"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like a blessing turned into a curse. This is the secret history of what made me such ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you "do me down," I have my lyre, And I shall trumpet (at the normal Press wage) Such things about that house, and with such fire, That all men ever after shall conspire To shun the said demesne and curse ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... like the rest of us," he said, "none will dream that you understand their language, and as you pass along they will express freely before you the sentiments they may entertain of us. I do not expect them to love us, and doubtless though they may flatter us to our faces, they curse us heartily behind our backs. But we care nothing for their curses, or for their ill will, so long as they do not proceed to plots and ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... not be borne. The temper of the Whig National Convention was exhibited in a way to irritate the lovers of freedom in Massachusetts. When some allusion was made to her expressed opinions, it was received with groans and cries of "Curse Massachusetts." But, on the whole, the Massachusetts Whigs shared the exultant anticipation of triumph, and of regaining the power from which they had been excluded since the time of John Quincy Adams, except for the month of Harrison's short official life. But as the convention was about ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... no longer be the synonym of treason and betrayal—his name will be rescued from the infamy each passing year of the existence of our country has heaped upon it, and the Copperheads of the present day will receive the anathemas of all coming generations, till their very names shall be a curse too horrid for mortals to apply, and thenceforth be only echoed in the lowest ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... love endures, that the strong knot which unites my heart and Perion's heart can never be untied. Oh, living is a higher thing than you or I had dreamed! And I have in my heart just pity, poor Demetrios, for you who never found the love of which I must endeavour to be worthy. A curse was I to you unwillingly, as you—I now believe—have been to me against your will. So at the last I turn anew to bargaining, and cry—in your deaf ears—Pardon ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... whom had fallen the curse of the dumb. She was within arm's reach of him, her face white as a cameo, her eyes glowing like newly-fired stars, her slim throat quivering, and ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that thou hast taken it into thy head to curse!" said the forester with amazement. "Hast ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Faith, crumbs from my superfluity, like those that fell from the other rich man's table. Besides, of what avail will any charities, as you call them, of mine be? They will serve only to convey the curse that attaches itself to me. I tremble to think you are ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... people, thy children, thy chosen, Marked cross from the womb and perverse! They have found out the secret to cozen The gods that constrain us and curse; They alone, they are wise, and none other; Give me place, even me, in their train, O my sister, my spouse, and my mother, Our ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... a sweeping gesture of his chubby hands. "My dear man," he said, "what you've been doesn't matter a tinker's curse to me. It's what ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... Fra Girolamo's phrases by heart, "they are too heavy for you: they are heavier than a millstone, and are weighting you for perdition. Will you adorn yourself with the hunger of the poor, and be proud to carry God's curse upon your head?" ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... frightfully audible; his calamitous "Ah!" goes to our marrow; then the cruel precision of the mechanical familiar, as he lays bare to the sight his whole anatomy of horrors. And suppose, too, the executioner compelled to his task,—consequently an irresponsible agent, whom we cannot curse; and, finally, that these two objects compose the whole scene. What could we feel but an agony even like that of the sufferer, the only difference being that one is physical, the other mental? And this ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... to contest directly such metaphysical relations: for the human week, with its day of rest, is such an eminently fortunate and blissful invitation, the observance of this command is accompanied by such a striking prosperity in all life-relations of a people, its non-observance by such an evident curse, and, moreover, the idea of man bearing the image of God is such a fruitful idea, satisfying equally spirit and mind, that we have to remember the possibility that the institution of the human week, with its day of rest, is certainly founded on the real relations of the life-process of that creature ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... curse he swung on his heel, and made to cross the gravel path and plunge into the shrubbery. But Desmond was too quick for him. Springing upon his back, he caught his arms, thus preventing him from using his pistol. He was a powerful ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... to the Treasury has lost none of its controlling force. We must make up our minds to keep these deep-descended gentlemen in the Union, and must convince them that we have a work to accomplish in it and by means of it. If our Southern brethren have the curse of Canaan in their pious keeping, if the responsibility lie upon them to avenge the insults of Noah, on us devolves a more comprehensive obligation and the vindication of an elder doom;—it is for us to assert and to secure the claim of every son of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Sir George, dejectedly, "Heaven knows you are in no condition to fathom a mystery that hath puzzled wiser heads than yours or mine; and I am little able to lay the tale before you fairly; for your grief, it moves me deeply, and I could curse myself for putting the matter to you so bluntly and so uncouthly. Permit me to retire a while and compose my own spirits for the task I have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... dead. Her heart leaped for joy. But when she found how the case stood with him, she was ready to wish him dead and numbered among the little children that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Jules had been kidnapped and tampered with by the Catholics. The little apostate had been taught to curse his parents. ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... a raucous curse, a shot, and Yesler had slammed the door shut. He was alone in the darkness with ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... relate how, like the Lady of Shalott, when I first began to gaze upon the world of realities "the curse" came upon me. It ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... Comrade Ossipon, striding brusque and shadowy across the shop, squatted in a corner obediently; but this obedience was without grace. He fumbled nervously—and suddenly in the sound of a muttered curse the light behind the glazed door flicked out to a gasping, hysterical sigh of a woman. Night, the inevitable reward of men's faithful labours on this earth, night had fallen on Mr Verloc, the tried revolutionist—"one of the old lot"—the humble guardian of society; the invaluable ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... never receive good counsel from thee. The King then took the Cid by the hand and led him apart, and said unto him, Thou well knowest my Cid, that when the King my father commended thee unto me, he charged me upon pain of his curse that I should take you for my adviser, and whatever I did that I should do it with your counsel, and I have done so even until this day; and thou hast alway counselled me for the best, and for this I have given thee a county in my kingdom, holding it well bestowed. Now then I beseech ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... know that God is very angry when we call each other bad names, and surely you do not wish to revenge yourself? I will tell you a very sweet verse which our Saviour said: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven.'" As the little monitor spoke, the soft consciousness of the comfort of those sweet words rushed over his ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... Alf began, when they were both comfortably settled with their backs to the door. "That must be the thing that governs us—that, and the sacrifice of as few lives as possible. Not their lives, of course. I don't care a curse for the Fernalds; the more of them that go sky-high the better, in my estimation. It's the men I mean, our own people. Some of them will have to die, I know that. It's unavoidable, since the factories are never ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... to extort from them matter of accusation against the Christians. He commanded Christians to abjure their faith, invoke the gods, pour out libations to the statues of the emperor, burn incense to idols, and curse Christ. If they refused, he ordered ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... is just. He will not let you escape. If He does, I will not. I will hound you to the ends of this earth and, if necessary, into the eternities. Not with the threat of my arm—you are my master there, but with the curse of a brother who believed you innocent of his darling's blood and would have believed you so in face of everything ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... [Footnote: Count Schulenberg was sentenced to death; and Maria Theresa, who was inexorable where a breach of morals was concerned, approved the sentence. But Count Esterhazy hastened to intercede for his rival, acknowledging at last that Schulenberg had freed him from a tie which was a curse ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... conscientious; and I believe I could never be a blessing to the little body of English Episcopalians, if acting against my conscience. They want God's blessing, not man's help; the latter without the former is a curse. Put not your trust in any child of man. But I am not against those dear friends, and can feel myself more at liberty to help them now than before, because I am now acting openly in all things. May the Lord Jesus enable you to look to Him, and to feel ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... With a muttered curse, Barber straightened, turned on his heel, strode to the door of his bedroom, threw it wide, noted the unmade beds, and came about, pushing at the sleeve of his right arm. "Come here," he bade, and the quiet of his tone was more terrible to the ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Until I find peace again, My curse upon the fiend or god That will not let me hear A bird in song upon the bough But, hovering about the notes, There chimes the maniac beating ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... Dalrymple, January 1.-Thanks for his "History of Scottish Councils." The spirit of controversy the curse of modern times. Attack on the House of Commons. Outcry against grievances. Despotism and unbounded ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... his mind that he was lost. This brought him to his senses, and his terror vanished. In its stead, a burning rage swept upon him, filled his heart, and made him once more a brute thirsting for revenge. Before his distorted vision rose the mocking face of Jim Weston, and a deep growling curse spued from his lips. Then he saw Glen standing with Reynolds by the side of the street, and turning swiftly around he faced the Golden Crest, and lifting his dirty bleeding right hand, he shook his ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... has awaited the word from your lips which will make him in rank what he is in sentiment and in courage. Consider, in short, your people who love you and who yet are famished, who have no other wish than to bless you, and who, nevertheless—no, I am wrong, your subjects, madame, will never curse you; say one word to them and all will be ended—peace succeed war, joy ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the story which you will hear about Taggart when you have the patience," she continued. "But your father repented; he saw the injustice he had done you and wanted to repair it. He was certain, though, that this curse of temper was deep-seated in you and he wanted to drive it out. He felt that when you finally came home you would need reforming, and he did not want you to profit by his money until you forgave him. He had strange notions regarding your reformation; he declared he would not take your word for it, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him, thinking it ill befitted a soldier of fortune, as I intended to be, to be coddled by a valet, and I had not missed him much, for Yorke had been always ready to lend a helping hand when I needed it. Now I was of a mind to curse the vanity that had led me to fit myself out with doeskins that were of so snug a cut they needed much tugging to get into them, and with endless lacings with which my awkward fingers, clumsier than ever from the icy water and the trembling the fever ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... lines, an explanation, a regret, a reiteration of the first; the third, without preliminary crescendo, breaking out into passionate adjuration in vivid metaphor, a poignant appeal which is at once a blessing and a curse. In the closing line is a satisfying return to the first phase,—and the thing is done. One is so often reminded of the poverty of men's invention, their best being so incomplete, their greatest so trivial, that one welcomes what—this Sapper officer surmised—may become a new and ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... of this crooked stream, but find its residents too civilized to be very picturesque. We are interested in learning what the Canadian Government does for their welfare, and wish a similar policy could be instituted in the States. Here, as with us, liquor is their curse. The once famous chief of the Micmacs lives at Bear River, and is addicted to the bottle. One day a young girl, who was a summer guest at this place, sat down on an overturned canoe which this chief (now known as James Meuse) had just completed; ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... so intoxicated but the name of Philibert roused his anger. He set his cup down with a bang upon the table. "I will not taste a drop more till he is gone," said he; "curse Galissoniere's crooked neck—could he not have selected a more welcome messenger to send to Beaumanoir? But I have got his name in my list of debtors, and he shall pay up one day for his ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... will of a majority of her people? This, of course, was only preliminary to the larger question: Shall the National Government, under lead of the Slave Oligarchy, be given power to spread over new territory, at will, the blight and curse of human bondage? Upon this foremost question of the day, Senator Broderick stood side by side with Stephen A. Douglas in opposition to the Buchanan Administration, and its mad attempt to force slavery upon the people of the New West. The attitude of California politicians ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... prodigiously. What strikes you when you come to an Oraon village is the number of small dirty children playing everywhere, while you can scarcely meet a woman that does not carry a baby on her back. The women seem, to a great extent, to have been exempted from the curse of our first mother: 'Thou shalt bring forth, etc.' They seem to give birth to their children with the greatest ease. There is no period of uncleanness, and the very day after giving birth to a child, you will see the mother with her baby tied up in a cloth on her back and a pitcher on ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... "They curse me, they invoke all kinds of evil on my head!" thought he, in the midst of his tears. "But, if they could read my heart, they would know that I love New England well. Heaven bless her, and bring her again under the rule of our gracious king! A blessing, too, ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... complaining how she had thrown herself away upon such a hard-hearted monster, and had refused so many fine young carls, all to wed Satan himself at least. She could not make out why God had sent such a curse upon her. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... away in my heart so deep That, howso tired I've been, I've kept Eyes waking when near me another slept, Lest I might mutter it in my sleep? And now at the last to blab it clear! How the women will shrink from my pictures! And worse Will the men do—spit on my name, and curse; But then up in heaven ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... a curse, brought Hosea back to his home all wrought up. Never had he spoken so harshly. Never had he felt so deeply ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... accursed tax!" Here, such a tempest of applause broke out that he was unable to proceed. "Yes, I say it again," he went on, when they would let him speak; "the instant repeal! When that's been done, this curse taken off us, then it'll be time enough to parlez-vous about the colour of the flag we mean to have, and about going shares in the Government. But let me make one thing clear to you. We're neither traitors to the Crown, nor common rebels. We're true-blue ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... gude ane noo?" quo' Tammie, laughing. '"Od Jamie Bowie was a real ane. He wadna let them light a candle by his bedside to let him see to dee; he gied them a curse, and said that was ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... result or the cause of wicked living. Even the official mouthpieces of established beliefs now usually represent a bad heart as only one among other possible causes of unbelief. It divides the curse with ignorance, intellectual shallowness, the unfortunate influence of plausible heresiarchs, and other alternative roots of evil. They thus leave a way of escape, by which the person who does not share their own ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... you will curse the day when you took up the "general agency" line; but really after this I will not give ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... fellow's struggles deftly made him fast. When he had finished—and it was no easy job—Jose lay "spread-eagled" upon his back, his wrists and ankles firmly bound to the head and foot posts, his body secured by a tight loop over his waist. The rope cut painfully and brought a curse from the prisoner when he strained at it. Law surveyed him with a ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... the lost remembrance. My misfortune—I ought to call it the punishment for my sins, is recalled to me now. The worst curse that can fall on a father is the curse that has come to me. I have a wicked daughter. My own child, sir! my ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... less successful? Those who have been most directly concerned in the government of Ireland, whether English or Irish, even while alive to the perils of any other principle, habitually talk of centralization as the curse of the system. Here, again, why should we expect success in the future from a principle that has so ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... evil is to be made perpetual. If the guaranties of the Constitution can be broken provisionally to serve a temporary purpose, and in a part only of the country, we can destroy them everywhere and for all time. Arbitrary measures often change, but they generally change for the worse. It is the curse of despotism that it has no halting place. The intermitted exercise of its power brings no sense of security to its subjects, for they can never know what more they will be called to endure when its red right hand is armed to plague ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... my husband, yet you are my father; and I hold back a widow's tears, lest they bring God's curse on you. Since we have met on this battlefield after years of separation, let me bow to your feet and take my ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... below A dusty and flickering light from one feeble candle And prone figures sleeping uneasily, Murmuring, And men who cannot sleep, With faces impassive as masks, Bright, feverish eyes, and drawn lips, Sad, pitiless, terrible faces, Each an incarnate curse. ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... his gentle voice and strange movements; she made haste to tell him everything that had happened to her. . . . It seemed to her that very likely he scarcely heard and did not understand her, and that if he did know everything he would curse her and kill her, but he listened to her, stroked her face and hair, looked into ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... upon that moonlit grass—thoughts of the past made his whole being tremble. He thought of what his boy had been to him; he thought of what he had been to his boy. He seemed to see his past life acted out before him in a moving picture, and in all he saw himself a curse and not a blessing—time, money, health, peace, character, soul, all squandered. And still the picture moved on, and passed into the future: he saw his utterly desolate home—no boy was there; he saw two empty chairs—his Betty ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... wicked woman blasphemed that holy name because of the failure caused by drought, and threatened, on account of the failure, to enter other fields and with a burning torch to set fire to them all. Then as curse after curse upon other things rang from her lips, she continued beating the air with rolling-pin and pan until it was dangerous to be inside the room. Edwin remained very close to the door, and the girl whom Mr. Fitch had mentioned as being his wife's helper, he saw ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... "Heaven forbid! I'm quite sure Mr. Breakspeare wouldn't take my words in that sense. I am all for zeal and hopefulness. The curse of our age is pessimism, a result and a cause of the materialistic spirit. Science, which really involves an infinite hope, has been misinterpreted by Socialists in the most foolish way, until we get a miserable languid ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... into action. Plans for a better kind of tenement were called for, and a premium was put on every ray of light and breath of air that could be let into it. It was not much, for the plans clung to the twenty-five-foot lot which was the primal curse, and the type of tenement evolved, the double-decker of the "dumb-bell" shape, while it seemed at the time a great advance upon the black, old packing-box kind, came with the great growth of our city to be a worse peril than what had gone before. But what we got was according to our ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... upon the same strand of condemnation and doom with Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Capernaum and Chorazin, I may have known then. I have no idea now why this was done, or the derivation of the inclusive curse. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... sadly ended Hanging on the loathsome gallows. Here is revel mirth and gladness, And gay scenes, where flock the simple. They are simple who, allured, Follow Pleasure's fleeting phantom. They are led deluded onward, Till it is a curse unto them, And they have not power to leave it. They are led to low desires, Craving unto lust and evil; As the drunkard and profaner, As the vile and the licentious Glory in plebian language, With their sharp tongues dipt in slander, And their words in curses flowing, Think ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... all sides show the desire for peace and the end of the war; for war brings in its train forced labour, the requisition of food, and the curse of German Askaris wandering about among the native villages, satisfying their every want, often at the point of the bayonet. Preferable even to this are the piping times of peace, when the German administrator, ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... door. It was locked: but immediately near the pavement was a window, the lower sash up, into which, with little trouble, I lifted myself and passed. My foot, as I lowered it, stood on a body: and this made me angry and restless. I hissed a curse, and passed on, scraping the carpet with my soles, that I might hurt no one: for I did not wish to hurt any one. Even in the almost darkness of the room I recognised Peters' furniture, as I expected: for the ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... will not suffer me for very shame to declare such vile reports as I have heard them speak against the queen, and yet her Grace taketh them for her faithful friends. The Spaniards say, that if they obtain not the crown, they may curse the time that ever the king was married to a wife so unmeet for him by natural course of years; but and if that may be brought to pass that was meant in marriage-making, they shall keep old rich robes ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... her, Walton, and I am as glad of it as I could be of anything I can think of. She is well worth all you must have suffered. This will at length remove the curse from that wretched family. You have saved her from perhaps even a ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... astonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless about your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would curse rather than sing." ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the world where a curse seems to brood in the atmosphere. Msala was one of these. Perhaps these places are accursed by the deeds that have been done there. Who ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... a reason for that. You have driven away the Black Plague! Every year at the second attack there she was holding her feet between her hands. By night she lighted a fire; she warmed herself and boiled roots. She bore a curse with her. This morning the very first thing which I did was to get up here. I climbed up the beacon tower; I looked well all round; the old hag was nowhere to be seen. I shaded my eyes with my hand. I looked up and down, right and left, and everywhere; not a sign of the creature anywhere. ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... nothing to the next proof of his strength and manhood," went on the proud wife. "He destroyed a monster more frightful than any lion or tropical snake—he overcame the curse of drink that had come down to him from—one of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... raskils, it's like runnin' away we are, but we ain't. It's but lavin' to th' hangman what I'd do meself, curse ye." ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... curse the drizzling day, Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey The self-same ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... grain, Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail — In hope or fear alike for ever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and fear, With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... republic, the number of slaves was comparatively small; when, all over the country, the veterans of the Revolution existed to testify to the hardships they endured for national independence, and eulogize even the help of the negro in securing it, then slavery was regarded a curse, an evil to be curtailed and in time obliterated; then the local character of slavery, as the creature of municipal law, not to be recognized where such law does not exist, was the opinion universally of the people. But now, with the growing profits of slavery, with the increase ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... ill," he answered, turning his head aside, and added with sudden petulance, "God's curse upon Pasquale Paoli, and all ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... southwestern Wyoming and northern Utah. I first went through this country in 1877. It was then a wild natural region; even a comparatively few years ago it was bright with game, and a perfect flower garden. It has felt the full force of the sheep curse. I think any one of you who may visit this country now will agree that this is not too strong a term, and I want to speak of the sheep question from three standpoints: First, as of a great and legitimate industry in itself; second, from the economic standpoint; ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... silence in the room, and the air seemed stifling. The click of the billiard balls came distinctly through the partition from the other room. Then there was another click, a stamp on the floor, and a voice crying coarsely: "Curse it all—missed again!" ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... like a stone, without feeling or consciousness; and I come to feel the truth of it when they tell me and show me proofs of the things I have done when the terrible fit overmasters me; and all I can do is bewail my lot in vain, and idly curse my destiny, and plead for my madness by telling how it was caused, to any that care to hear it; for no reasonable beings on learning the cause will wonder at the effects; and if they cannot help me at least they will not blame me, and the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... tell me that! You are certain to make a dreadful mistake if you listen to any one but Schwartzmuller. He is the last word in restorations. He is the best bet, as you would say in New York. Any one else will make a botch of the work. You will curse the day you—" ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... immovable as the marble walls around him, stood the Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming cohorts of Rome. The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear in that vast assembly, as he thus ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... triumph was, or could have been, contemplated by Lord Ellenborough. On this point we need no other evidence than that of Joseph Hume, who, combining the properties of Balaam and his ass, often brays out a blessing when he intends a curse. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... pray for you this night!" Muhammad Anim snarled. "What a curse I shall beg for you! Oh, what a burning of the bowels ye shall have! What a sickness! What running of the eyes! What sores! What boils! What sleepless nights and faithless women shall be yours! What a prayer I will ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... may I not to this one purpose wish that if the serpent, before the temptation of Eve, did go upright and speak,[135] that he did so still, because I should the sooner hear him if he spoke, the sooner see him if he went upright? In his curse I am cursed too; his creeping undoes me; for howsoever he begin at the heel, and do but bruise that, yet he, and death in him, is come into our windows;[136] into our eyes and ears, the entrances and inlets of our soul. He works upon us in secret and we do not discern him; ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... hope his life will not be forgotten, for it is sublime in its simplicity, its energy, its honour, its affection. In the combat between Time and Thalaba, I suspect the former destroyer has conquered. Kehama's curse frightens very few readers now; but Southey's private letters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as long as kind hearts like to sympathize with goodness and purity, and love and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... citizen, or that his children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly we should take the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization, the naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to our Government; and it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever born, to see that no fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in connection ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... heart was filled with an intense hatred of the very name of royalty. Kings and princes could be good men personally, but as he saw its work upon the huge battle fields of Europe he felt that the institution itself was the curse of the earth. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... yet even they might do had they perseverance and self-denial. The Scotch and the North of Ireland people, accustomed to hard work and spare living, seldom fail.' They were riding past much land in bush, generally without a strip of clearing. Jabez remarked the curse of Canada was giving land to people who would not go to live upon it, who had no intention of clearing it, but held it to sell. A deal of that land you see was given as grants to old soldiers. A colonel could claim 1200 acres, a major 800, a captain 600 acres, and a private ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... Hepzibah!—it is too late," said Clifford with deep sadness. "We are ghosts! We have no right among human beings,—no right anywhere but in this old house, which has a curse on it, and which, therefore, we are doomed to haunt! And, besides," he continued, with a fastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man, "it would not be fit nor beautiful to go! It is an ugly thought that I should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Doorm had eaten all he would, He rolled his eyes about the hall, and found A damsel drooping in a corner of it. Then he remembered her, and how she wept; And out of her there came a power upon him; And rising on the sudden he said, 'Eat! I never yet beheld a thing so pale. God's curse, it makes me mad to see you weep. Eat! Look yourself. Good luck had your good man, For were I dead who is it would weep for me? Sweet lady, never since I first drew breath Have I beheld a lily like yourself. And so there lived some colour ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Henrietta, rely on me. I have as much reason to curse Sarah Brandon as you have, and perhaps I hate her more. Rely on me; for my hatred has now been watching and waiting for years, ever anxious to reach her, and to avenge my sufferings. Yes, for long years I have been lying in wait, thirsting for vengeance, lost in darkness, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... a curse her antagonist sprang at her, and in a moment they were striking and tearing at each other like a couple of enraged wild animals. With a burst of cheering the people pressed closer round, but after a few moments ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... of the infantry looked very far from cheerful, and darted glances full of suppressed hatred at the yellow-faced major. And when, dead-tired, they had finished the drill, and were putting away their guns in the corner, they would curse the very uniform they wore as if it had been ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Prince of Peace maintain the lawfulness of defensive war, and the right of the oppressed to fight and kill for liberty; but they hold this sentiment in direct opposition to the precepts of their Leader—'I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.' Surely 'the time is come that judgment must begin at ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... filios,—excommunicatos, anathemizatos, maledictos, aeterni supplicii reos," etc., etc. "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,—but nothing to this. For my own part I could not have a heart to curse ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... hardships, and dangers of it he as little regarded as the intrepid and indefatigable prince he served; but now arrived the time which was to inflict on him the worst miseries of it, and make him almost curse a vocation he had been in his soul so ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... woman a partisan, a political hack, to lead her among the rabble that surround and control by blackguardism and brute force so many of the hustings of the United States. Mr. President, if one greater evil or curse could befall the American people than any other, in my judgment it would be to confer upon the women of America the right of suffrage. It would be a great step in the line of mischief and evil, and it would lead to other and equally fatal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... beside some thousands of unskilled labourers occupied in the handling of the fish. All these men are now without a day's work, or any means of obtaining it. The isolation of the colony, away out in the Atlantic with no neighbour, is its greatest curse. People unemployed cannot emigrate, but must swell an army of industrials depending on the Government for relief. The city is a veritable aggregation of unemployed; it is a city to let. Every business, factory, wharf, store, or shop employing ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... moment, after he had reached it, he stopped to listen, for from the lower hallway came the sounds of altercation. He waited till a curse or two had died away, until the thudding of a heavy body on the boards was heard. It merely meant a fight, and fights were not uncommon in the tenement. He stepped out into the hall. "Come, sir," ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The diamonds are of the finest, Antoine, and will sell for much. The blessing of a dying priest upon you if you do kindly, and his curse if you do ill to this poor child, whose home was my home in better days. And for the locket—it is but a remembrance, and to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the curse of hatred and selfishness, of destruction and war. It has had enough of the wrongful use of material power. For the healing of the nations there must be good will and charity, confidence and peace. The time has come for a more practical use of moral power, and more reliance ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... am. Why, Doctor, you don't know how fat I am. I am a sight to behold. And now I have come to see if any thing can be done. I know you have studied up all sorts of curious subjects, and I thought you might be able to tell me how to get rid of this dreadful curse." ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Father, one with him, his eye and his heart towards the lost—is come into this world, although invisible and unnamed in the parable, to reveal the Father where he had been ever invisible, and where no man knew him: and he is to the children of the law and the curse, not only a living herald of the propitiable—we shall rather say of the already propitiated—Father, but the (that is our) propitiation itself, and the way whereby every one of us may come back to God.' The mediation of Christ is no more denied by ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... and looked at him with a dark smile. "The curse may fall," he said, "but I fancy it will not be in consequence of your petitions, Monsieur. And now, were it not better you ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Zeus. A curse on all those philosophers who will have it that none but the Gods are happy! If they could but know what we have to put up with on men's account, they would not envy us our nectar and our ambrosia. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... arbitrarily inserted in place of consequence. Its power is in giving pain. Its appeal is to terror. We, immovable and besotted in our ancient sanctuaries, deliberately give pain to little children, deliberately arouse in them that curse of old savagery, blind fear. To compel behavior which we cannot explain even to ourselves, to force the new wine of their young lives into the old bottles of our traditional habits, we keep alive in the little child an attitude of mind ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... overcrowded country. As you know, certain property will revert to me eventually, but, remembering what is in our blood, I dare not trust myself to drag out a life of idleness or monotonous drudgery, waiting for the future here. The curse is a very real thing—and it would not be fair to you. Now I can save enough from the wreck to start us without positive hardship over seas, and George has written offering me a small share in his Australian cattle-run. You shall want for nothing, Millicent, that ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Captain James Stuart (meaning the late earl of Arran) and his wife, Jezebel, had been deemed the chief persecutors of the church; but it was now seen that the king himself was the great offender; and for this crime the preacher denounced against him the curse which fell on Jeroboam, that he should die childless, and be the last of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... them as he had done for twenty years with his dirty bayou boat. He'd fight and curse and struggle through the les flotantes, and denounce the Federal Government, because it did not destroy the lilies in the obscure bayous where he traded, as it did on Bayou Teche and Terrebonne, with its pump-boats which sprayed the hyacinths with a mixture ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... wonder if the waving palms, when desert winds do blow, In their dry rustling seem to sing a song he used to know; Or does he only curse the heat and wish that he were laid Beneath the spread of RUFUS' oaks or Harewood's ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... gentleman who denounced property, and was all for taxing land and landlords into the Bankruptcy Court, resent so bitterly his temporary exclusion from the family estates? Marcia could not see that there was any logical answer. If landlordism was the curse of England, why be angry that you were not asked ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... makes respect of self, happiness in marriage, faith in human nature forever impossible. The deliberate formation of a loveless marriage is a blasphemy against God, a crime against society, a wrong to a fellow being, and a bitter and lasting curse to one's ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... Seigneur de Sainte Marie, was a hard and self-contained man, but a groan and a bitter curse burst from him when he saw his Indian wife in the hands of her kinsmen, from whom she could hope for little mercy. Yet even now his old-fashioned courtesy to his guest had made him turn to De Catinat with some words of sympathy, when there was ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nor the slightest premonition of danger, the greatest curse which can befall a man came upon my friend Eric Hamilton. However fond a husband may be, there are things worse for his wife than death which he may well dread, and it was one of these tragedies which almost drove ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... mincing ways and his grand clothes. I declare when Captain Hawkins came home, just four years ago last Michaelmas, and came up to London with his men, all laughing and rolling along with the people cheering them, I could have kissed the man—to think how he had made the brown men dance and curse and show their white teeth! and to think that the Don had to ask him to dinner, and grin and chatter as if nought ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... great truth he brought a new standard by virtue of the logic of his revelation. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." Struggling for recognition all through the Old Testament scriptures, and breaking ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... think I have so acted; but I am sure that I have so meant to act. If any contrary impression produces in your mind any feelings different from those which have made so great a part of my happiness throughout life, I shall deeply regret what seems to be annexed as a curse inseparable from the pursuit of a public life; but I will once more beg you to be assured that neither those feelings on your part, nor anything which they can produce, will vary my sincere and heartfelt affection towards you, and that whether my judgment has been right, as ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... the devil of a disturbance in Munich; and the King's mistress, Lola Montez, has been forced to fly for her life. She has been the curse of Bavaria, yet the King is still infatuated ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham |
