect the help of God if he throws himself wilfully in the way of danger. Is it not so, M. le Cur? I heard you say as much from the pulpit on the first Sunday in Lent, preaching from ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a dry and dusty volume of Blue-Bookish lore,— While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a yapping, As of some toy-terrier snapping, snapping at my study door. "'Tis some peevish cur," I muttered, "yapping at my study door,— Only that,—but ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... hut stood in the center of the clearing. The panther whined again and the owl hooted. The bear-skin door of the hut was pushed aside and a hideous face peered forth. There was a gutteral call, and a prowling cur slunk in. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... fell a-pondering over all the comfort and help that I might have been and that I might have had, if I had been but a little of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before abbot and bishop and baron and bailiff, came the thought over me of the evil of the world wherewith I, John Ball, the rascal hedge-priest, had fought and striven in the Fellowship of the saints in heaven and poor ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... masterly witness. I have rarely seen a more accomplished liar. His regret was infinite. With horrified hands he deplored what he referred to as "the shocking affair." He thundered unsought denunciation of "the dastardly conduct of some fugitive cur." As a motorist, he "so well understood our feelings." But—at length and with a wealth of detail he described how he and his chauffeur had spent the twenty-second of May. With the exception of an hour for lunch, they had worked on the car ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... flesh This policy they use to get it out; They trail one of their feet upon the ground, And gnaw the flesh about where the wound is, Till it be clean drawn out; and then, because Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur'd, They lick and purify it with their tongue, And well observe Hippocrates' old rule, The only medicine for the foot is rest,— For if they have the least hurt in their feet They bear them up and look they be not stirr'd. When humours rise, they eat a sovereign herb, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... quadruped is waiting for his master, and his anxiety is disinterested. The biped cur was waiting for the first streak of dawn to slip away to some more distant and safe hiding-place and sally-port than the Dun Cow, kept by a woman who was devoted to Hope, to Walter, and to Mary, and had all her ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... peasant reassured him. "The mare is young and frisky. . . . Only let her get running and then there is no stopping her. . . . No-ow, cur-sed brute!" ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... pamphlet.(14) Well, but you must not give your mind to believe those things; people will say anything. The Character is here reckoned admirable, but most of the facts are trifles. It was first printed privately here; and then some bold cur ventured to do it publicly, and sold two thousand in two days: who the author is must remain uncertain. Do you pretend to know, impudence? How durst you think so? Pox on your Parliaments: the Archbishop has told me of it; but we do not vouchsafe to know anything ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... lucky crack," declared Sandy, "and bowled the smaller cur over, but he was up like a flash and at me again, scratching and biting like a mad wolf. I never would have believed family pets could go back to the wild state again like that if I hadn't seen it with ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... the cur! How dare he return?" she cried with a sudden outburst, her words ringing with indignation and resentment. She impatiently tapped the palm of her hand with her fan as she began to realize what his return ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... "You cur, you've squealed on me!" With his uninjured left hand he caught the other in his Oriental death grip, with all his consummate skill. Astonished at the sudden move, Shirley rose to his feet. But he hesitated ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... that night. It had been hard to meet his father and what he said had left a wound that would take long to heal. Now he must say good-by to Helen. This would need courage, but Dick meant to see her. It was the girl's right that she should hear his story, and he would not steal away like a cur. He did not think Helen was really fond of him, though he imagined that she would have acquiesced in her relatives' plans for them both had things been different. Now, of course, that was done with, but he must say good-by and ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... notion of losing his dinner just for a woman and a mongrel cur. But she struck him a tremendous blow on the back; at the same time the pup got him by the leg. He dropped the young one to defend himself. She caught it up and ran, leaving the two beasts ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... and sent that warning, in a weak and rat-brained attempt to frighten us into again postponing the Day of Conquest! Know now, spineless weakling, that the time is ripe, and that the Fenachrone in their might are about to strike. But you, foul traducer of your emperor, shall die the death of the cur you are!" The hand within his tunic moved and a vibrator burst ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... possession; for I paced the distance this morning. Tomorrow Gunter will make sure of it by a survey; though I think we'd better do it while the old man is gone to dinner. He's sometimes apt to use emphatic language. Perhaps now his mangy cur Caesar will seize me by the coat again! Perhaps Mark will insult me, and the old man laugh at it in his sleeve! I shouldn't wonder if they managed to pay the notes, but on the title to the shop we have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... says that hard sledding in America made a yellow cur out of him fools no one. He was born a yellow cur. Hard sledding in America produced the man who said: "With malice toward none; with ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... to the ford where he had crossed, and the two hundred Galloway men were along with the animal and guided by it. Bruce thought of going back to awaken his men; but then he thought it might be some shepherd's dog. 'My men,' said he, 'are sorely tired; I will not disturb them by the barking of a cur till I know something more ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... lick up a mouthful from a gutter. He had not the spirit to prick up his ears, or to wag or curl up his tail, if he had one—for, shortly after his transformation, the end of it was wedged into a door by his wife, and he was cur-tailed. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... prosecution from my Lord Chief-Justice Whitshed. It calls to my remembrance the madman in Don Quixote, who being soundly beaten by a weaver for letting a stone (which he always carried on his shoulder) fall upon a spaniel, apprehended that every cur he met was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... the investigation was to be had, for it was high time that the Senate should crush some cur like this man Noble, and thus show his kind that it was able and resolved to uphold its ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... arrival. The people told me that that very morning they had seen the noble beasts I was after, grazing outside the wood. So, gathering the villagers, boys carrying horns, men (much against my will) carrying guns, accompanied by every available dog, from the grand shepherd's dog to the yapping cur of the ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... way of accounting for it. It sometimes seems as if the mere sight of happiness or success in others is the signal for its breaking out. As we have said, its two leading motives are cowardice and jealousy. Just as the cur will wait till the big dog has passed by, and then, slinking up behind, give a surreptitious snap at his heels, so the sneak, instead of standing face to face with his rival, and instead of entering into fair competition ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of it all entered his soul and spread it with bitterness. After dismissing him for the supposed murder of her brother, she was to take the actual murderer to her arms. And he, that cur, that false villain!—out of what depths of hell did he derive the courage to go through with this mummery?—had he no heart, no conscience, no sense of decency, no fear ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... procure food for their masters in a manner which one of them is now seen to put into practice. On the more outlying ledges some sea-fowl, themselves seeking food, still linger fearlessly. Engrossed in their grubbing, they fail to note that an enemy is near—a little cock-eared cur, that has swum up to the ledge, and, without bark or yelp, is stealthily crawling toward it. Taking advantage of every coign of concealment, the dog creeps on till, at length, with a bound, like a cat springing at ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... best; but he fell sick while chawing up the fourth capitalistic canine, and subsequently died. The dummies had robbed that cur with poison before starting it across—that was the only way they could ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... commonly called wisdom; disdain of the inevitable end, that finest trait of mankind; scorn of men's opinions, another element of virtue; and at the back of all, a conscience just like yours and mine, whining like a cur, swindling like a thimble-rigger, but still pointing (there or thereabout) to some conventional standard. Here were a cabinet portrait to which Hawthorne perhaps had done justice; and yet not Hawthorne either, for he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like a firebrand, and his eyes sparkled with wrath, as he loudly exclaimed, "What difference does it make to you, you ungrateful cur, whether the account is true or false, so long as you get your money? Bring none of your squeamish objections here. Either take the account as I have made it out, and swear to it, without flinching, or"—and here he swore an oath too revolting ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... so cur'ous, then. You saved his life," went on the housekeeper dropping the broad Scotch burr, now that her excitement ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... the third day, and I wur gettin' powerful weak. I 'gin to think this child's time had come, and I would have ter pass in my chips. 'Twur a little arter sun up, an' I war sittin' on the bank, when I seed something cur'ous like floatin' down stream. When it kim closer, I seed it wur the karkidge of a buffler, and a couple of buzzards floppin' about on the thing, pickin' its peepers out. 'Twur far out, an' the water deep; but I said I was goin' to fetch it ashore, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... me and springing on the curate, seized him by the collar. "Why, you unhanged cur? Why? Or better, say it's not true—say something, else by the Lord I'll kill you here ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... doubting what she meant, nor what she had nerved herself to accomplish. Feeling like a whipped cur I went slowly up the broad stairs, my hand on the banister rail, and she followed, keeping even pace with me, the cocked Colt pointing sternly upward at ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... fashion these private citizens adjusts their dooty to the state while pausin' to look on, in a sperit of cur'osity while Silver Phil makes his ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... on his pipe for three minutes. "Then off you make for the camp," he decided, "and fire them. Don't let 'em even spend the night here. If I set eyes on one of them again there'll be murder; I won't be responsible for myself if that cur Werner's smirking physog gets in front of me; and I'll punch Morani on sight, ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... he said, "that every time I saw a snarling cur or an open-mouthed watch-dog rush at Caius, the dog slowed his rush before he reached him, circled about him, sniffing, and trotted back where he ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... to invite Radisson and Groseillers to visit their nation. The two Sioux had a dog, which they refused to sell for all Radisson's gifts. The Crees dared not offend the Sioux ambassadors by stealing the worthless cur on which such hungry eyes were cast, but at night Radisson slipped up to the Sioux tepee. The dog came prowling out. Radisson stabbed it so suddenly that it dropped without a sound. Hurrying back, he boiled and fed the meat to the famishing Crees. ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... look at me. I've tried my luck before now, and it was damned bad luck. So here I am, a musty old curmudgeon; and there's Ayre, a snarling old cur!" ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... below the dam lay a little boat built by the miller's sons. It was clumsy enough, but in my eyes a marvel of engineering art. On the opposite side stood the big boy braving the low-bred cur which barked and growled at him with its ugly head stretched out like a serpent's; while his owner, who was probably not so unkind as we thought him, stood enjoying the fun of it all. Reckoning upon the big boy's assistance, I scrambled ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald |
